rather steadily to an elevation of about 

 10,300 feet at the Skyline Drive. This 

 3,500-foot rise occurs within a distance of 

 about 4.5 airline miles, but some 10 miles by 

 the Ephraim-Orangeville road. In traversing 

 the Range, this road rises from the lower edge 

 of Merriam's Transition life zone through the 

 Canadian and Hudsonian zones to the Arctic- 

 Alpine zone. Total annual precipitation in- 

 creases from an average of 16 inches at 

 Major's Flat (7,100 feet elevation) to about 

 40 inches at the summit. These four life zones 

 and associated biotic communities, so close 

 together and easily accessible, provide great 

 diversity in plant species, soils, and climate, 

 and thus give opportunity for convenient, 

 efficient study of a wide variety of eco- 

 logically oriented problems of wildland 

 management. 



■ Site Selection 

 and Buildings 



The Utah Experiment Station literally had 

 to be carved out of the wilderness. First-time 

 visitors to the headquarters invariably ask: 

 "How did this beautiful site happen to be 

 selected?" Accounts of the actual selection 

 vary. One states that about 1911 A. E. 



Sherman (District Forester), Homer Fenn (As- 

 sistant District Forester), R. V. R. Reynolds 

 (Forest Examiner), and a Mr. Hodson of the 

 Manti National Forest set out to select a pos- 

 sible site for an experiment station. These 

 four men and the narrator, A. W. Jensen, first 

 supervisor of the Manti National Forest, drove 

 up Fairview Canyon in a buggy to look at a 

 site in the approximate location of the pres- 

 ent Gooseberry Ranger Station, but they de- 

 cided against it. They then drove up Ephraim 

 Canyon to the area now called Bluebell Flat, 

 but rejected it, as they did another proposed 

 site farther up the canyon. As they were re- 

 turning down the canyon, they turned off the 

 road at the point where the Station is now 

 situated and were immediately and favorably 

 impressed with the site. James T. Jardine, 

 then Chief of Experiment Stations in the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, and Dr. A. W. Samp- 

 son, who was Chief Investigator of Range for 

 the Department, concurred that the site 

 selected was good. 



Once the headquarters site had been 

 selected and boundaries for the Station area 

 had been determined, trees had to be felled, 

 stumps pulled (fig. 2), land leveled, fences in- 

 stalled (to protect Station grounds and some 

 experimental areas from being overrun by 

 stock), and buildings constructed. Hence it is 

 no smprise that Director Sampson's first an- 

 nual report (December, 1913) of the Station's 



Figure 2. — Clearing ground on west side of laboratory building, June 1914. 



3 



