The Forest Service (FS) is proposing to replace a useless, dilapidated, sheet metal Quonset hut in the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness in Utah. The hut was damaged by snow during the winter of 2021-2022. While the FS has sold this as updating the old structure, the agency would construct an entirely new building with a new concrete slab in the Wilderness.
The plan includes invading the Wilderness with an undisclosed number of helicopter flights and landings, and using jackhammers, cement mixers, and other motorized tools.
The FS absurdly claims that rebuilding the structure would improve the area’s wilderness character. Wilderness Watch is working to convince the agency to allow the hut to fade with time, or remove its collapsed remnants using wilderness-compatible means. The FS built the hut without motorized equipment, falsifying its claim that it can’t dismantle (or repair) it using traditional means.
The hut was built in 1960, prior to the area’s 1984 wilderness designation, to provide shelter and restrooms for an annual public group hike first organized in 1912. Excessive impacts during the 1969 event, when 8,000 people attempted to reach Mount Timpanogos’ 11,753-foot summit, caused the FS to ask hike organizers to end the event. The group hike ended and the hut deteriorated over the decades.
The FS’s first responsibility is to protect the area’s wild character. The agency’s own wilderness policy recognizes that a structure is not needed for visitor use, and states that visitors must be prepared to face “inherent risks of adverse weather conditions, isolation, physical hazards, and lack
of rapid communications….”
In August 2025, the agency preliminarily approved the plan to build the new hut, and Wilderness Watch responded with a formal objection. We’ll keep everyone updated.
Photos: Mount Timpanogos Wilderness by Gary Macfarlane / Quinoset hut in the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness by USFS
