Skiing Wheeler Creek

Without a doubt, Ogden’s best easy ski touring is on the Wheeler Creek trails, below Snowbasin. While the better skiers are risking their lives on higher, avalanche-prone slopes, I find plenty of challenge--and great exercise--on twisting, narrow trails over gentler terrain.

My favorite tour, when snow conditions allowed, was to ascend the East Fork of Wheeler Creek from the Art Nord trailhead to Green Pond. After an initial 1.5-mile climb, the terrain opens out and you’re suddenly rewarded with an expansive view of Mt. Ogden and its satellite peaks. The photo above was taken from that magical spot on my very first trip up this trail, 15 years go. (That’s Jock up ahead.)

The final leg of the three-mile trail to Green Pond is now crossed by the new Snowbasin highway, which has ruined several of the old routes in the Green Pond area. So now the best option is to stop just short of the highway and descend the lovely trail along the Middle Fork of Wheeler Creek, closing a five-mile loop either on the old highway (now unplowed and groomed for skate skiers) or on the more challenging trail that parallels the highway just to the north. Ten of us went on a Sierra Club outing around this loop last Sunday, enjoying it as much as ever.

Fifteen years ago, navigating any of these trails in winter required good route-finding skills and a high tolerance for oak brush. But the Forest Service rebuilt all the trails shortly before the 2002 Olympics, clearing the brush and building excellent bridges across the many tributary creeks. Now the trails get packed down by snowshoers soon after each storm, so navigation is rarely a challenge.

The East Fork / Middle Fork loop outlines a small peninsula of public land, bordered by private land on the east, west, and south. It’s just a matter of time before those private lands will be developed with trophy homes and golf courses. The solitude and sense of remoteness will then be nearly gone, but at least the trails themselves will remain.

Last Printed Edition of the Outings Guide?

The Ogden Sierra Club Outings Guide is now being printed. If anyone out there is waiting to buy a copy, we should have them in a week or two.

The changes since the last (2004) edition are numerous but minor. I’ve squeezed in descriptions of three new trails, tweaked the descriptions of many others, and updated several of the maps. The length is unchanged (112 pages), as are the illustrations and most of the page layout.

Shown here is one of the delightful chapter-opening cartoons, which were drawn before my time (1980s or perhaps earlier) by someone I’ve never met (Richard Hogue). It’s an honor to work on a project that so many others have lovingly contributed to over the decades.

Since the Guide went to press, one person has already requested an electronic version of it. This leads me to ponder its future, and the future of books more generally, as the world rushes into the internet age.

Technology has already had a big impact on the production and appearance of the Outings Guide. The first three editions were produced with typewriter, scissors, and tape. Some of the maps were hand-drawn, while others were copied (with permission) from newspaper clippings. A copy shop then reproduced the pages using an analog photocopier.

When I took over as editor in 1998, the production process went digital. I typeset the text (using TeX, the same software I use to write physics books and class handouts), scanned the line drawings, and produced new shaded-relief maps based on digital elevation data. I recall delivering that edition to the copy shop on a Zip disk, from which they uploaded it to their digital copier. In the 2004 edition we switched to FTP and offset printing.

To the end user, however, the format of the Guide is still unchanged: a pocket-sized soft-cover black-and-white booklet, printed on dead trees.

An electronic final version would be environmentally preferable, and would make my life easier in several ways. No more agonizing over the locations of page breaks, or over how much information to try to squeeze onto a tiny black-and-white map. No more running around town making deliveries. No more having to wait until the inventory is depleted before making updates.

On the other hand, the initial creation of a usable electronic version would be a major challenge, in terms of both programming and design. Sure, it’s easy to brainstorm about full-color zoomable maps with links to and from a searchable database of trail descriptions and photos. But I’ve done enough programming and web design to know that producing such a software package wouldn’t be easy.

To their credit, Weber Pathways has put an electronic version of their trail map on the web. As you roll the cursor over an alphabetical list of trail names, the trails are highlighted on the map. You can click on a trail name to see a text description of the trail, and you can restrict the list to trails of a chosen difficulty level if desired. With a bit of patience I can even view this map on my iPhone, if I’m in a location that has service.

But the Weber Pathways electronic map isn’t perfect. The map is extremely small and can’t be zoomed. Nor can you identify a trail by pointing at it on the map. You can’t access the map while exploring the more remote parts of the county. And notably, the electronic version of the map is now out of date, compared to the latest printed edition. 

Are there better examples of electronic trail maps? If so, I’d love to see them. But I’m doubtful, because solving one problem would probably create others. A fancier web site could be prohibitively expensive to create and maintain. A stand-alone mobile app could have a slicker user interface, but would be unavailable to anyone who doesn’t have the right gadget.

The long-term maintenance issue is especially troubling. Already, the production process for our Outings Guide has become so technical that I would have a lot of trouble finding another volunteer to take it over. Switching to an electronic Guide would ratchet up the geek level a couple more notches, and might require hiring a professional programmer. And while it’s easy in principle to update an electronic document, in practice it can become a burden and even an expensive necessity, as hardware and software quickly evolve.

Then there’s the question of money. Selling Outings Guides has been our group’s main source of income over the years. But nobody is willing to pay to access a web site, and at least for now, the market for a mobile app of this type isn’t large enough to cover the cost of hiring someone to produce it. (Weber Pathways operates on a much different business model, raising money from charitable contributions and mostly staying out of politics. We need organizations like that, but they can’t do everything.)

The good news is that we’re printing enough paper copies of the Outings Guide to last another four or five years. By then technology will have progressed, and perhaps the right way to do an electronic Guide will be obvious.

I’ll promise one thing now, though: As long as I’m the editor, the Guide will continue to include Richard’s cartoons.

More New Trails

Still doing research for the upcoming revision of the Ogden Sierra Club’s Outings Guide, I recently hiked two more new trails.

The first was Ogden’s Birdsong Trail, which climbs the bluff just west of Rainbow Gardens. I had hiked it before, of course, but never in the spring. Although both ends of the trail are infested with weeds, there’s a lovely portion in the middle that winds around a bench area displaying what looks like entirely native plants: sagebrush, green grasses, prickly pear cactus, sego lilies, and a few other flowering plants. If you get a chance, be sure to check out this trail before it gets scorched by the summer heat.

Next I headed to North Ogden to check out a newly opened 5-mile section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. This section follows the power line corridor north and west from the North Ogden Pass road, traversing right under the south face of Ben Lomond. Many thanks to Weber Pathways and Rocky Mountain Power for making this trail possible. I’m glad the trail was put in place before the subdivisions climb up to it, which is just a matter of time. Some new water tanks have just been put in, and another is under construction, while work progresses on new roads just below. Haven’t they heard about the recession?

Pedaling the Parkway

My front-burner project right now is revising the Ogden Sierra Club’s Outings Guide booklet--the pocket-size trail guide that we’ve published since 1975. I took over the editorship 11 years ago with a major update, then made another big revision in 2004 when we expanded the coverage farther into neighboring counties.

But now the Guide is out of print, and it’s my fault. Before printing another thousand copies, I want to make sure it’s as up to date as possible. And there have been lots of changes to Ogden area trails since 2004.

Many of the changes are along the Ogden-Weber River Parkway, a multi-use urban trail that keeps growing every year. To see the latest improvements, I took a couple of bicycle excursions along the Parkway earlier this week.

I wish I knew the whole history of the Parkway. The first segment, from the mouth of Ogden Canyon to Washington Blvd., was newly completed when I moved to Ogden in 1993. I’ve heard that former city council member Glen Holley was one of the people most responsible--but I’m sure there were many others. This portion of the Parkway is still the most heavily used.

Next came a terrific trail segment along the Weber River in Riverdale, constructed in 1996. That year was the centennial of Utah’s statehood, and by then people were talking about a much greater vision: a continuous trail along the Ogden and Weber rivers, connected to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail to make a grand 27-mile loop called the Centennial Trail.

The person who worked hardest on the project at that time was undoubtedly Jay Hudson, who had asked me to join the city’s trails committee two years earlier. Jay was assistant to Mayor Mecham for a while, then retired and kept working on the Parkway.

Pretty soon Weber Pathways, a new nonprofit organization, got into the act. They’ve since grown to become the driving force behind completing the Parkway. I can hardly imagine the complexity of the negotiations with multiple land owners and government agencies, but I’m grateful to everyone (including Mayor Godfrey) who has supported this project.

During recent years, Ogden has pushed the Ogden River Parkway west through the central city and then over the viaduct to the 21st Street Pond. West Haven took it from there to the confluence with the Weber River, then southward up the Weber River and back into Ogden. A new tunnel now connects the Ogden Kayak Park to Fort Buenaventura.  

Only one more short segment, near the 31st Street interchange, is needed to connect Riverdale to Fort Buenaventura and all the rest. Thanks to a RAMP grant, that segment will be completed this summer. We’ll then have more than 10 continuous miles of river parkway (not counting several nice side trails), from the mouth of Ogden Canyon to the south end of Riverdale.

Economists could probably put a price on the long-term value of this amenity to our community--and I’m sure it would be at least tens of millions of dollars. To me, however, it’s priceless.