Utah Places: Fivemile Pass

BLM land is usually marginal as far as aesthetic value, but it is valuable for other intrinsics that are sometimes difficult to weight. The Pass area is one of those, unremarkable to the eye, but rich in history and culture.

Some links:
ATV Trails.
BLM Info- has link to a good map.

The BLM has given Fivemile Pass over to ATV use, and it shows. Prior to the ATV craze, the area was covered with mining claims, and that still is very much in evidence too. Someday, the whole mess will be cleaned up. Right now it looks like a ten thousand acre monument to wanton indulgence.

Trails crisscross the area indiscriminately leading everywhere and nowhere. Some leads can get you into trouble, like the one that looks like a thrilling leap over a deep ravine, but opens into a vertical mine shaft. Long ways down.

The steepest grade I ever drove the 4Runner on is to the north. A long hill that leads up to the ridge overlooking the Mercur Canyon mine and operations center. Climb it if you have the traction. I just made it. No problem for ATVs.

There are some spectacular high vistas, for those willing to climb. Snow lingers late this high -- don´t be surprised to find deeper drifts on the north shadowy spots into July.

Mineral mining was the big attraction in the Oquirrh Mountains to the north. For more than a hundred years copper has been mined and smelted. Plenty of other metals, like gold and silver, are also in rich supply. Try your luck high grading some rocks, you might strike the mother lode!

Indelible Tracks

This evening I took a hike up the backyard mountain to look at the fall colors. About half a mile up the mountain, the road runs out and narrows down into a fair hiking trail. A ways further, and it fans out into a dozen faintly defined meanders through the PJ.

If you wander through the mixed Juniperus scopulorum and Pinus monophyllum long enough, detouring around the scattered patches of Arctostaphylos, you can hook back into the mountain road that crosses the saddle and descends into the next valley. Beautiful vistas all around. I usually find the trail virtually untracked by humans, and a nice hillside to watch the sunset.

Some time in the last couple of weeks, an ambitious soul on an ATV took it upon himself to blaze the foot trail through.

Nothing tragic about this. It was always an unremarkable spot, nothing special to distinguish it from mountainsides and ridges all around this area. But it was untracked before. I presume that it never will be again — not in my lifetime.

I’ve seen this happen before in other areas around this neighborhood. Opening one track starts it. Where one ATV operator sees tire tracks, it apparently signals a green light to traverse the same ground.

There’s no reason to make new trails in this area. There are hundreds of miles of dirt trails to explore. Ripping a new one across formerly pristine territory is just senseless destruction.