The High Uintas are the roof of Utah, and the most plentiful thing there — besides rarefied air — is water. H2O is flowing almost anywhere you go. Is it any wonder then that the headwaters of the Bear River, the mightiest stream of the Great Basin, begin in the northwest section of the Uinta mountains?
Located about 12 miles southeast of the Bear River Station and Highway 150 (Mirror Lake Highway) and not far from the Camp Frontier East Fork Boy Scout Camp, this is where the Bear River starts its more than 500-mile journey through three states to the Great Salt Lake.
Only some 30 miles away are also the headwaters of two other key Utah streams — the Weber and Provo rivers — which flow in different directions. Water is certainly the Uintas' leading export.
Indeed, hiking through this forest of pines and rocks means you cross another small steam of water at least every few minutes. Some 4.5 miles out on the Bear River Trail is where the Bear River's Left Hand and Right Hand forks merge. At an elevation of about 9,350 feet and below "The Cathedral" mountain, the two streams join to create what first appears on maps as the Bear River. (Technically, it is the river's "East Fork.") No fanfare at this junction, just more rushing water and not even a footbridge across the Bear River on the trail here.
Following the Left Hand Fork upward another one-half mile leads to an impressive falls/cascade at an elevation of 9,535 feet.
With air temperatures only about 68 degrees this late July midafternoon here, the water temperature is much cooler, at only about 39 degrees.
The water for the two forks of the Bear River actually originates even higher at elevations as great as Lamotte Peak (12,720) or the 12,706-foot Yard Peak. The Allsop, Norice and Priod lakes also contribute significantly to the Bear's initial waters. As much as 450 inches of annual snowfall (or 40 inches of precipitation) produce much of the moisture that becomes the Bear River.
According to Craig Denton, author of "Bear River: Last Chance to Change Course," the river drops 8,500 feet between the Uintas and the Great Salt Lake — about half of that drop coming in the river's first 20 miles in this area.
Near the Mirror Lake Highway, the West Fork, Stillwater and Hayden Fork rivers combine to produce a much larger Bear River as it exits the High Uintas.
At its headwaters, the Bear is just 75 air miles east of the Great Salt Lake and still the river must travel more than 500 miles to reach the GSL.
"Yet the Bear River is unique too, because it meanders through a particular landscape," Denton stresses in his book.
There's not room here to detail all or even most of the Bear River's 500-mile-plus course, but here are some highlights:
The River travels past a Wyoming ghost town once called Beartown in a railroad heyday, then to Evanston, Wyo. and passes through Bear River City, before backing up in its first impediment, the Woodruff Narrows Reservoir. It re-enters Utah by Randolph. It then dips back into Wyoming near Cokeville, and it is here where the Smith's Fork River — its largest contributor — joins it.
At the river's northernmost point, it makes a sharp loop around Soda Point ("Sheep Rock") in Idaho and heads south through Black Canyon — its most spectacular channel and with walls up to 350 feet high. Soda Point marks the northern end of the Wasatch Mountain range, which many incorrectly call the Bear River Range. It flows another two miles to another small dam where the Last Chance Canal (built 1891) at Grace diverts water to irrigate crops in the Gem Valley. This diversion includes a 1,476-foot tunnel through lava rock, which is 12 feet wide and nine feet high and a stately flume across the river. (The original concrete arch was replaced in 1947 with a steel version. It collapsed in 2003 and had to be significantly repaired.)
Next, the Grace Dam puts most the river water into a five-mile-long steel and wooden aqueduct (some seven feet in diameter) that powers the PacifiCorp Grace Power Plant. Seeps and springs fill the Black Canyon next to this pipe much more than any overflow from the dam.
Later, the river traverses the Oneida Narrows north of Preston and the Cub River becomes a part of it. Near here is where the infamous Bear River Massacre happened in 1863.
At Cache Valley, back in Utah, the Cutler Reservoir dams up the Bear River. Just before that, the Blacksmith Fork and Logan rivers also join it, greatly increasing its size.
After Cutler Reservoir, the Bear passes through "The Gates of the Bear River," a historic gap in the Wellsville Mountains, allowing it to flow into the Tremonton area of Box Elder County. The Malad River joins the Bear near Tremonton.
The Bear's final 20 miles include flowing into the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Willard Bay and the Great Salt Lake.
Denton says the Bear replenishes the GSL, with more than half its inflow.
e-mail: lynn@desnews.com
Where the Bear River's name came from:
According to John W. Van Cott's book "Utah Place Names," Bear River wasn't the river's only name. It was also known as Mud River, White Mud River and Miller River by explorers in the early 19th century.
American Indians referred to it as Quee-yah-pah for Tobacco Root Water or Gull-yah-pah for Tobacco Water, based on the color of the river in its lower reaches.
It was Michael Bourbon, a French-Canadian trapper with the Hudson Bay Fur Company, who is credited with the Bear River name. He called the river the Bear in 1818 while trapping along it, because of the prevalence of black bears and grizzly bears found in the Intermountain West at that time.
However, the Bear name didn't stick at first and it was years later when William Kittson, a clerk with Peter Skene Ogden's trapping group, recalled Bourbon's title and reapplied it.
Were bears really that common along the river? At least one trapper in May of 1825 had to jump into the Bear River at Cache Valley to escape a grizzly bear attack.
Facts, tidbits and tales of the Bear River:
The Bear River drains some 4.8 million acres — including more than 150 lakes and reservoirs and 50 tributaries.
—Since all the water in the Bear River watershed is a closed basin, pollution problems can be particularly troublesome, with no outlet for the water.
Oddly, the Bear River was rarely naturally linked with Bear Lake in modern times, though a canal and the Stewart Dam (built in 1911) do connect them now. This link to river has allowed Bear Lake to rise as much as 21.5 feet, In prehistoric times, high water levels probably occasionally connected the Bear Lake and Bear River, though.
In past ages, the Bear River was also simply a tributary of the Snake River. Then, about 140,000 years ago, lava flows near today's Soda Spring diverted it toward the Great Salt Lake. Thousands of years later, the river cut through the lava and returned to the Snake River. Then, some 35,000 years ago, another lava flow sent the river back to the GSL and created today's path.
The namesake to Soda Springs, Idaho, lurks beneath nearby Alexander Reservoir, west of that Caribou County town. However, that hot spring wasn't always "Soda." Its original name was "Beer Springs," given it by early fur trappers in the area.
Even some buffalo were originally spotted along sections of the Bear River, though none were reported after 1833.
Lucrative fur trapping, particularly along the Bear and Green rivers, helped support the U.S. economy in the 1820s and 1830s.
The Bear River also served as an early boundary line of sorts. The Grace, Idaho, area was originally known as "Gentile Valley" in the 1870s until 1910. The area was first settled by non-Mormons in 1865 and tensions rose in the 1870s as Brigham Young sent church members there. For a time, Mormon settlers strictly lived on the east side of the Bear River and the nonmembers on the west side, until issues were resolved.
For more Bear River information: Visit "Journey through the Bear River Watershed," by Nicol Gagstetter and Nancy Mesner, Utah State University (extension.usu.edu/waterquality/htm/); and www.bearriverinfo.org.
— Lynn Arave
Where the Bear River's name came from:
According to John W. Van Cott's book "Utah Place Names," Bear River wasn't the river's only name. It was also known as Mud River, White Mud River and Miller River by explorers in the early 19th century.
American Indians referred to it as Quee-yah-pah for Tobacco Root Water or Gull-yah-pah for Tobacco Water, based on the color of the river in its lower reaches.
It was Michael Bourbon, a French-Canadian trapper with the Hudson Bay Fur Company, who is credited with the Bear River name. He called the river the Bear in 1818 while trapping along it, because of the prevalence of black bears and grizzly bears found in the Intermountain West at that time.
However, the Bear name didn't stick at first, and it was years later when William Kittson, a clerk with Peter Skene Ogden's trapping group, recalled Bourbon's title and reapplied it.
Were bears really that common along the river? At least one trapper in May of 1825 had to jump into the Bear River at Cache Valley to escape a grizzly bear attack.
Facts, tidbits and tales of the Bear River:
The Bear River drains some 4.8 million acres — including more than 150 lakes and reservoirs and 50 tributaries.
Since all the water in the Bear River watershed is a closed basin, pollution problems can be particularly troublesome.
Oddly, the Bear River was rarely naturally linked with Bear Lake in modern times, though a canal and the Stewart Dam (built in 1911) do connect them now. This link to the river has allowed Bear Lake to rise as much as 21.5 feet. In prehistoric times, high water levels probably occasionally connected the Bear Lake and Bear River, though.
In past ages, the Bear River was also simply a tributary of the Snake River. Then, about 140,000 years ago, lava flows near today's Soda Spring diverted it toward the Great Salt Lake. Thousands of years later, the river cut through the lava and returned to the Snake River. Then, some 35,000 years ago, another lava flow sent the river back to the GSL and created today's path.
The namesake to Soda Springs, Idaho, lurks beneath nearby Alexander Reservoir, west of that Caribou County town. However, that hot spring wasn't always "Soda." Its original name was "Beer Springs," given it by early fur trappers in the area.
Even some buffalo were originally spotted along sections of the Bear River, though none were reported after 1833.
Lucrative fur trapping, particularly along the Bear and Green rivers, helped support the U.S. economy in the 1820s and 1830s.
The Bear River also served as an early boundary line of sorts. The Grace, Idaho, area was originally known as "Gentile Valley" in the 1870s until 1910. The area was first settled by non-Mormons in 1865 and tensions rose in the 1870s as Brigham Young sent church members there. For a time, Mormon settlers strictly lived on the east side of the Bear River and the nonmembers on the west side, until issues were resolved.
For more Bear River information: Visit "Journey through the Bear River Watershed," by Nicol Gagstetter and Nancy Mesner, Utah State University (extension.usu.edu/waterquality/htm/); and www.bearriverinfo.org.
The Bear (River) facts)