The first Tony Grove reports in Logan Canyon

                                        Tony Grove, Utah.                        Photo by Roger Arave

"Camp at Tony Grove" was an Aug. 15, 1897 report in the Logan Journal newspaper. This may be the first recorded account of camping in the area, just north of Logan Canyon, Utah.
"There is a merry crowd of campers at Tony Grove in Logan Canyon ..." the report stated.
At least 125 people were camped there then, "enjoying the exquisite scenery, the fresh bracing air, the cool days and nights, refreshing sleep, fishing and all the pleasures of an unceremonius canyon existence."
At evening, the crowd gathered for a large bonfire party, with music, singing and games by moonlight. Many of the campers planned to spend another week or two at the resort.

                                                                    Photo by Roger Arave

Indeed, according to the book, "Utah Place Names," by John W. Van Cott, the Tony Grove name originated from the loggers and cattlemen of the 1880s who would observe all the well-to-do "Tony" people who could afford to camp and stay in the area for long stretches in the summer. The name eventually transitioned from the people to the place.
The Ogden Standard-Examiner on June 29, 1924 reported the largest excursion ever to visit Logan Canyon, with up to 600 students and faculty of the Utah Agricultural College converging at Tony Grove.
The group spent the day hiking and playing games. They even explored a remote cave on the mountainside, being descended by rope's to its opening. It was said to be located above Logan Cave. They hiked to area landmarks, like White Pine Lake, Gog and Magog and Mount Naomi (highest point in Cache County).
The college had sponsored such a day to Tony Grove since at least 1920.
-Access to Tony Grove is 19.2 miles up Logan Canyon,  east of Logan, Utah, at an elevation of 8,100 feet above seal level. A paved, 7-mile side road winds up the mountainside, passing several cattle grazing areas, to a U.S. Forest Service Campground and the lake. Today, besides camping and fishing, fields of wildflowers and well-maintained hiking trails grace the area.

First Exploration of Logan Cave: 1892?

                    Logan Cave entrance, before it was gated shut, circa 1988, with Scott Thompson.


By Lynn Arave

LOGAN Cave was a tourist attraction in Logan Canyon, Utah, along Highway 89, for almost a century. The Cave was gated shut in the late 20th Century, to protect its native inhabitants, bats.
(Today, mention "Cave" and Logan Canyon and it is the Wind Caves that are more well-known and visited.)
Although Logan Cave can be spotted easily --  if you know where to look -- along today's paved Highway 89, it apparently wasn't always so.
The Brigham City Bugler newspaper of July 23, 1892, records what may be the first-ever public references to Logan Cave.
The article reports that attorney B.H. Jones had a "delightful trip through the large cave" in the summer of 1892.
"It contains a large stream of water and a lake," The Bugler article stated. "The walls of the cave are said to be so high that a man can walk upright a whole mile and not reach the end. Lanterns are used in reaching the depths of that dark cavern, as no crevices are found in the massive walls to admit light. The air is cool and refreshing at midday, when all is hot and sultry without," the 1892 article concluded.
-Today, Logan Cave is believed to be 4,290-feet long. Public access seems to be rarely permitted.
Logan Cave is located 11.9 miles up Logan Canyon on the north side of the highway, about 50 feet above the paved highway.
The cave itself varies from 5-10 feet wide with a ceiling height between 30 and 100 feet. It has three levels and in normal water years has a stream flowing out of it that can be knee-deep in spots. The cave is dry during some summers.

The cave was formed by the seepage of water through limestone and has a year-round temperature of about 50 degrees.

Most geological features in the cave have been destroyed by vandals, and litter and graffiti were cave problems over the years too.

Logan Canyon tree outdates civilization

By Lynn Arave

"UTAH tree 3000 years old. Logan Canyon tree outdates civilization" was a July 24, 1924 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram Newspaper.
The newspaper account stated: "A gnarled old tree, seen doubtless hundreds of times by cattle and sheepherders, but given no particular attention, as it was not on a direct trail nor within sight of the main road, has sprung into fame of late and is hailed as a great discovery."
The story reported that a botanist, Maurice Linford, then a student at Utah Agricultural College (today's Utah State University), discovered it in about 1923 and recognized it as being around 3,000 years old.

"Queen Juniper" was what many called the old tree initially, though over the decades "Jardine Juniper" is the name that took hold.
In the first couple of years after its discovery, Boy Scout Troops and nature students -- hundreds in total number -- visited the remarkable tree in the summer months.
The tree sits as an old queen overlooking Logan Canyon, some 1,700 feet up, like some ancient sentinel that dates back to perhaps 2200 BC., the "Bronze Are."

-Today, a 5.2 miles, one-way trail, leads to the Jardine Juniper. Just park at the end of a road on the Wood Camp Campground turnoff in Logan Canyon , about 10 miles up the canyon.

                        Early portion of the trail to the Jardine Juniper.

Old Ephraim: Utah’s most legendary bear

                 The stone monument to Old Ephraim, erected in 1966 by Boy Scouts.

By Lynn Arave

“OLD Ephraim” was a legendary, giant, marauding grizzly bear who roamed the Wasatch Mountains in the early 20^th Century. Almost 92 years after his death, the bruin still lives on, in campfire tales and various tributes.

For example, in Bear Lake Valley, there’s the Old Ephraim Pizza, 32 inches in diameter; in a remote side canyon of Logan Canyon, there’s a large stone monument where he was killed; and “Walking Thunder” (1997) was not only one of actor/singer John Denver’s last two movies, but was inspired by the tale of Utah’s Old Eph himself.

“Grizzly bear killed near Logan” was an Aug. 22, 1923 headline in the Standard-Examiner, reporting on the bear’s demise.

                           One of the inscriptions on the monument.

“The largest grizzly bear that was ever known to inhabit the Wasatch Range is reported to have been killed in the Right Hand Fork of Logan Canyon by William (Frank) Clark, a sheepherder,” the story stated.

The bear was believed to have killed as many as 15 sheep in one night and Old Eph was indeed possibly the largest and most elusive bear ever in the Beehive State.

               The Right Hand Fork is still a somewhat pristine area off Logan Canyon.

Clark set many traps for the bear over the years, but the animal evaded them. He was finally caught in a trap in the earliest of hours that fateful August morning. However, the bear, reputed to stand 9-feet-11 inches tall and weigh some 1,100 pounds, clawed down the 8-inch diameter tree the trap was tied to and ran up a hill with the trap still on his foot. Clark fired all his bullets into the bear before it dropped.

Years later, Clark reflected on Old Eph’s demise to a Deseret News reporter and stated:

"I sat down and watched his spirit depart from that great body and it seemed to take a long time, but at last, he raised his head a mite, gasped, and was still.

"Was I happy? No, and if I had to do it over I wouldn't kill him. . . . I could see the suffering in his eyes as he tried to climb that bank."

                     Even today Old Eph's turf is a rugged place.

Clark claimed to have killed 43 bears in his 34 years of sheepherding, but Old Ephraim was his last by choice.

Various historical accounts of Old Ephraim credit his range as from Weber County to Soda Spring, Id. However, make that from Morgan County to Idaho as a Nov. 9, 1911 story in the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper reported that a bear hunting party was looking for Old Eph in Morgan County too. Led by former Utah Governor John C. Cutler, this group spent several days in the wild and only found the bear’s huge tracks.

Eventually the bear was believed to have settled exclusively in Logan Canyon. Originally known as “Old Three Toes,” because of a deformity in one foot, it was a tale by P.T. Barnum that affixed the more fanciful name of Old Ephraim to the animal.

                 Part of the rough backcountry road leading to Old Eph's grave.

-Old Ephraim's legend is summarized concisely by Nephi J. Bott's poem, inscribed in a plaque at the bottom of the stone monument, erected in 1966 by Logan Boy Scouts, where the bear was buried:

"Old Ephraim, Old Ephraim, your deeds were so wrong yet we build you this marker and sing you this song. To the king of the forest so mighty and tall, we salute you, Old Ephraim the king of them all."
-Note that the bear's remains were later dug up and the skull and various bones were taken away. The huge skull ended up at the Smithsonian and was later put on exhibit at Utah State University as proof that this grizzly was indeed one of the largest of its kind. 

(-Originally published on-line and in print on July 16-16 by Lynn Arave in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net

The Oldest Living Thing in Utah: Jardine Juniper

By Lynn Arave

It was the Bronze Age. Humans had learned to weave wool into garments . . . an erupting volcano had destroyed the island Thera in the Mediterranean . . . China was in the midst of the Shang Dynasty, but the Great Wall of China would not be started for more than 1,000 years. . . .

The Prophet Moses led the children of Israel . . . the Olmec people had just settled down in rain forests near Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico . . . old Lake Bonneville was well on its way to shrinking into today's Great Salt Lake.

The time was about 1500 B.C., and somehow a little juniper seed started growing in a niche in a limestone rock on a steep slope in a canyon to be known 3,100 years later by the name of Logan.

It may have taken 300 years just for the seed to become a 1-inch sapling because of a scarce water supply.

By the time of Elijah and Jezebel, this juniper tree was about a foot in diameter . . . about the time of Greece's Pericles, it was 2 feet thick . . . during the days of Julius Caesar, the tree was 3 feet across . . . by the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, it was about 4 feet thick . . . and finally, in about 1860, the tree reached maturity at 8 feet across.

This is Utah's oldest known tree - the Jardine Juniper in Cache County, estimated to be between 3,200 and 3,500 years old.

The world's oldest living thing is believed to be King Clone, a California creosote plant estimated to be 11,700 years old. The world's oldest living tree is a 4,600-year-old bristlecone pine, named Methuselah, located on Wheeler Ridge in California's Sierras.
 

 A 4,900-year-old pine was accidentally cut down in 1964 in that same area. By contrast, the world's largest living thing, General Sherman, a tree in California's Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, is between 2,200 and 2,600 years old.

Like these other ancients, Utah's Jardine Juniper has been through a lot. The Jardine has survived droughts, heat waves, high winds, countless winters and probably even a lightning strike in the 1870s that may have burned out part of the tree's core. The lightning, or something else, also made a large crack that runs into the hollow of the tree.

Located on a northern slope in Logan Canyon, the 44.5-foot-high tree overlooks U.S. 89 from 1,700 feet up. It is situated almost exactly above Logan Cave. Travelers through Logan Canyon can see the sign marking the best of the two trails to Jardine Juniper.
 

This great tree, with a circumference of 26 feet 8 inches, was discovered on July 23, 1923, by Maurice Linford, a young botany student, during a hike with his brothers. They took a picture of the tree and exhibited it at the botany department of Utah State Agricultural College (later to become Utah State University). It was soon realized that this was no ordinary tree.

The next spring, USAG botany students hiked to the tree for further study. Karl Arendtsen, L.F. Nufer and George R. Hill made one of the early visits to the tree and were able to measure its size.

The Jardine's age was gauged by a core of wood and small shavings examined under a microscope. In fact, researchers even discovered some evidence that it may have started out as two different trees.
 

The tree is named for William J. Jardine, a former USAC student who served as secretary of Agriculture in U.S. President Herbert Hoover's cabinet.

This variety of tree is properly called Juniperus scopules, but is popularly known as the Rocky Mountain juniper or the red cedar.

How long the tree will live on, no one knows. It is slowly dying, and the only real sign of life in it now are a few leaves at the top of the Jardine. Photographs from decades ago show more leaf growth then than lately.

Unless you can be airlifted up there, the only ways to visit the Jardine Juniper are on foot or horse. The area is closed to motorized vehicles.

The most-used trailhead starts about 10.3 miles up Logan Canyon from the Lady Bird rest stop.

Take the Wood Camp turnoff on the north side of the road and stay on the left fork that indicates a dead end 100 yards away. (The other part of the road travels into the Wood Camp campground.)
 

The short dirt road is of the washboard type, but it's only 300 feet long and leads to the trailhead. There's plenty of parking here and also a bench and an unloading ramp for horses, but no rest rooms. There's also no drinking water along the route.

Starting elevation is 5,332 feet above sea level. The trail is approximately 5 miles long and provides no indication of the trail length until 1 mile out, when a sign states 4 miles to Jardine Juniper. Total elevation climb during the hike is about 1,700 feet. Strong hikers can plan 1 1/2 to 2 hours to reach the tree. Others should plan on 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

The trail heads up Wood Camp Hollow for the first mile, during which it's a very wide trail, though rocky. A newly made wooden bridge crosses a small stream about 100 yards up the trail. After 1 mile, the trail veers right up a side canyon, but becomes less rocky and very smooth.

The climb is extremely gradual and there are few switchbacks, since the trail follows much of the terrain (although this stretched-out climb also stretches out the miles you have to walk.)

The trail crosses over one rocky stream that's dry in the summer, but provides plenty of shade until mid-morning. Fall colors in September will make this an especially scenic hike.

The trail winds through groves of aspens and even meadows. It has considerable shade.

A half-mile from Jardine Juniper, the trail splits and offers a choice of two routes - A "scenic" route to the tree or a "shady route." The two routes circle in opposite directions around a 7,427-foot unnamed peak that overlooks the tree. The shady route, which follows the east side of the ridge, is about 500 yards shorter than the other and truly does offer more shade.

Nearing the famed tree, the trail becomes very sandy and descends about 200 feet. There is an observation platform next to the tree and several benches and signs.

The Jardine is not a pretty tree, but then it has existed longer than the combined life spans of 50 modern men. Some visitors will probably wonder: If they had been the first to see it, would they have realized its significance? No, most probably wouldn't have. They would have just hiked past this rather drab, knotty old tree.

From the tree, three portions of the Logan Canyon highway can be seen. Thus, with patience and strong binoculars or a telescope, the ancient juniper could actually be seen from portions of the Logan Canyon road!
              

A shorter, much steeper trail to the Jardine Juniper starts about two miles up the canyon from Wood Camp. This trailhead is near Logan Cave and the Cottonwood Picnic Area. This route may be only several miles long, but it climbs 1,700 feet, is a lot more rugged, less maintained and offers little shade.
Realize too that ticks can be a hazard on the trails in this area in the mid- to late summer season.

Note: Logan Canyon has one other extremely old tree--dubbed the Old Limber Pine, a 200-year-old pine that can be reached by a short loop trail by the same name located just east of the Bear Lake Summit sign. There's also a 200-year-old Spruce tree west of Bloomington, Idaho, in the Bear Lake Valley.

-Adapted from the Deseret News article by Lynn Arave, published Sept, 7, 1989.

Photos by Lynn Arave.

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

Utah's Most Legendary Animal: Old Eph

   The monument, near Old Eph's final stand, complete with a plaque.

By Lynn Arave

Features and landmarks in mountainous northern Utah weren't graced with the sobriquet "Bear" (Bear Lake, Bear River, Bear Spring, Bear Hollow, Bear Canyon, etc.) simply because the carnivore's name sounded impressive. This used to be prime bear country. In fact, some sheepherders in the 1920s called the Cache National Forest area the "worst-infested bear range in Utah."

Most were black bears, but one, a huge grizzly named Old Ephraim, was one of the biggest the world has ever known, and he used to claim a relatively unpopulated area in Cache County as his home.
Although there are probably at best only a handful of black bears left in the Cache National Forest today (and no known grizzlies), the most impressive example of the area's past can be remembered during a visit to a secluded granite monument that marks the general location where this gigantic Utah legend was killed on Aug. 22, 1923.

The approximate gravesite is 100 feet from a rugged dirt road, about eight miles between Logan Canyon and Blacksmith Fork Canyon in the Steel Hollow area of Right Hand Fork.
 Featuring two plaques, a monument to the bear was placed there on Aug. 22, 1966, by Cache County Boy Scouts with the help of monument builder Nephi J. Bott and Old Ephraim writer/storyteller Newell J. Crookston. Discounting the base, the stone monument stands 9 feet 11 inches and weighs 1,100 pounds - equaling Old Ephraim's estimated height on hind legs and his weight.

The world's largest wild bear ever is believed to have been a Kodiak brown killed in Alaska in 1894. He weighed in at 1,656 pounds and was 9 feet long. So, since grizzlies average 800 pounds and about 8 feet long, Ephraim was an especially gigantic example of his species.

Actually, it is a miracle in itself that the monument remembering Ephraim ever got to where it is today. The truck that hauled it up the rugged road to its resting place got two flat tires; the hoisting chain later broke and  injured one person. Some said this could have been the work of Ephraim's ghost. . . .

Before the monument, today circled by a tidy log fence, was placed there, only a rustic sign and a pile of rocks marked the bear's final resting place.

Frank Clark, a Malad, Idaho, sheepherder, killed Old Ephraim  in defense of the many sheep the bear had killed in a decade.

As the legend of Utah's late gigantic grizzly spread, the Smithsonian offered a $25 reward for the bear's skull as proof that it was indeed a grizzly. Local Cache County Boy Scouts of Troop 5, led by their scoutmaster, Dr.George R. Hill, took up the challenge.

They obtained a map from Clark and were able to find the gravesite, dug through what was described as "a stinking mess," found the huge skull and sent it to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., for verification. The Smithsonian confirmed the size of the huge grizzly. The Scout troop earned the $25, and some Scouts even kept other bones as souvenirs, but none of their whereabouts are known today.

About 54 years later, in 1976, Utah Scouts visiting the Smithsonian were unable to find Ephraim's skull on display. It was later found locked away in a basement storage, and it took the political clout of Sen. Orrin Hatch to convince the Smithsonian to loan the famed skull to Utah State University on a renewing year-to-year basis.

The skull is now on display in the special collections archives on the main floor of USU's Merrill Library (although a plaque on the monument still says it's in Washington). 
However, the skull is far from complete and may lack the grandeur you'd expect from such a large bear, which may explain why there have been few, if any, photos ever published of it.

Finding the bear's grave

Today a visit to Old Ephraim's grave seems to raise more questions than it answers. A look around the quiet terrain full of quaking aspen and pines may make you wonder what it would have been like to have met the grizzly in his home territory.
 Also, since the monument is only near where he was killed, where's the exact spot Old Ephraim died? Finally, why weren't his hide and complete skeleton saved for posterity's sake?

The bear's killing may seem sad to us today, but I would have been as out of place riding through this area on my mountain bicycle in Eph's time as he would have been if he'd have lived today.

                           The bear at Ogden's Prairie Schooner Restaurant.

Times were simply a lot different when Old Ephraim was killed. Hogle Zoo wasn't even around in a limited form back then . . . there was no paved road through Logan Canyon . . . the mountains were still a wilderness where survival of the fittest ruled . . . and the death of Ephraim so saddened Frank Clark himself that he vowed never to kill another bear after that.

Today you rarely see wild bears anywhere. Even in Yellowstone National Park, the bears have retreated or been removed to the wilds. Ephraim was Utah's last known grizzly, and his death perhaps signaled the end of the frontier wilderness in Utah.

Old Ephraim's legend is summarized well by Nephi J. Bott's poem, inscribed at the bottom of the monument:

"Old Ephraim, Old Ephraim, your deeds were so wrong yet we build you this marker and sing you this song. To the king of the forest so mighty and tall, we salute you, Old Ephraim the king of them all."

 HOW TO GET THERE: There are four basic ways to reach Ephraim's grave. Automobiles are not recommended for travel on any of the routes.

1. Temple Fork (Forest Service road No. 007). Perhaps the best route (and the one I took via mountain bicycle) is to go on this dirt road, 15 miles up Logan Canyon. From there, it's 2.5 miles of good gravel to Mudflat. After that, the road gets extremely steep and rugged. Take the first right fork in the road and just follow the signs from there. The road starts at 5,797 feet and climbs to 7,430 before dropping down to Ephraim's grave, 6,800 feet above sea level, in the last 2.5 miles.

2. Right Fork (Forest Service No. 047). This road junction is located just nine miles up Logan Canyon. The first mile is paved to a girls camp and to Lodge Campground. Then the dirt road is rather rugged, and it's a long haul south through Cowley Canyon before you take road No. 147 and head east and intersect road No. 056 coming from Blacksmith Fork Canyon.

3. Blacksmith's Left-Hand Fork. Take the Left-Hand Fork Road (five miles up Blacksmith Fork Canyon). This is a good gravel road for about 12 miles. From there, stay on the much more rugged road No. 055 for about two miles, but the tricky part is to be sure and turn at Dip Hollow onto Road No. 056.

4. Hardware Ranch. The dirt road from Hardware Ranch, No. 054, heads north. It eventually intersects the road from Left-Hand Fork near Dip Hollow. It's about eight miles, one-way from the ranch, to the grave from here.

--An account of Old Eph's final night:

Killing of bear ended decadelong struggle ....

There are several accounts of Frank Clark's decadelong struggle to eliminate the bear that had killed countless of his sheep, but one of the shortest and best was told by Clark to forest ranger Owen Despain in 1959 and was published by reporter Chris Nielsen in the Deseret News:

"The bear called `Ephraim' was not seen until the summer of 1914 when he walked up to my pal, Sam Kemp, who was fully armed but was so taken by this great animal that he let him pass on," Clark said 31 years ago.

"Old Ephraim had a small pool where he would bath about every six days. (He would eat a sheep, perhaps two, first . . . so it came to my mind he could be trapped in that pool. So we started on him, but no success. Year after year, he would gently lift that trap out of that pool without setting it off.

"The spring of 1923 came and the trap was sprung but it did not catch Ephraim. Oh, no! He was suspicious. So he dug another pool and drained the old one into it. What do you think was in his mind?

"When I arrived, I was just a little discouraged, but I put the trap into the new pool, stirred the mud and let it settle good and thick. . . ." (Clark then returned to his camp for the night, about three-quarters of a mile downstream in Logan Canyon's Right Hand Fork.)

"But I was awakened by a strange sound upstream - an awful roar and scream, mingled pain and misery. It would ring around the hills, and between screams it seemed that everything was listening for the next one.

"I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't for some time, and then I thought it might be a horse down. They make an awful noise in their agony. So, I got up, put my shoes on and in my underwear went up the trail a block and stopped to listen. The roar was between me and the camp!

"What should I do? The canyon sides were covered with thick brush and that animal. No matches. I was already shaking with cold. There were only seven cartridges in the 25-35 (the small game rifle of that era) and steel balls. The best thing to do was to keep quiet and listen to that animal for the rest of the night. I had walked within 10 feet of him.

"Daylight at last and plenty mad so I went down. There he was, under some willows in a deep wash. I couldn't see him very good so I got a pole and tried to poke him out. He gave me the slip and went down to camp and got in some short willows. I got sight of a little piece of bear and shot into it.

"And now Ephraim rose all in his greatness, 1,100 pounds, 9-feet 11-inches, with a 14-foot log chain wound around his right forepaw and a 23-pound beartrap held up like a mate taking an oath, his back toward me.

"He turned and walked toward me, and when he was 10 feet away I poked out the gun and fired. He staggered back and came on. Shot again and he staggered back, but never off his hind feet. There was a 3-foot bank between me and him and the trail. Five bullets and he was still on his feet.

"Now something new. He turned half around and started to walk up the creek to where the trail crossed and came walking towards me on his hind legs, chain and trap held high above his head."

Clark broke cover and ran.

"I looked back, here comes Ephraim, and now, for the first time my dog showed up and Eph turned to protect his heels. I turned back and urged the dog on.

"The bear was badly hurt. Every time he breathed, blood squirted from his nostrils. So I got up close and fired my last shot into head or neck and down he went.

"I sat down and watched his spirit depart from that great body and it seemed to take a long time, but at last, he raised his head a mite, gasped, and was still.

"Was I happy? No, and if I had to do it over I wouldn't kill him. . . . I could see the suffering in his eyes as he tried to climb that bank."

Shaken, cold and hungry, Clark went to Sheep Creek to find Joe Brown at a nearby camp. The two men returned and skinned the bear. Since they were unable to move it - the hide alone weighed about 200 pounds - Clark burned the body in a fire that last three days and later returned to bury the skeleton.

Clark claimed to have killed 43 bears in his 34 years of sheepherding, but Ephraim was his last by choice.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This 1990 story inspired the making of John Denver's last movie -- "Walking Thunder."

(Originally by Lynn Arave, in the Deseret News, May 30, 1990.)
Photos by Lynn Arave.

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

The Coldest Spot in Utah --- Peter Sinks

    The author at the trailhead/ATV parking lot to reach Peter Sinks at the top of Logan Canyon.                                                                                  Photo by Scott Steele

The National Weather Service's modern solar powered weather station at the bottom of Peter Sinks, as it appeared in August of 2020.

Peter Sinks, the record-setting coldest spot in Utah, is located southwest of the Bear Lake Summit of Logan Canyon and Highway 89. This is how the Sinks' original weather stations appeared in August of 1990. It wasn't discovered for its cold until about 1982.

By Lynn Arave

HOW cold is 69 degrees below zero?

A remote mountain valley, located about five miles northwest of the Bear Lake Summit, along U.S. 89, is the coldest spot in Utah and one of the most frigid in the lower 48 states.
It dipped to a -69.3 degree reading on Feb. 1, 1985. That's the all-time record for the coldest known temperature in the Beehive State.

(However, some may see that reading as "unofficial," since it was not taken from an official National Weather Service Station ....)

Only Rogers Pass in Montana has likely measured colored in the lower 48 states, with a -69.7 degree reading in the January of 1954. NOTE that many lists of cold places ONLY highlight towns and not isolated places like Peter Sinks -- and other rankings may vary with this, if only official National Weather Service stations are used.

Yet, Dr. Jon Meyers of the Utah State Climatology Department believes that if Peter Sinks had a longer history of weather records, dating back to the late 1960s, or early 1970s, it will almost surely hold the all-time lower 48 states record for cold.

For example:

-On the morning of October 30, 2019, Peter Sinks recorded the lowest October temperature ever recorded by the National Weather Service for any of the lower 48 states at minus 45.5 degrees. This came during a record cold spell in the western and midwestern states when frigid Arctic air spilled down south as far as Arizona.

Peter Sinks, an alpine sinkhole, elevation 8,092 feet above sea level,  is similar to the often-seen middle and upper "Sinks,' located just south of U.S. 89, as it climbs to the Bear Lake overlook summit.

In fact, "Sinks" is a common word all over this area of upper Logan Canyon. There's a North Sink, a South Sink, Upper Sinks and a Sinker also found on USGS maps in the greater area here. Additionally, there are more than 3 dozens caves in a 15 mile radius here, including Logan Cave and further away is Minnetonka Cave in Idaho.


This area is a snowmobile haven in winter time and part of an ATV loop ride in summer. Some deer hunters and ranchers may also occasionally visit here and cattle roam freely here in summer too.
Some local weathermen were the ones who discovered this uninhabited hole  in the early 1980s.
"Cold" can simply be defined as the absence of heat. And, cold will always settle in the lowest place.
There used to be underground caverns in this area, near Logan Canyon, and when they collapsed, the sinks were created.

                   

Middle and Upper Sinks are extra cold places too, but not quite as cold as Peter Sinks.
All it takes for record-cold temperatures in these sink hole areas are: a temperature inversion, a good snowpack, a lack of wind and a  long winter night.
Peter Sinks is large, about a mile long and three-fourths of a mile wide.

                   
Actually more like a "dam" for cold air, the temperature at the middle (bottom) of Peter Sinks may be as much as 15-20 degrees colder than the air at the top of its rim. That's because cold air is so dense, it pools and can be trapped easily in these sinks.
This extra cold air is also why no trees and little vegetation can survive inside these sink holes.
That's how these "Sinks" were discovered -- when weather experts felt the cold air leaking out from these depressions.

Zane Stephens and a friend, Mike Bowman, discovered Peter Sinks and its legendary cold in the early 1980s. They were looking for a coldest spot in Utah. First, they checked out Dry Lake in Sardine Canyon, along Highway 89. It was cold, but not sub zero. Then, they found some European research on "Sinks" and began to search those. They found Middle and Upper Sinks in Logan Canyon to be below zero at times and knew if a higher elevation sinks was in that area, it would be the kingpin of them all. They then found Peter Sinks and the rest of Utah weather history once they recorded the frigid -69 degree reading in 1985.

(Stephens worked for Utah State University Climatology at the time.)

Thermometers were known to freeze solid inside Peter Sinks, trying to capture readings of its frigid air, in the early 1980s, shortly after it was "discovered."

Since these sink holes are still sinking, they may even become somewhat colder in the future.

Even in summer, Peter Sinks can be a pretty cool place. for example, one summer day some years ago, it was 99 degrees in Logan, but only 84 in Peter Sinks. On August 27, 2020, Logan was in the low 90s for a high, while Peter Sinks was about 68 degrees.

Peter Sinks is located two small mountain peaks over to the south of Middle Sinks.
No one lives anywhere near Peter Sinks and with good reason.

-Regarding the name origin for Peter Sinks, there seems to be a mystery there ...

The place was already named that decades before 1985 on USGS maps, when the place became world famous for its cold temperatures.
Middle Sinks is the title for a similar place located along Highway 89 at the top of Logan Canyon. So, the "Sinks" part is all about the dip of the land, or depression in elevation.
Was there a Peter, who frequented the area?
Cattle roam this area in summer. Was Peter an early rancher in the 19th Century?
The book, "Utah Place Names," by John W. Van Cott lists Peter Sinks, but supplies NO information or even theories as to its origin.

                                          Cattle roam the Peter Sinks area in the summer.

Is there a Peter in Cache or Rich County history? Couldn't readily find one.

According to an Associated Press story by Judy Fahys in the Daily Spectrum on April 30, 2010, Peter Sinks be may be named after a miner who once tried to homestead the place and froze to death.

“When he didn’t show up after a nasty winter, goes the third-hand account, a search party from Bear Lake went looking for him. The party found him frozen to death,” the story stated.

The fact that there is a "Deadman Gulch" listed on USGS maps less than two miles northeast of Peter Sinks may add support to a "Peter" settler freezing to death in the area during the 1800s. Again, there's no history for that geographical feature either, but it is very close to Peter Sinks.

                                     The desolate interior of Peter Sinks looking northward.

-Here's an even more wild possible tie into the Peter name ...
Biblically it is a stretch, but the Apostle Peter "sunk" in the waters of the Sea of Galilee while trying to walk on water (Matthew 14) until Jesus Christ lifted him up. There's no lake in Peter Sinks, but cold air sinks there at times. And, to the west of Peter Sinks, straight north of Logan Canyon and about 8 air miles distant are the Biblically named Gog and Magog peaks -- and not far away from there is Mount Naomi, another Biblical name and also the highest point in Cache County. And, another Biblical name, Saducee Spring, is also nearby, in Upper Logan Canyon.

-HOW TO VISIT PETER SINKS:

At about 30.5 miles east in upper Logan Canyon on Highway 89 (using the Forest Service office at the west edge of the canyon as a starting point), is a dirt road turnout that heads south, eventually reaching Hardware Ranch. This road is passable by cars in dry weather and is a good gravel road. Head about 2.7 miles on this road until you re-enter some thick trees and look for a dirt road parking lot on the west side, below the road.

This is mostly an ATV staging area, but cars can park here. There's also a sign indicating Peter Sinks here. Starting elevation is about 7,900 feet.

The first mile of this road is very dusty and in dry weather almost car passable. However, from there on, this road becomes more of a two-land trail and gets very rugged and rocky, with large holes and dips in places. Even pickup trucks will find rough conditions here. And, there are some steep sections on the road. However, there is occasional shade.

              A shady section along the sometimes rugged/rocky ATV road to Peter Sinks.

This route is probably passable without snow from mid to late June into October.

ATVs can go a total of about 2.7 miles to the rim of Peter Sinks and another 0.3 miles winding a dirt road to the bottom of the Sinks. Mountain bikes or motorcycles could also make the trip. During winter, it would also be likely possible to cross country ski into Peter Sinks. All total, is about 6.5 miles roundtrip to Peter Sinks.

                                 Bushwacking downward into the depths of Peter Sinks.

Descending down into the bottom of Peter Sinks is very steep, if you bushwack straight down about 300 feet and much longer if you follow the jeep-like road down. The weather station is located in the southwest area of Peter Sinks and does not show up well to the naked eye looking down from the rim above.

One small and hearty pine tree, with stunted growth, is visible on the south side, like below the run.

        One  of the steeper sections of the ATV path to Peter Sinks. This one is about half-way.

-There are also two other paths to reach Peter Sink, both only open to foot or bicycle travel.

The longest path is from the Stump HollowTrailhead, far below in Logan Canyon. This route is 10.8 miles roundtrip and has more than 2,000 feet in elevation gain. This is a long day hike.

The shortest walk to Peter Sinks is actually through the Burnt Fork Canyon. This trailhead is found in the middle of an open, flat meadow area, about 2 miles distant from Highway 89. A dirt parking area is on the east side of the road. This route may only be two miles or less to Peter Sinks, one-way. However, no motorized vehicles are allowed in this area. It is also far more isolated and portions of the upper trail are a little faint and indistinct.

      The interior of Peter Sinks. Very dry in summer, but usually only in the high 60s for temperatures.

L-R: Scott Steele of Syracuse, Mike, cameraman for KUTV, and morning news anchor, Ron Bird, prepare for a recording session at the bottom of Peter Sinks on Aug. 27, 2020.

-Lynn Arave has visited Peter Sinks twice, once in August of 1990 and again on August 27, 2020 (with a KUTV, Ch. 2 news crew).

This story is adapted/expanded from a story by Lynn Arave in the Deseret News, Aug. 8, 1990.
-Most photos by Lynn Arave and a few by Wayne Arave. 

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net