DANIELS SUMMIT — Want to see a childhood dream all grown up? Want to see what happens when the bank says yes? Want to see a prime example of a hobby gone out of control?
Drive 15 miles east of Heber City and stop when you're surrounded by an enormous stand of pine . . . disguised to look like a lodge.
Standing in front of the lodge will be Brent and Audrey Hill, owners and proprietors of the Daniels Summit Lodge, General Store, Gift Shop and Restaurant.
Well, standing might be stretching it. The Hills haven't stood still since they set about buying the 43 acres of private land at the crest of the canyon that rises out of Heber before descending into the Strawberry Reservoir drainage.
It's the same spot that Brent Hill used to visit as a boy when he and his father were on their way to hunt and fish.
They'd stop at a store called Bethers, eat jerky and toss back a Coke.
The Bethers store that burned down in '64.
Most businesses are built on dreams of profit.
The Daniels Summit Lodge was built on dreams of stopping at Bethers, eating jerky and tossing back a Coke.
As he set about providing for a family that would grow to five children, by developing and running a construction business first in California and then in the Heber Valley, Brent Hill never could dislodge from his mind the thing he really wanted to build: a place at the top of Daniels Summit.
For 10 years he talked about it to Audrey before they were finally able to arrange financing to purchase the 43 acres on the side of Highway 40 that fronts the yawning Uinta National Forest. That was in 1983.
It took another few years to bring in power, water and telephone lines.
Then one day, Brent knelt down and started drawing lines in the dirt.
"See this," he said to Audrey, "this will be your gift shop."
To this day, Audrey remembers her next conscious thought.
"You're really going to do this!"
The 45,000-square-foot, 42-room lodge, the sprawling restaurant and gift shop complex next door, the eight private cottages behind and the snowmobile sheds beyond are nothing if not a testament to what a builder will build if he's got plenty of room and no limit of hours on the backhoe.
Brent Hill will be the first to admit that the original modest concept "kinda got away from me."
Everywhere he looks are memories of fences erected, walls raised, trails built and interiors decorated — a considerable percentage of it by one Hill or another. If it wasn't Jeff, Gary or Allen it was Cherolyn or Shauna or Brent or Audrey.
The family helped build the lodge; the lodge helped build the family.
In the beginning, potential financiers wanted the Hills to associate with an established name in the lodging business — maybe a Holiday Inn or a Best Western.
No offense to the franchised chains, Brent and Audrey responded, but that just wasn't what they were.
What they were was a link to the past, dating back to the 1860s when the first rudimentary boardinghouse stood atop the summit along what was then the only way to get to Denver.
And a link to the future, with plenty of room not only for the tin-boat fishermen going to and from Strawberry, but also the conventioneers and world travelers looking for a place to stop, rest and ride a snowmobile or a horse, cross-country ski, mountain bike, do some business or maybe just sit down and rest.
As the Hills have known for some time, the top of Daniels Canyon is a fine place to do just that.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.