Did you all get to take advantage of our beautiful surroundings this past summer? Hiking, mountain biking, even just going for a stroll to take in natural sights – all of it is like a refreshing bath for the brain. As autumn comes and summer activities wind down, let’s take a look back, way back, to the summer of 1922.
Park City had a hiking club. The group of men and women would get together every so often throughout the summer to explore the area. The activities would often last the whole day and include picnic lunches, “making life worth the living,” and post-adventure refreshments at a member’s house.
In May 1922, the Wasatch Mountain Club, founded just two years previously, sent a letter to Park City inviting any and all hikers to join them in a trek to Brighton. Plans were made several weeks in advance and though the snow had not yet melted from the highest of the peaks on the route, a large group set out on June 3.
Two hundred Salt Lake hikers descended upon Park City around 6 o’clock in the evening and, after a quick meet-and-greet with the Parkites who planned to join them, the entire group set off for the Comstock mine. The group had obtained permission from the mine owners to spend the night in their bunk houses. Men and women were separated and after a good night’s rest, the group came back together early Sunday morning to proceed to Brighton.
Credit: Park City Historical Society and Museum, Emmett Wright Digital Collection
The remaining snow was hard-packed enough to walk on without sinking, so the hikers had a “pleasant trip” down into Big Cottonwood Canyon. In Brighton, the day was “spent cavorting on the snowy slopes and seeing the sights,” according to the report in the Park Record. The day was a “big and jolly affair.”
Both the Park City Hiking Club and the Wasatch Mountain Club were founded with the intention of encouraging residents throughout the area to “enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery and the unexcelled outdoor exercise.” As the paper outlined, both sought to “stimulate interest in outdoor recreation, to obtain a better knowledge of animal and plant life, develop more acute observation, study our natural resource, acquire a broader experience and understanding of our mountain industries, and assist in the preservation of forests and waterways.”
The two clubs got along well on the inaugural group hike. About a month after the Brighton trek, representatives from both met to discuss Park City becoming officially affiliated with Wasatch.