09/11/2015
In a recent trip to the Uintas, I wondered about the history of the Wilderness Area. When I got back, I looked it up, and found that in 1984 Congress designated the High Uintas Wilderness Area, covering 456,000 acres.
That's great, but I remember as a young teen going into a special designated area in the Uintas in the 1970s, and it seemed then that that designation was old. What was that?
In 1931 the Forest Service designated 237,00 acres as a "Primitive Area." That rang a bell. Back as a young hiker, it was the Primitive Area, and now it's a Wilderness area, with 200,000 extra acres.
You probably don't care, but now you know. Between 1931 and 1984, the Uintas had over a quarter million acres in a Primitive Area. After '84, it's almost a half-million acres of Wilderness Area.
