Leaving Salina, the trail passes through rolling red hills.
These red rocks are much older than those exposed at the other
side of the valley in the Pahvant Range. At places, such as
northeast of Sigurd, these rocks contain enough gypsum to make
wallboard. On the map this area is marked by the word
"Mines" and the crossed-picks symbol. Several
wallboard manufacturing plants are located in Sigurd.
After passing through the hills, the trail breaks out onto
the floor of the Sevier River Valley. Here, irrigated fields of
alfalfa flank the trail on both sides. After making a sharp
right turn at a grove of cottonwood trees, the trail heads west
across the valley and crosses the Sevier River at the trail's
lowest point, 5,140 feet. Then, after crossing old Highway 89,
the trail enters the town of Aurora.
West of Aurora the trail climbs the foothills of the Pahvant
Range. It is a good trail, but rocky in places. Vegetation is
sagebrush and grass with scattered clumps of pinyon and juniper
There are good views of the Sevier Valley, Musina Peak, Monroe
Mountain, and the Sevier Plateau from several of the
ridgecrests. Northward there are views of the Gunnison Plateau,
while to the south are the Tushars, often snow-capped. A
treeless depression in these foothills is called Frogs Flat, but
without water it is difficult to understand how it was named.
From Frogs Flat to the mouth of the canyon of Willow Creek
the trail passes through scattered clumps of pinyon and juniper
alternating with openings of sagebrush and grass. The red cliffs
southwest of the trail are composed of material shed from an
ancient mountain range that preceded the present Pahvant Range.
The cliffs are part of the fault scarp that raised the Pahvants
above the surrounding valleys. Recent movement along this fault
is shown by bare, white lines visible at the base of the slope.
The lake to the northwest is Scipio Lake, a reservoir supplying
irrigation water to the town of Scipio. This section of the
trail is hot in the summer; but good for spring and fall riding.
The trail meets the Willow Creek Road, Forest Road 102, near
the Forest boundary. On the flats below the canyon it is a good
road, rising through a mosaic of sagebrush and pinyon-juniper.
On entering the canyon the road becomes a bit rougher but is
still good. Here there are cottonwood, oak, and maple along the
stream with pinyon and juniper on the drier hillsides. Soon
spruce and fir join in. Within the canyon there are several good
spots near the creek for overnight camping. Cool air drainage
makes the canyon cool in the daytime but nippy at night.
Near the top of the switchbacks there is a pull-off on the
east side of the road that provides a sweeping view of the
surrounding country. To the northwest is Jacks Peak. Then there
is Round Valley and, on a clear day, Mount Nebo can be seen over
the Valley Mountains. To the southeast is Beehive Peak and the
Sevier River Valley.
A short distance north of the pull-off the trail passes a
rain gage that is a vital link in stream-flow forecasting in
this arid country. The Pahvant Range is tied to the water
economy of central Utah in other ways, as demonstrated by the
contour trenches visible on the west side of the trail. These
are remedial measures constructed to retard runoff, allowing it
to seep into the ground. These trenches are a monument to a
vital portion of Fishlake Forest history.
Around the turn of the century there was no management of
grazing. Sheep bands raced to get the most grass before others
ate it. Neither the absentee sheep owners nor the government,
which intended to dispose of the land in homesteads, worried
about the future. The result was severe overgrazing which
deprived locals of summer forage for their domestic stock and
led to destructive flooding of the valley towns. The surrounding
communities petitioned the Federal Government to correct these
problems. Eventually this led to the establishment of the
Fishlake and other National Forests in southern Utah. In
addition to reducing grazing by as much as 700 percent in some
places, the Forest Service constructed contour trenches to
retard runoff. These trenches stop soil erosion on steep lands
and allow vegetation to regain a hold on the soil.
Both spring runoff and summer thunderstorms can make the
trail across the entire length of the Pahvant Range extremely
slippery. The clay soils are also highly prone to rutting, which
leads to a rough road when they dry out.
This portion of the trail provides stunning overlooks of
steep timbered canyons to the west and red rock canyons to the
east. Even though both sides of the range have steep, narrow
canyons, the Pahvant Range really does have a split personality.
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