Mt. Logan North

The Mt. Logan North Inventoried Roadless Area covers 18,930 acres of montane mountain country in the Logan Ranger District of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, on the east-facing flank of the Bear River Range above Logan and Providence. Logan Peak and Providence Peak crown the southern end of the unit, with Temple Baldy and Little Baldy stepping north along the Utah-Idaho divide. The terrain breaks into canyons and hollows — Card Canyon, Providence Canyon, Right Fork Logan Canyon, Cowley Canyon, Dry Canyon, Welches Hollow, Mill Hollow, Powder Hollow, and Hells Kitchen — that gather water toward the Logan River. The Card Canyon-Logan River watershed (HUC12: 160102030307) is the largest municipal and agricultural water source for Cache Valley; the Right Fork Logan River, Spring Creek, Box Spring, Pine Spring, Card Canyon Spring, and Providence Lake all lie within the area.

The forest cover is stratified by elevation and aspect. On exposed limestone ridges, Great Basin Subalpine Bristlecone Pine Woodland holds limber pine (Pinus flexilis) and curl-leaf mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius). Below, Rocky Mountain Dry Subalpine Spruce-Fir Forest of subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) grades into Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest with Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta). Rocky Mountain Aspen Forest of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) opens broad bands on mid-slope. Lower benches carry Rocky Mountain Gambel Oak Shrubland of Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii), Colorado Plateau Pinyon-Juniper Woodland of Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma), and Great Basin Big Sagebrush Shrubland of big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata). Canyon bottoms hold Rocky Mountain Bigtooth Maple Canyon stands of bigtooth maple (Acer grandidentatum), with narrowleaf cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) and spring birch (Betula occidentalis) along the streams. Arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata), scarlet skyrocket (Ipomopsis aggregata), and Wasatch beardtongue (Penstemon cyananthus) carry the open slopes.

Wildlife distributes along these same elevation bands. In the high spruce-fir and bristlecone, Clark's nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) caches limber pine seeds, and the black rosy-finch (Leucosticte atrata) feeds on exposed ridges. Mid-slope mixed-conifer and aspen hold broad-tailed hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus), western tanager (Piranga ludoviciana), flammulated owl (Psiloscops flammeolus), and Townsend's solitaire (Myadestes townsendi). The sage and oak country at the foot supports sage thrasher (Oreoscoptes montanus) and provides mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and wapiti (Cervus canadensis) with critical winter range. Bonneville sculpin (Cottus semiscaber) and mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) hold the cold reaches of the Logan River, with brown trout (Salmo trutta) and Rocky Mountain cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus virginalis) in the tributaries; American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus) and American beaver (Castor canadensis) work the riparian zone. The limestone cliffs of Card Canyon and Providence Canyon hold canyon wren (Catherpes mexicanus). Portions of this area fall within the potential range of several federally listed species; see the Conservation section for details.

A visitor coming up Logan Canyon enters the area at the foot of Card Canyon and Providence Canyon, where the road climbs through Gambel oak and bigtooth maple before opening into mixed conifer. The Card Canyon trail leads up past Box Spring and Card Canyon Spring under steep limestone walls — the canyon wren's descending call rings off the rock. Climbing onto the ridges, the route opens to subalpine grassland and views east across the Bear River Range toward Idaho. Late in the season the bigtooth maple turn red against the dark conifer canopy.

The Mt. Logan North Inventoried Roadless Area extends across 18,930 acres in the Logan Ranger District of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, in the headwaters of Card Canyon and the Logan River. Long before federal stewardship, the country was the homeland of the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, who called Cache Valley Sihiviogoi — "willow river" — and gathered cattail roots, fish, and game from its marshes and streams [1]. The Pangwiduka, "fish eaters," ranged across the Logan River drainage; one Newe settlement called Kwa'gunogoi stood along the Logan River above its junction with the Little Bear River [1]. The Shoshone moved seasonally between fishing camps in southern Idaho, hunting grounds in Wyoming, and the Wasatch Mountains, which supplied small game and important seeds and plant roots [2].

Mormon settlers arrived in the 1850s and eroded the resource base and homeland of the Shoshone, and in the bitter winter of 1862-63 conflict reached its peak [1]. On January 29, 1863, the U.S. Army's Third California Volunteers under Colonel Patrick Connor massacred around 350 Northwestern Shoshone Indians at the Bear River, four miles north of Preston, Idaho [2]. The Bear River Massacre is the largest massacre of Indians in the country's history; the site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990 [2].

The new settlers turned quickly to the canyons for timber. In 1859, Esias Edwards and Leroy Kent erected the first sawmill in what would become Cache Valley's Millville [4]. After the Union Pacific railroad reached Utah in 1868, demand for railroad ties exploded [4]; in one contract, sawmills in Logan Canyon alone sent 75,000 ties to the Union Pacific, and in 1881 supplied 53,000 for the Oregon Short Line [4]. By the turn of the 20th century, unregulated logging and grazing had resulted in serious watershed decline, and the Logan River — the largest supplier of water to Cache Valley — ran polluted and low [3]. In February 1902 a small group of conservation-minded intellectuals and businessmen in Cache Valley convinced local farmers and stockmen to petition the federal government to set aside the Bear River Range as a forest reserve [3]; during July 1902, government grazing officer Albert F. Potter surveyed the range [3].

On May 29, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt officially created the Logan Forest Reserve, totaling 182,080 acres across roughly nine townships including what is today the Logan Ranger District [3]. In 1906 the reserve was renamed the Bear River Forest Reserve and expanded to include forested lands near Marsh Creek and Malad, Idaho [3]. On July 1, 1908, forested lands in northern Utah and southern Idaho were consolidated to create the Cache National Forest [3]. In 1973 the Cache National Forest was merged with the Wasatch National Forest to form the Wasatch-Cache National Forest [3]. The Mt. Logan North area, on the divide between Cache County, Utah, and Franklin County, Idaho, lies within those original Logan Forest Reserve lands and is protected under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Vital Resources Protected

Cache Valley Water Supply — The Card Canyon-Logan River watershed has major hydrologic significance: the Logan River and its tributaries Spring Creek, Right Fork Logan River, Box Spring, Pine Spring, and Card Canyon Spring all gather inside this roadless block, and the Logan River is the largest supplier of water to Cache Valley. The roadless condition keeps these headwaters free of the road cuts, culverts, and grazing impacts that produced serious watershed decline at the turn of the twentieth century — the same crisis that drove creation of the Logan Forest Reserve in 1903. Stable channels, intact riparian shading, and protected spring complexes deliver cold, clear water for municipal supply and downstream irrigation.

Limestone Cliff Refugia — The cliffs of Card Canyon, Providence Canyon, and the steep walls below Logan Peak host federally threatened Maguire's primrose (Primula maguirei), a Logan Canyon limestone endemic, and the rare cespitose rockmat (Petrophytum caespitosum). The roadless condition keeps these cliff-face microsites and the seeps that feed Ute ladies'-tresses (Spiranthes diluvialis) undisturbed by road construction, blasting, or quarrying. Because Maguire's primrose grows nowhere else on Earth, the cliff-face habitat in this unit is genuinely irreplaceable.

Aspen-Conifer-Sage Winter Range — The 18,930-acre block links Great Basin Big Sagebrush Shrubland and Rocky Mountain Gambel Oak Shrubland on lower benches through Rocky Mountain Aspen Forest and Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest to Rocky Mountain Wet Subalpine Spruce-Fir Forest and Great Basin Subalpine Bristlecone Pine Woodland at the rim. This unbroken elevational mosaic supplies critical winter range for mule deer and wapiti coming off the Bear River Range, and provides interior habitat for flammulated owl, federally threatened yellow-billed cuckoo, and the IUCN-vulnerable silver-haired bat.

Potential Effects of Road Construction

• Sedimentation of municipal water source. Road cuts on the steep walls of Card Canyon, Providence Canyon, and Right Fork Logan Canyon would expose erodible montane soils and concentrate runoff into the Logan River — Cache Valley's largest water source. Sediment loads above natural levels degrade Bonneville sculpin and trout spawning gravels, and require costly treatment downstream. Watershed decline of this kind drove the original creation of the Logan Forest Reserve in 1903; recovery on incised canyon walls is slow.

• Loss of cliff endemic and riparian rare plant habitat. Maguire's primrose grows only on dolomitic limestone cliffs in Logan Canyon, and Ute ladies'-tresses depends on cold, calcareous wetland seeps. Road construction on or near these cliff and spring habitats destroys substrate directly, alters the precise moisture conditions these species require, and removes shading that protects them from desiccation. Both species have no alternative habitat; once the cliff face or seep is disturbed, the population is lost.

• Fragmentation of winter range and invasive incursion. Linear road corridors fragment the continuous Gambel oak, sagebrush, and aspen cover that mule deer and wapiti use as critical winter range, and expose these communities to cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) invasion along disturbed shoulders. Increased fine fuels shorten fire return intervals beyond what big sagebrush and Gambel oak tolerate; the Great Basin Subalpine Bristlecone Pine Woodland on the rim becomes more vulnerable to white pine blister rust spread along the corridor. Recovery of converted sagebrush or invaded aspen understory takes many decades.

The Mt. Logan North area is one of the most accessible roadless units on the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, reached from six trailheads strung along US 89 in Logan Canyon: Preston Valley, Riverside Nature Trail – Spring Hollow, Riverside Nature Trail – Guinavah, Red Bridge, Wind Caves, and Right Hand Fork. Five developed campgrounds — Spring Hollow, Preston Valley, Lodge, Bridger, and Guinavah-Malibu — line the canyon and serve as bases for trips into the surrounding ridges. The River Trail (#7603, 3.2 miles) and the Riverside Nature Trail (#7052, 1.3 miles) follow the Logan River through bigtooth maple and box elder. The short Bridger Look Off (#7040, 0.7 miles) and Highline (#7608, 0.7 miles) climb to canyon overlooks suitable for visitors of all abilities.

Longer summer routes carry hikers, stock, and bikes deeper into the area. From the canyon floor, Wind Cave Trail (#7032, 1.9 miles) climbs to the well-known limestone cave; Spring Hollow Trail (#7124, 5.7 miles) and Crimson Trail (#7015, 3.2 miles) cover the cliff country east of the highway. Providence Canyon Trail (#7770, 3.6 miles) and Card Canyon East and West (#7159 and #7064, 3.1 and 2.9 miles) drop east into the south end of the unit. Logan Dry Canyon (#7016, 4.5 miles), Big Baldy (#7120, 4.6 miles), Mill Hollow (#7125, 1.5 miles), Logan Dry-Mill Hollow (#7017, 3.3 miles), and the Richards Hollow Great Western Trail link (#7019G, 5.6 miles) carry visitors up onto the ridges around Logan Peak and Providence Peak. Syncline Trail (#7029, 1.8 miles) and Adams Corral (#7047, 1.4 miles) connect the side drainages.

Birding is exceptional. Twenty-one active eBird hotspots lie within 10 kilometers; First Dam (162 species), Green Canyon (160), and Canal Trail (147) are the most productive. Inside the area, mixed-conifer and aspen at Spring Hollow and Card Canyon hold MacGillivray's warbler, broad-tailed hummingbird, western tanager, and Townsend's solitaire in summer; the limestone cliffs of Wind Caves and Card Canyon attract canyon wren, golden eagle, and Cooper's hawk. American dipper works the Logan River from First Dam upward, and waterbirds — Barrow's goldeneye, common merganser, hooded merganser — winter on its open reaches.

Winter brings cross-country skiing and snowshoeing on the Providence Canyon Winter Sport Trail (SNO-7770, 2.4 miles), and informal use of the lower canyon trails when conditions allow. Many of the lower-elevation hiking and biking trails dry out early enough to extend the use season at both ends.

Hunters work the area for mule deer, wapiti, dusky grouse, ruffed grouse, and wild turkey across the elevation gradient between sagebrush winter range and high spruce-fir. Anglers find brown trout, rainbow trout, Rocky Mountain cutthroat trout, and mountain whitefish in the Logan River and Right Fork Logan River, whose cold-water character depends on intact streamside cover. Each of these activities relies on the area's roadless condition: the canyon trails draw down into quiet drainages instead of paralleling forest roads; the Logan River's water quality and trout populations rest on undisturbed banks; mule deer and elk hold winter range because there is unbroken sagebrush and oak cover; and the cliff-nesting birds and rare endemic plants of Card and Providence Canyons require freedom from blasting and road-building above their habitat. Road construction on the high benches above Logan Canyon would change the character of every trail listed above.