The Search for Death Hill

Well, we went up north this weekend to find Death Hill. It was easy enough to visit the Scenic Landslide and Dead Man’s Hill; both are well marked. But no one knows that Death Hill exists, including personnel at the county offices. (That is to say, they didn’t know about it until Friday) We walked in and showed them the paragraph in Pioneer Potpourri that reads,

The East Jordan Lumber Co. found a good stand on a steep hill which later became known as Death Hill, found in Echo Township it is not to be confused with Dead Man’s Hill, located in the Jordan Valley.

And they became involved in the search. They called every office in the territory, sent us to the museum where we found some really good stuff and even called a museum that was closed for the weekend. But no one could find Death Hill.

We drove through Echo Township and saw some beautiful country, including some steep hills where one could certainly believe a logging team might lose their lives. Yet we found nothing.

In the end, we decided to give up the search and go to visit an old Aunt who lived in the territory and who is now residing in an assisted living facility. Ours was a lost cause.

Then as we visited, I told Aunt Alice of our quest and she said. “Well yes, I know where it is. It’s off of the road to Belair. (Yes, Belair, not Bellaire – We locals call the town Belair) At this point I grabbed my pencil and began to take notes. “It’s an old 2 track road,” she said. “And it’s kept open for hiking and skiing.”

So the next day, before going to the family reunion, we grabbed our map and headed out in the direction she’d given. We traveled the 2 track roads into the deep woods. Then we found the trail to Death Hill just as she’d said. We traveled deeper and deeper into the wilds and the roads grew more and more narrow and muddier and filled with potholes. In the end we came to a place where the county had made a roadbed across a fast moving stream out of broken rock pieces that were rougher than a corn cob. This is where we stopped. We’ll go back some day driving a truck that is designed to traverse such territory.

So we found the object of our search in the process of doing a kind deed.

Hmmmmm, I think there may be a moral there somewhere.

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