Heartbreak Ridge: The Wasatch Wall on the Mormon Trail

This summit on the Mormon Pioneer Trail is known today as Heartbreak Ridge, a name that captures what early emigrants felt when they crested it and saw the rugged Wasatch Mountains stretching ahead. William Clayton, who kept one of the most detailed diaries of the eighteen forty-seven pioneer company, wrote here that the country to the west looked rough and mountainous.

For the Latter-day Saint pioneers making their way to the Salt Lake Valley, this panorama was both a landmark and a test of faith. They had already come eighty miles from Fort Bridger, with hard terrain ahead and behind. Thousands of emigrants crossed this summit during the great overland migrations of the eighteen forties and eighteen fifties. The sign here pointing eighty miles to Fort Bridger is a reminder of how distance was measured in those years, not in hours, but in days of walking.