By my mid-teens I knew I wanted to be a forester. That aspiration grew from my family camping trips, Boy Scout experiences, and days wandering in the woods of southwest Ohio. By early high school I had researched the top forestry schools in the country. I had also narrowed my choices down to a few universities in the East and a few in the West.

My summer Scouting trips to New Mexico hooked me on the west. My senior year in high school I was accepted into the Forestry program at Utah State University in Logan. I didn’t know much, if anything, about western forests. And I sure didn’t know a thing about Utah. But I was pumped!

When my backpacking instructor job at Philmont ended late summer 1974, I went home to Hamilton to pack for college. Mom and I drove cross-country following I-70 into Colorado. We decided to visit Rocky Mountain National Park and then take US 40 into Utah.

We camped a night in the east side of the Park near Estes and drove in awe the next day through the Park and into northwestern Colorado and eastern Utah. For this easterner, there was an amazing amount of open space. There was also this land feature we climbed up and over called the Continental Divide. I had no idea what it was or meant.

I asked Mom to pull over so I could look it up in a dictionary she gave me for high school graduation. She thought I was nuts but she stopped anyway. Stopped along the side of the highway, I dug through the trunk until I found the dictionary and a definition. While the definition made sense, I did not fully grasp the meaning because the concept was new to me. Interestingly, I had no idea I would spend much of my professional career and adult life working and recreating on the Continental Divide .

We arrived in Logan and checked into a motel. The next day we went to the dormitory and unloaded the car. A lady working the front desk looked at Mom and rudely said “Well I guess he doesn’t need you anymore!” She was so hurt she cried.

After unloading the car we drove Highway 89 through Logan Canyon and the Cache National Forest. 

The fall colors were stunning: reds of Gamble oak, yellows of mountain maple, and golds of cottonwood and Quaking aspen. The mountains were rugged, the Logan River was crystal clear, and the sky was a stunning blue. Logan Canyon is now a designated scenic byway and I encourage you to “take the drive” if you are ever in the area.

The next day Mom headed home to Ohio. For me, I had I met my goal: “Go West young man, go West“!

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