Snow Basin used to host a sports car hill climb; Plus, Mount Ogden's original name and more ...

SNOW Basin has been site of more than ski races over the decades. For three years, from 1961-1963, there was a "Snow Basin Hill Climb" that raced sports cars on the Snow Basin paved road.
The course included 12 hills in its slightly less than two-mile-long event. It was also billed at the first such car race in Utah for some 20 years.
"100 sports cars to compete in Basin" was a May 29, 1962 headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner. The Ogden Motor Sports Racing Association was the original sponsor of the race.
The first race in 1961 had to be postponed from May 28, to June 9-10, because of inclement weather.
Even though the race's third and final event, in 1963, attracted 1,300 spectators, it was never held again. A car did flip over in that final event, but no one was injured.

                        Looking down at Snow Basin from the Wasatch Mountain saddle.

After the Snow Basin Race was gone, the annual Moab Hill Climb each spring gained great popularity. (It was later renamed the Easter Jeep Safari.)
-Jump forward to July 1, 1967 and a different Snow Basin Hill Climb was held -- this one for bicycles. However, this race began at the mouth of Ogden Canyon, went east up the Canyon and accessed the original Snow Basin Road to the resort. This race also only lasted a few years.
-MORE HISTORY: The Civilian Conservation Corps ("CCC") helped build the road in Wheeler Canyon in the late 1930s and early 1940s. However, World War II halted their work before the road was completed. According to the Standard-Examiner of Oct. 27, 1955, the Utah National Guard finally completed the road. Several narrow sections of the canyon had to be dynamited to create a two-lane wide road. Today, the road is also titled "Art Nord Drive," in honor of A.J. Nord who was assistant regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service in the area and who pushed to complete the canyon road.

                              An old post card of the original dam in Ogden Canyon.

-BEFORE Pineview Reservoir was built (1934-1937), there was a much smaller reservoir located just west of the current Dam and at the head of Wheeler Canyon. "Big storage reservoir" was an Oct. 31, 1905 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. This Utah Light & Railway Company and Ogden City water storage project provided electrical power, as well as summer water. Sometimes called "Power Dam," it was built from 1909-1910, was an average of 23 feet deep and held 21 million gallons of water. Its construction meant the road through Ogden Canyon had to be rerouted. This dam was drained and replaced by Pineview, located to the east.

                                     Mount Ogden from the southwest side.

-Ogden Peak was the original title for Mount Ogden Peak, according to the first U.S. Geological Survey through Weber County's eastern side in 1873. Next, according the Standard-Examiner of July 19, 1956, the peak was briefly dubbed "Henderson's Peak," to honor one of the men who conducted that first survey. A third temporary name, "Observatory Peak," was the moniker for the mountain during the time of the Malan's Basin Resort, at the end of the 19th Century. By the early 20th Century, Mount Ogden became the accepted name now listed on all maps.

 
                      Mount Ogden as viewed from the eastern, Snow Basin side.

The Scoop on Wheeler Canyon, off Ogden Canyon

    The mouth of Wheeler Canyon, at the far east end of Ogden Canyon.  Photo by Whitney Arave.

WHEELER CANYON is the first canyon below Pineview Dam. It is southwest of the Dam itself.
Today Wheeler Canyon is best known as a mountain bicycle trail. However, use of the canyon dates back to 1866. Levi Wheeler, an Ogden area pioneer, located a sawmill on the stream in Wheeler Canyon that year and he is the origin of its name.
The sawmill materials had been hauled across the plains  to Utah. Calvin Wheeler, son of Levi, told the Ogden Daily Standard Newspaper of Sept. 20, 1919 about the origin of the canyon's name. He also said that when he lived near the canyon in the 1860s, he recalled traveling some 16 miles from Huntsville to kill 16 elk for food, to get through the winter.
-Also, a century ago, the area in Ogden Canyon near Wheeler Canyon's mouth was called "Pine View" and hence the name of the today's dam there.
-A Boy Scout troop of 24 boys, led by Scoutmaster Charles E. Fisk, hiked up Wheeler Canyon in the fall of 1922. They then climbed to the top of Mount Ogden -- with no trail to follow. Then, the descended down the left-hand fork of Taylor Canyon -- again with no trail to follow. Despite encountering cliffs and two inches of snow, there were no mishaps.
The Scouts reported seeing lots of blue grouse and willow grouse and even the tracks of a wolf. They returned to Ogden City after a 13-hour hike that covered some 25 miles. (-From Ogden Daily Standard, Oct. 23, 1922.)

-In the 1920s and up until the construction of Pineview Dam, there used to be the "Power Dam" at the head of Wheeler Canyon. This dam was built in 1897 and was some 40 feet deep and 300 feet long.
Ogden City got most of its drinking water from the artesian wells in Ogden Valley and also from Coldwater Canyon -- before Pineview Dam came along, in 1937.

Ogden Canyon: From echoes to a 'Z' to snakes

                          Ogden Canyon is most rugged at its west end.

OGDEN Canyon has undoubtedly changed a lot over the decades. A wide road was built through the Canyon and at one time there was a trolley line in the Canyon. However, as recent as a century ago, there used to be a perfect echo location in a spot above the Canyon; and in another location, there was the letter “Z” plainly visible.

ECHO: This ideal acoustic location was in a small side canyon, high above and near the original Hermitage Inn. According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of July 10, 1911, John Leavitt of Plain City and some friends stumbled across the site.

“Those in the party say that the echoes heard from the voice of a person standing at one point in the narrow canyon are almost supernatural,” the Standard reported.

The men apparently experimented there and found the exact spot where even a whisper “was made to sound as if a cave of winds had been unloosed.”

The men also suspected that a small cave, nearby, that went about 10 feet into the mountainside, as well as a 20-foot-long rock jutting out of the hillside, were probably responsible for the acoustic effect.

            Today's Alaskan Inn, near the site of the original Hermitage, now gone.

THE GIANT LETTER Z: According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of April 19, 1925, this letter was visible in rock up Wheeler Canyon. A century ago, it was best viewed about 100 yards south of the hotel in that area and by looking northward. A U.S. Geologic Survey in the area in 1871 also reported seeing the giant Z formation.

SNAKE EXTERMINATION SOCIETY: The Standard-Examiner of July 27, 1893 reported that a group of young women from Ogden had organized a snake extermination society, tired of being plagued by the reptiles in beautiful Ogden Canyon.