Ensign Peak

Last Thursday I was off for school on Fall Break and I wanted to go for a hike. So we found a short one near by. Here's the history of Ensign Peak.

After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, President Brigham Young and eight others hiked a nearby peak. President Young remarked that it "was a proper place to raise an ensign to the nations" and so it was named Ensign Peak. Before leaving Nauvoo, President Young had seen a vision of the Prophet Joseph wherein he was shown the peak and told to "build under the point where the colors fall, and you will prosper and have peace."

Elder B. H. Roberts reported that since the Church had no temple after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Addison Pratt "was taken to the summit of Ensign Peak and given his endowments, that he might return to those islands of the sea in which he had labored, with greater spiritual power."

In 1934, an 18-foot monument was placed there by the Salt Lake Ensign Stake Mutual Improvement Associations. The monument is comprised of stones collected from stakes along the Mormon Trail. The inscriptions of the names of some stakes are still visible today.

On July 26, 1996, President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the Ensign Peak Nature Park which included Ensign Peak and an additional 66 acres surrounding it. President Hinckley dedicated it that it may "be a place of pondering, a place of remembrance, a place of thoughtful gratitude, a place of purposeful resolution." The effort was headed by the Ensign Peak Foundation later known as the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, who worked closely with the Salt Lake City Corporation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also constructed a memorial garden near the base of the peak which tells of the peaks' significance and the early pioneers who built up the Salt Lake Valley.

So here are some pictures of our short hike. It's less than a mile up and it is a pretty steep hike but it's not so bad. I only wish we had gone a little later because it was pretty bright up there. But there were some good views. (the pollution in salt lake is really evident when you see these photos-that's why some of the mountains aren't really obvious.)

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