When dynamite could have destroyed Lone Peak ...

COULD Lone Peak have been destroyed by a dynamite blast in 1937?

 “Will dynamite crash hilltop(?)” was the headline of an Associated Press story in the Ogden Standard-Examiner of August 19, 1937.

The story stated, “Lone Peak, lofty outcropping of the Wasatch range upon which a great airliner crashed last winter, is to be blasted at its tip into a tomb for the tragedy that claimed seven lives.”

On December 15, 1936, a Western Air Express Boeing 247 crashed just below Hardy Ridge on Lone Peak. Most of the aircraft was hurled over the ridge and dropped over a thousand feet into the basin below.

Lone Peak is an 11,253-foot above sea level summit in the Wasatch Mountains, located east of Draper. (However, strictly speaking, Hardy Ridge is located hundreds of yards south of Lone Peak, above Hardy Lake.)

The A.P. story stated that Western Air Express had secured permission from the U.S. Forest Service to dynamite the mountain top. This was in order to “bury the crash area which now attracts sight-seers and which, because of frequent rock slides, is considered a menace.”

The story stated that the seven bodies, luggage, mail and plane parts were all recovered after six months of searching, followed by two months of digging and removal work.

It does NOT appear that Lone Peak itself was ever dynamited. No reports of such a blast could be found in old newspapers or through Google searches.
However, at least one person who read this report said a book on the history of the plane crash does mention that dynamite was indeed used to cover up the crash site.
(The Lone Peak area includes a lot of unstable looking rock and so an explosion could have likely altered the appearance of the area somewhat.)

In any event, according to www.lostflights.com, Amelia Earhart herself participated in the search for the plane early on, but it wasn’t located until July of 1937 (the month Earhart disappeared).

(There have been four deaths on Lone Peak in the past 20 years. Two were from lightning and two were from falls off cliffs.)

-Notwithstanding the Lone Peak area’s disastrous plane crash, it has always been a popular hiking destination. “Teachers climb peak” was a Sept. 6, 1915 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper. The story said 15 principals and teachers from the Jordan School District climbed the peak on Labor Day weekend. They faced a heavy wind and snowstorm half-way up the mountain.

-The American Fork Citizen newspaper of Sept. 8, 1923 stated that six men climbed Lone Peak, also on Labor Day weekend. They camped overnight and had a large fire that could be seen from all over the area.

-“Wasatch Mountain Club hikers ascend Lone Peak” was an Aug. 4, 1925 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram. A party of 14 took three days to complete the hike.

-“Hikers climb peak to set new record” was a Telegram headline on Oct. 3, 1938. Wasatch Mountain Club members, Odell Pedersen, W.C. Kamp, Orson Spencer and Keith Anderson all climbed the peak in 3 hours and 58 minutes, one of the speediest times ever.

-Three members of the Wasatch Mountain Club scaled Lone Peak from the east side, that includes a 700-foot-high wall of granite. They did it in July of 1958, according to The Midvale Sentinel newspaper.

                                         Malan's Peak is east of Mount Ogden Park.

-ANOTHER HISTORICAL TIDBIT: This probably wouldn’t be safe in today’s drought conditions, but in the late 1930s, Weber State College students would hike to Malan’s Peak and Malan’s Basin each September and have a block “W” fire.

(Malan’s Peak is east of 32^nd Street in Ogden.)

Some 90 students made the first-ever such hike in 1937, according to the Standard-Examiner of Sept. 20 that year.

In 1938, approximately 150students made the hike. They left the college campus at 6:30 p.m., drove to Taylor Canyon and reached the Basin about 9 p.m. and returned about 1 a.m.

“A flaming W on the mountain was lit at seven-thirty,” the Standard-Examiner of Sept. 10, 1938 reported.

This annual hike eventually stopped, but was restarted in 1988, though the fire tradition ceased.

                                                   Taylor Arave poses on Malan's Peak.

-All material was originally published in the Deseret News on May 13, 2020.

Mount Nebo: The 1920 hopes for an observatory on its summit

                                                                 Mount Nebo.

MOUNT NEBO is the highest peak in the Wasatch Mountains, at 11, 928 feet above sea level. (Actually, it is three separate pinnacles.)
Nebo was mentioned in the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of March 25, 1920 as being urged to have an observatory atop its summit. This was to be a "Yankee Memorial," to honor the soldiers, sailors an marines of all wars that the United States had been involved in. 
It was also noted that a radio station could be housed on its lofty summit. Having a searchlight, powered by the streams around the huge mountain, was another proposal.
Of course, none of that ever happened, but it had been a dream of George B. Hobbs, a Nephi, Utah resident. (Nephi is just southwest of Mount Nebo.)
Hobbs felt that the searchlight atop Nebo would be beneficial to aviators flying through Utah.
-"Aloft on Mount Nebo" was a March 1, 1920 headline in the Salt Lake Herald newspaper. "Utah peak has beauty of Alps; Grandeur in view," the story stated.

             The view from atop the southern Mount Nebo, where the official trail ends.

After completion of an official trail to the top of Mount Nebo, 82 hikers made it to the summit on August 6, 1919.
The story reported that Nephi residents wanted to make the Salt Creek trailhead and area "a playground" for all to enjoy.
-"Gov. Dern leads party to the top of Mount Nebo" was an Aug. 19, 1927 headline in the Mount Pleasant Pyramid newspaper. The Governor of Utah and many others witnessed the sunrise on top of the lofty peak.
Later in the day, there was a program with the Nephi High School Band and speeches. At evening time, there was a large bonfire and dance by Miss Dorothy Haymond.
Groups hikes to Mount Nebo continued for some years afterward, but never quite caught on to the extent that Mount Timpanogos Hikes did. This is likely because of the lower population base around Nebo, as well as its lack of glaciers or continual streams flowing on its eastern side.

-NOTE that the trail mentioned above and today, only leads to the south peak of Mount Nebo, at 11,877 feet above sea level. The highest of the three peaks is the north one, with access by a knife edge of rocks, or from the east on a severe incline. The Middle Nebo Peak is third highest at 11,824 feet. 

         A photo from the mountain saddle, clearing showing Mount Nebo's triple peaks.

ALL three photographs above are courtesy of Ray Boren.

1914: The first skiing in the Ogden area?

                                   The mouth of Taylor Canyon.

WHEN did the first skiing in the Ogden Mountains begin?
Long before Snow Basin came along in 1940, winter recreation was was at least underway to some extent by 1914.
According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of Jan. 17, 1914, a local minister, Rev. F.G. Brainerd and  a group climbed to Malan's Heights (today's Malan's Peak and Malan's Basin). Then, they used skis to slide down "with the wind,"
Rev. Brainerd said Ogden's mountains are even more "majestic and beautifully inspiring in winter than in summer."
He did regular snowshoe trips east of Ogden in the winter.
Tobaggan rides were reported to be popular pastimes in the eastern U.S., but in the west, few as yet, "realize the joy in store for those who will get out in the hills" in the winter season.
The Standard story concluded: "Our winter scenes, in canyon and mountain top, and the possibilities of our winter sports, should be one of the advertised features of Ogden."

                  Some antique, wooden skis of yesteryear.


-Just over five years later, a headline in the Standard-Examiner was: "They slide on snow banks in sight of Ogden and have a delightful time."
This story reported on May 27, 1919, that several groups of people had climbed to the top of "Observatory Peak" (today's Mount Ogden) that weekend.
There was still significant snow at high elevation that spring. The group went up and down the mountain saddle via the Malan's Heights trail. However, one of the two groups, were Japanese and they slid down quickly much of the distance on some sort of "rubber pads" on the snow.
The other party, presumably white in race, slid down the snow without such a pad and got very wet in the process. Members of that party were: R.F. Baker, Grace Jennings, Clifford Huss, Lucile Davis, George Bauman, Marjorie Turner and Ada Childs.

                          Looking toward Malan's Basin along the trail from Malan's Peak.

In the late 1920s, there was a ski jump near the mouth of Ogden Canyon. By 1937, Taylor Canyon's mouth featured a ski jump and later an ice skating rink.

1924: A proposal for a Ben Lomond Peak Day

                                                        Ben Lomond Peak

THERE'S little argument that Ben Lomond Peak is the Ogden area’s most majestic mountain. Back in 1924, there was a suggestion to have a “Ben Lomond” day each year, though that never came to be.

“Once a year there should be a formal acknowledgement of the scenic wonder of Ben Lomond,” the Ogden Standard-Examiner stated on Dec. 15, 1923. “There should be a salute to the first rays of light which play upon the topmost rocks and jagged edges of this mountain.”

The story also stated: “The people of Ogden can get more than one lesson by studying the great mountain which enfolds Ogden. There is inspiration every day in the grandeur of the cliffs and the peaks built by a Master Hand.”

More historical tidbits:

-“Queer-shaped cloud caused much comment” was a June 17, 1908 Standard headline. A “remarkable appearing white cloud” was “long, narrow and perfectly white and rolled through the atmosphere like a huge serpent in contortions” and floated westward over the Great Salt Lake that morning. Some believed the cloud was moisture laden and could burst and cause flooding. Others “watched the strange spectacle in the belief that a cyclone was headed in the direction of Ogden.” However, soon the strange cloud seemed to just melt away.

-There was a “Dangerous practice” going on in Ogden Canyon back in 1887. According to a Standard Story of Oct. 23 that year, workmen engaged in lime kilns and lime burning often rolled boulders and used explosives in the canyon.

Residents of Huntsville and Eden were the most affected, since they most often traversed the Canyon. Evan Evans of Huntsville was going down the canyon when a boulder smashed into the side of his wagon, demolishing the wheel.

-“Beanville is City of Past” was a July 21, 1905 Standard headline. A large group of teenagers had created a mushroom city in Ogden Valley with their large camping group. Long before established campgrounds, the youth from Ogden and Salt Lake spent a week there, with bonfires, talks, music and activities. The story didn’t specify who organized the event, but “Beanville” was the temporary community’s actual name.

-One of the first restaurants in Ogden Valley was the “Valley Restaurant” in Hunstville. According to the Standard of Aug. 3, 1908, Carl Johnson owned the eatery and offered mountain trout, spring chicken and even overnight rooms.

-La Plata was the most famous late 19^th Century mining boom town in the Ogden area. However, there were many other mines. One was the far lesser known Camp Rich/Blue Bird Mine, between Wheeler Canyon and Mt. Ogden. According to the March 20, 1896 Standard, its location remained a secret for several years, but produced gold, silver and platinum. The miners were plagued by snow slides in Wheeler Canyon, but persisted on their nine gold claims.

-Speaking of snow slides. Seventeen Logan Temple construction workers in Logan were caught in a giant avalanche Canyon during early March of 1880. Miraculously, only two men were killed, according to the Logan Leader newspaper of March 5 that year.

Big N. Utah Optical Illusion: Ben Lomond Peak Higher Than Willard Peak (not)

         Ben Lomond Peak  (center) and Willard Peak (second bump to the left of BL). Ben Lomond         looks taller here by some sort of illusion, as seen from near Weber State University in Ogden.


  BEN Lomond Peak is NOT higher than nearby Willard Peak.
  It just often times appears that it is taller, in some sort of geographical optical illusion, perhaps one of the biggest such cases in all of Northern Utah.
  Ben Lomond stands at 9,712 feet above sea level.
  Willard Peak is 9,764 feet above sea level, or 52 feet HIGH than Ben Lomond Peak is.
  However, look at Ben Lomond from the south, near Weber State University (top photo) and it appears much taller than Willard Peak is.
  Even look at Ben Lomond and Willard peaks from I-15 coming southbound near the Utah-Idaho stateline and the former appears taller by far than Willard Peak (a southeastern view).
  The only 2 places where Willard seems taller are:
1. From atop either Willard or Ben Lomond Peaks.
2. From Cache County, the south side of Utah State University OR from the south side of the Logan LDS Temple and looking straight south (bottom photo).
  I have no idea why this common illusion is in place, but at least from the straight north is not in play.

 Willard Peak (center) is 52 feet higher than Ben Lomond Peak (left of Willard Peak) and actually appears taller in this viewpoint from the north, as seen from near the Logan LDS Temple in Logan..

-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  

From ‘Observatory Peak’ to Mount Ogden

By Lynn Arave

HISTORY never recorded the first climb to the top of Mount Ogden (9,572 feet above sea level). However, it does include the account of a climb in 1881, plus a name controversy and more tales for the tallest summit east of Ogden.

“Mountain Mounters” was a July 6, 1881 headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.

“On the morning of the Fourth a party of young gentlemen set out from town, bound for the highest peak of the mountains to the east of us. They had a seven mile steady, fatiguing march of it, but at last they conquered the acclivity and reached the towering summit with its rarefied atmosphere and glorious panorama.”

The report continued: “As proof of their achievement they lit a fire on the top of the lofty elevation, which was observed in this city and taken as good evidence.”

Mount Ogden was originally called Observatory Peak and many a visitor to Malan’s Basin resort, near the end of the 19^th Century, hiked up there.

Then, by 1912, “Ogden Peak is the name of the mountain,” a Sept. 6, 1912 Standard story declared, as a “should be” title.

The “Observatory” name had come from the U.S. Government’s observatory marker on the summit, placed there in the early 1870s.  The peak’s height was thought to be 9,592 feet in 1912, 20 feet higher than modern measurements.

There was also a failed effort to name the peak Mount Henderson, in honor of a federal judge who hiked it.

A popular exaggeration in the early 20^th Century was that a person could see into 7 different states from the summit.

In a Dec. 2, 1919 Standard letter to the editor, it was stated that “Mount Ogden” was the peak’s name now thanks to topographical department in Washington, D.C.

Writer A.S. Condon stated in his letter: “Observatory Peak, as said, means nothing and Mt. Ogden means something.” He argued the unique Ogden name set the peak apart, whereas the former name is affixed to hundreds of other U.S. peaks.

In the Standard of May 6, 1920, it was reported that the National Geographic Society had indeed changed the peak’s name officially to Mount Ogden and that now appeared as such on maps.

The Ogden summit also nearly received an electric sign in the 1910s. A Standard report on Aug. 23, 1912 talked about the strong possibility of an electric sign saying Ogden” being put atop the peak.

The Federal Sign System of San Francisco had come to Ogden with blueprints for a mountain sign, 80-feet-long and 28-feet-high.

That’s all that’s mentioned of such a sign and so it likely never proceeded beyond the blueprint stage.

A 1919 winter climb of Mount Ogden reported lots of industrial and house coal smoke obscuring the great panoramic view below.

By 1922 some 100 hikers climbed Mount Ogden on an early July day. Hikers were treated to accordion music along their trek, so their spirits would be kept high during steep grades.

Then, on Oct. 4, 1922, Elder David O. McKay, LDS Apostle, future LDS Church President and former principal of Weber Academy (forerunner to Weber State University), led 365 students on a hike to Mount Ogden. A flagpole, time capsule and memorial were placed atop the peak.

                                Mount Ogden from the southeast.

(This mass hike was similar to Brigham Young University’s annual Mount Timpanogos hike of that same era.)

This annual Weber hike continued for a few years, but was eventually shortened to reach Malan’s Peak only. In the 1930s, it was the “Flaming W Hike,” where a bonfire was lit on top of the lower peak. By 1946, there was no fuel left on Malan’s for a time.  In the early 1970s, fires returned and one year the fire department had to be called and so electric lights from henceforth lit up the “W.”

Meanwhile, the flagpole, memorial and time capsule had been destroyed in 1967 when the U.S. Forest Service started enforcing a law that required all unauthorized structures on mountains to be removed. The relics were then hurled over the eastern cliffs below the peak. Only fragments of them were ever found.

On Oct. 24, 1987, Weber State Professor Gary D. Willden revived the original annual “Flaming W Hike,” with a trek back to the highest summit, Mount Ogden.

                                 The helicopter pad on Mount Ogden.

The following year, on Oct. 1, 1988, the now annual hike included some 200 hikers and even helicopters rides to a nearby mountain saddle for seniors who were part of the 1922 hike.

Today, Mount Ogden includes a concrete helicopter pad and is loaded with so many high tech transmission towers rising heavenward that it no longer seems the rugged and open peak it was into the early 1990s.  Yet, its spectacular views of the Ogden area remain.

(-Originally published by Lynn Arave in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on June 13, 2014.)

                                      Some of the electronic apparatus on Mount Ogden.

-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  

Davis County's Lonely Outpost: Francis Peak

The north radar dome. You can't get this close anymore, because of a fence.

 Francis Peak as viewed from part of the Skyline Drive road.

By Lynn Arave

FRANCIS Peak is undoubtedly the most changed Wasatch mountain peak in the Top of Utah since pioneer times.

Located east of Fruit Heights in Davis County, Francis Peak was once one of the craggiest peaks in the area. It was also among the first Davis and Morgan County peaks to be identified.

The peak, which straddles Davis and Morgan counties, was named Francis, at the suggestion of Brigham Young, in honor of Esther C.E. Francis (1836-1913), an early pioneer woman who helped settle and survey Morgan in 1860s.

“Our Heritage: Samuel and Esther Francis,” describes it this way:

“Rising majestically above Morgan Valley to the west of the Wasatch Mountains, one of its highest peaks bears the name ‘Francis Peak.’ Snow capped and glittering in the sun in the day and lit by two artificial lights by night it stands as a lighthouse in the sky to be seen for many miles.”

With two manmade radar domes sitting atop Francis Peak today, it looks far different than it did before the late 1950s.

The domes, operated by the Federation Aviation Administration and the Air National Guard, provide long-range radar and identification for area aircraft. Its radar range is 250 miles outward and up to 100,000 feet straight up.

                       The FAA radar domes on Francis Peak, as seen from old downtown Layton..

At first, the FAA wanted to install such a radar site near Alta or Snowbird. However, because the National Guard was already using a temporary facility at Francis Peak, that became the logical, joint location.
Otherwise, according to the Salt Lake Tribune of Sept. 26, 1958, Francis Peak was only initially planned to have a National Guard Installation. That story states that Francis Peak's original elevation was 9,547. After the facility was completed, counting the artificial structure, it dropped by 32 feet to 9,515.

Workers atop Francis Peak had to wear thick, long boots and carry weapons. Rattlesnakes are not supposed to live that high, yet someone forgot to tell the rattlers that. Numerous rattlesnake nests were uncovered during construction, despite the almost 2-mile-high elevation.
In fact, according to the Standard-Examiner of Sept. 26, 1958, almost 100 rattlesnakes had to be killed by workers during the construction. Two workers were bitten and both survived.
Some workers also claimed that Copperhead rattlesnakes were killed at the work site.

A Standard-Examiner story from Sept. 21, 1958 stated that rattlesnakes were killed at the rate of two or three a day during the construction process.
"Morgan County sees new stars (Radar Unit Lights) atop peak" was the headline of this story. It also reported that sand and gravel trucks came from the Bountiful end of the mountaintop "Skyline Drive" (not through Farmington Canyon) and that it took six hours for such trucks to make the trip.

Approximately 22,000 cubic yards of material and nearly a dozen yards of the peak's height were removed to level the summit. This $2 million construction project, in 1958-59, also included helicopters flying in 33 gigantic metal poles, weighing 800-1,000 pounds each, to shore up a foundation.

I’ve been inside the Francis Peak facility twice over the years on media tours and it is a high tech, lofty outpost, complete with a kitchen, bedrooms and its own water supply.

(Its “twin,” of sorts is the TV/radio transmitter facility atop Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains.)

How tall is Francis Peak? That is a loaded query.

U.S. Geological Survey lists Francis Peak as 9,547 feet above sea level. However, that was BEFORE the 1950s construction.

The natural height there now is 9,515 feet. The base of the facility's base adds 55 feet and the domes chip in 60 feet more for a total extra artificial height of 115 feet and a grand total of 9,630 feet above sea level.

(Thus, only Thurston Peak, located about four miles north, is “taller” in Davis County than that - at 9,706 feet.)

The FAA uses special rotary snow blowers to keep the dirt road to the radio domes accessible year-round, since it is manned continually. However a 17,000-foot-long tramway access was proposed to be constructed up Shepard Canyon in 1977. Environmental red tape delayed and eventually doomed this project.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built the Farmington Canyon-Bountiful Peak road, from 1935-1939. This 26-mile loop road first opened to the public in July of 1939. Some 50 years of overgrazing had produced disastrous flash floods on the mountainside in both 1923 and 1930.

 The dirt road was built to aid access for the approximately 80 men of Bountiful CCC Camp No. 910 to construct flood control terraces and seeding projects from Parrish Canyon on the south to Farmington Canyon on the north.

Perpetually, the road was designed to help the U.S. forest Service keep erosion and wildfires under control. The bonus was opening up the scenic beauty to public access.

Workers and sheepherders also reported rattlesnakes at unusually high elevations there in the late 1930s.

The Sunset Campground at 6,200-foot elevation in Farmington Canyon opened in 1939, while the Bountiful Peak Campground, at 7,500 feet, was dedicated in 1941.

Steep grades, narrow curves and sheer drops still test the nerves of timid drivers along this road, officially called, the “Skyline Drive Scenic Backway,” today.

 When construction on the radar domes took place in the late 1950s, the FAA built the additional 5-mile dirt road northward, from the top of Farmington Canyon, to Francis Peak.

A jeep trail continues north from the radar domes and eventually swings to the backside of the Wasatch Mountain to access the three Smith Creek Lakes on the Morgan side.

Francis Peak is a popular summertime scenic backway destination in Davis County, offering access to the Sunset and Bountiful Peak campgrounds as well as the most spectacular bird's-eye views possible of the Great Salt Lake.     

The road to the lofty radar domes that top the peak is officially known as Skyline Drive. It begins on Farmington's 100 East. It is paved for the first mile and then follows a winding, narrow dirt road for another 12 miles. Most cars can make this bumpy journey, though it is a back-country road.

                                  A rare view inside the Francis Peak radar station, circa 1980s.

There's a fork in the road at the top of the canyon, about eight miles up. The right (south road) leads to Bountiful Peak and eventually Bountiful's east bench, some 19 miles later.

The left road (north) heads to the radar domes operated by . A gate on the left fork is closed during snow season because of dangerous snow removal equipment. 

Snow banks along the upper reaches of the road - 9,000-foot plus elevation - continue until mid- to late July. On a clear day, even the High Uintas are visible to the east.

A popular hike goes along a jeep trail northeast of the radar towers to the Smith Creek Lakes.

Prior to 2002, you could drive, or walk right up to the radar domes. Now there is some fencing and enhanced security to better protect the facilities there.
-The Farmington Canyon road leading to the Radar Domes has a ahistory of its own. According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of Sept. 1, 1937, the origin of the road dates back of 1936. In its first two years of construction, 64 tons of dynamite; 33,000 gallons of gasoline and 26,069 man hours were required for the road's initial development -- and that was used for just the first 7.5 miles of the road up the mountain.
The road was lengthened and improved many times, eventually going the 26 miles to Bountiful. A spur road, five miles to the north was created in the late 1950s when the Radar Domes were constructed.

Sources: Personal visits to Francis Peak, digitalnewspapers.org, National Geographic maps, and "Kaysville, Our Town: A History," by Carol Ivins Collett.

Note: Lynn Arave has actually had a tour inside the radar domes twice. Once in 1980 and again in 1998.
(Published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on Aug. 1, 2014.)

-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  

Mount Nebo: Highest in the Wasatch Range

The three different peaks of Mount Nebo, the    first two photos  just below the south summit and the third on top of the south peak.  Ravell Call is shown. 

By Lynn Arave
"Cold, austere, a triple pyramid of limestone, Mount Nebo rises under the central Utah sky, the final exclamation point in stone of the Wasatch Mountains."

Still appropriate today, that was an accurate description of Mount Nebo by Harrison R. Merrill, a Deseret News reporter, on July 4, 1930.

Harrision  went along with 33 BYU students and faculty members on a Nebo hike, then a nine-mile trek to Nebo's southern summit.

Merrill noted how much drier the terrain was along the Nebo route compared to Timp's water-blessed trails. That is, until a big rainstorm hit and drenched the hikers. The group also reported seeing elk.

Twenty-seven hikers reached the summit, and Merrill described his feelings while on top:

"Eleven-thousand feet above sea level, like specks along the ridge pole of the world, we sat down and feasted," he wrote. "While our eyes gorged, we ate our lunches beside a little fire that sent its pinion pine smoke toward heaven. It was a huge altar. . . .

Other peaks along the Wasatch range may be more legendary (Mount Timpanogos), more classically elegant (Mount Olympus) and simply more imposing because they loom so dramatically over metropolitan and suburban enclaves (Ben Lomond, Lone Peak).

 But Nebo - the Wasatch's "final exclamation point in stone," - is actually the highest Wasatch Peak of them all, at 11,928 feet above sea level.

 Even so, many who may have thought they trudged to Nebo's uppermost pinnacle didn't. The main trail winds its way up South Nebo, the southernmost of three peaks, which tops out at 11,877 feet and earns a notation on the official state highway map. But North Nebo is 51 feet higher.

(Yes, there are actually three different Nebo peaks, though to the casual observer below on I-15, it looks more like just a single peak.)

The highest Nebo was "discovered" in the late '70s when new measurements were made by the Utah Geological and Mineral Survey. A proposal was made to christen this previously unnamed northern high point "Mona Peak," in honor of the community at the foot of the mountain's western alluvial fan. 

However, the Utah Committee on Geographic Names decided the entire mountain had been known for too long as just Nebo, and so North, Middle and South Nebo peaks are the specific references now found on any up-to-date map or hiking book.

The skyscraping muddle doesn't end there, either. North Nebo Peak shouldn't be confused with North Peak, a "mere" 11,174 feet above sea level and just over a mile farther to the north.

Since the principal trail ends at South Nebo, most hikers stop there too - with good reason. After a steep and eventually air-deprived climb to the south peak, it's an additional 11/2-mile scramble, most of it along a precarious knife-edge of rocks, to the higher pinnacle. Those who attempt this adventure get to visit Middle Nebo Peak, too, at 11,824 feet above sea level.

Mount Nebo is also where the Wasatch Mountains dead end on their southernmost point. North-wise, they run all the way to Soda Spring, Idaho.

Nebo, like many a Utah village and eminence, is a Biblical namesake. Mentioned in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 34:1), the original Mount Nebo was the peak from which Moses saw the promised land before he left this mortal coil.

The first Nebo is a part of the Pisgah Mountains, east of the north end of the Dead Sea. It is the second-highest peak in the Dead Sea area - 2,631 feet above sea level - behind Mount Shihan at 3,494 feet. However, because the Dead Sea is 1,312 feet below sea level, the Middle Eastern Nebo's climb is more like 3,943 feet, which would be just over half the Utah Nebo's vertical rise.

Perhaps the first Mormon settlers who caught sight of the peak in the late 1840s thought it had a great prospect of their promised land, and so they named it after a prominent scriptural landmark.

In fact, with all the Biblical-named communities in the Nebo area - Jericho, Ephraim, Goshen and Abraham among them - settlers obviously enjoyed using titles from scripture. Book of Mormon names were also popular in the area, from Deseret and Lehi to Manti and Moroni.

But the mountain Nebo is most often linked to is its sibling - sometimes called its twin - to the north, Timpanogos. Both rise spectacularly from the valleys below, both approach 12,000 feet high (Timp is 11,750 feet above sea level, 178 feet fewer than Nebo) and both are in Utah County - although the three Nebo peaks actually straddle the Utah/Juab county line.

Nebo offers intermittent groves of aspen and pine, and outstanding views in almost every direction once hikers reach its long ridge. It is the solitude and serenity that rule here. Unlike hiking often-visited Timpanogos Peak, you may have Nebo all to yourself.

-Who was the first person to climb Utah’s Mount Nebo? Other than perhaps some Native Americans, it may have been a correspondent with the New York Times in 1873 – at least that’s the first recorded account.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune of August 15, 1873, this reporter was with the Powell Exploring Expedition. The group decided to delay its travel southward to climb what looked to be the highest mountain in either Utah or Nevada.

With blankets and rations, the men traveled upward until dark. They camped by a little spring and mad a fire to cook their dinner. The night was cold and few slept much.

“Part of the ascent was difficult, and not without danger, perhaps for often we had to go where a misstep might be instant death,” The N.Y. Times reporter wrote. “We were repaid for our toil by a glorious mountain view, extending from the Rocky Mountain summits in Colorado, to the mountains of Nevada, and from Salt Lake on the north, almost to the Grand Canyon on the south.”

(Adapted from a Sept. 11, 1994 article in the Deseret News by Lynn Arave and Ray Boren.)

-Photos by Lynn Arave, Ravell Call and Ray Boren.

-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  

A 'Bear' of a Misspelling in Davis County: Baer, not Bair

                        Runners in a past Bair-Gutsman race at the top of Bair Canyon.


DAVIS COUNTY has one bear of a spelling problem in one of its larger canyons. Signs, histories, newspaper articles - just about everything - still spell the canyon's name incorrectly. It isn't BAER, it's BAIR. Pioneer records prove that.

 Some have even misspelled the name as Bear.

Georgia W. Memmott of Bountiful, a descendant of the original namesake - John Bair - said years ago that she's been concerned over the many such misspellings in recent years. over her family name.

Her biggest gripe, though, is the major sign located at the mouth of Bair Canyon in Fruit Heights that reads: "Baer Creek Trail."

Bair Canyon is a five-mile-long deep canyon that ends at a jeep road just north of Francis Peak. It is the canyon just north of Shepherd Canyon and directly above the historic "Rock Loft" in Fruit Heights.

The newest United States Geological Survey Maps are finally using the correct family spelling of Bair. However, lots of older maps with the wrong spelling are still in use.

Maps began misspelling the name "Baer" because Davis County records had apparently spelled the name that way.

The "Bear" misspelling likely came because bears were once a prominent resident in the canyon, which is two narrow valleys north of Farmington Canyon. Bears ate corn left out for oxen at the canyon's original sawmill. When people heard "Bair," they likely thought of the animal.

The family's original German spelling was "Bahr," making things perhaps even more confusing.

The water flowing out of Bair Canyon is also the Bair stream.
(The Bair-Gutsman footrace, which I ran 7 times in the 1970s-1980s, always got the spelling of the canyon correct, though.)

John Bair was born in 1810 in Somerset, Pa. He was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1834, possibly by the Prophet Joseph Smith. He was also later bodyguard for Smith and then for Brigham Young. Bair came to Utah in 1850 with an ox team company.

Bair settled in the Kays Creek area of Davis County in 1853. He built the first sawmill in Davis County, near the mouth of the Fruit Heights Canyon in 1855 that's named in his honor. He made his cabin on the canyon mouth's south side and the sawmill on the north.

Indians were said to have greatly respected Bair because he knew their language well. Many Indians called him "Chief Bear John." Like Joseph Smith, Bair liked to wrestle and apparently won some Indian respect through that sport.

By 1859 he had sold the sawmill and moved to Richmond, Cache County.

Bair was also known for operating the first ferry boat in Utah, during 1852, on the Bear River.

During his lifetime, Bair worked as a shoemaker, lawyer (the first in Davis County), farmer, soldier, land management agent, marshal, grist mill operator, interpreter, stock raiser, frontiersman, colonizer and pioneer.

He died at age 74 on Oct. 11, 1884, in Richmond, Cache County. He didn't accumulate wealth, but he had numerous descendants and most live in Cache County today, though there are some scattered about in Davis County - Sunset, Layton and Bountiful.

(-Expanded from a Dec. 29, 1995 Deseret News article 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  

Ogden's 'Heaven Heights' never materialized

Malan's Peak

                       Ogden mountain skyline, showing Malan's Peak, left, and Malan's Basin right.


 "Heaven Heights" missing .....

According to "A History of Weber County," by Richard C. Roberts and Richard W. Sadler, Bartholomew "Tim" Malan and his family constructed the original wagon road up Taylor Canyon to Malan's Peak/Basin (then called "Malan's Heights"), from 1892-1894.

They operated a seasonal hotel, complete with cabins and a campground on about 10 acres, each summer for about 12 years — from 1894 until 1906.

That resort is found in every Ogden history book.

However, what almost materialized after that original resort called it quits is not mentioned in most history books.

"Heaven Heights" was proposed for Malan's Basin next.
Then name was meant to include both Malan's Basin and Malan's Peak.

 "Ogden to have great resort: 'Heaven Heights' to be improved for summer amusement purposes. Salt Laker the prospector. Includes line of cable cars to connect with Ogden streetcar system. Details of big scheme," (Deseret News headline from March 16, 1907).

"Utah can boast of many beautiful amusement resorts, but if present plans are carried, this state will have another, and one which will be an attraction for people all over the country," the news article stated.

Phil S. O'Mara, president of the Salt Lake Auditorium Association, was to create the resort and an expanded transportation system at an estimated cost of $175,000-$225,000.

"The resort will be the greatest in the western country," the story stated.

The resort never materialized. But the plan was for a first-class hotel, scenic railway, shoot-the-chutes amusement ride, skating rink and other attractions in Malan's Basin.

The city's streetcar line would be extended to near the base of the mountain and then cable cars would travel to Malan's Peak and Malan's Basin and eventually all the way to Mount Ogden (then called "Observatory Peak").

Malan's is misspelled "Mahlan's" in the article and the elevation of the highest peak is incorrectly listed at 11,200 feet vs. the actual 9,572 feet, but the thrust of that original project is an early 20th century development of the same area in controversy a few years ago.

In 2006, Chris Peterson, owner of Malan's Basin, wanted to work with Ogden city to create a resort project in the same area.

His plan included a gondola not only to Malan's Basin (just under 7,000 feet), but also to the mountain saddle (approximately 9,000 feet) to connect with Snowbasin Ski Resort.

Lodging and associated buildings were also proposed inside Malan's Basin.

So far, no 21st Century development has become a reality for Malan's Basin.

  A 1984 photograph showing a leftover steam boiler from the original Malan's Basin Resort in Malan's Basin. (It has since likely been  hauled away... as it cannot be found there now.)

However, you can hike the trail up Taylor Canyon to Malan's Basin and Malan's Peak and imagine how over a century ago, the trail was actually a wagon road -- and that there was a resort inside the basin.

Back in 1894-1906, for a cost of $1 round-trip, you could ride a special wagon to Malan's Basin. Ogden's street cars ended at 25th Street and Iowa Avenue, and that's where wagons to Malan's Heights departed each summer morning at 8:15 for a 90-minute ride to the top. Meals at the resort were 35-50 cents each.

Soon after there was no operating resort in Malan's Basin, vandals burned down what was left.

By the 1980s, only the hulk of an old metal steam boiler was left. soon after, that too disappeared.

Now, just some small clearings in the basin remain as evidence of what used to be there.

--NEED Standard Examiner source

(-Some of this information was taken from a Dec. 31, 2006 article by Lynn Arave in the Deseret News.)