The Wasatch range, which has a length of about 160 miles, is a north-south trending chain of mountains that are adjacent to the western border of Wyoming.

The Unita range, which traverses across 150 miles, is an east-west trending chain of mountains that are adjacent to the southern border of Wyoming. The Unita Mountains are where the highest point of Utah is located, Kings Peak at 13,528 feet.

The Wasatch Mountains range is located almost entirely within the state of Utah, with a very small area stretching northward into Idaho. The Unita Mountain Range is located almost entirely within the state of Utah except for a small area stretching northward into Wyoming.

In the language of the native Ute people, Wasatch means mountain pass or low pass over high range. However, according to William Bright, the mountains were named for a Shoshoni leader who was named with the Shoshoni term wasattsi, meaning "blue heron

The origin of the word Ute is unknown but it was first as Yuta in Spanish documents. The automun (self-designation) for the Utes is Núuchi-u, which in the Numic language means, The People.

The Ute are an Indigenous people who live within the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau in present-day Utah, western Colorado, and northern New Mexico. The language of the Ute people is a Colorado River Numic language, which is part of the Uto-Aztecan language family.

Early on, ir territory also included parts of Wyoming, eastern Nevada, and Arizona. Also, the Utes belonged to almost a dozen nomadic bands who came together for ceremonies and trade, which other bands included many of the Uto-Aztecan numic speaking tribe.

Later, as the Atezcati Cahuilla continued to dimminish, the Utes moved north into the area now know as the Four Corners region and for the next two hundreds years were continued to trade with their Numic language family as well as with other neighboring tribes of the Pueblo peoples, including: Anazazi, Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi.

Then in the early 1700s, first contact was with the Spanish and later acquired horses from neighboring tribes and continue throughout the 18th century with regional trade with the Spanish through other tribes. Sustained contact with Euro-Americans began in 1847 with the arrival of the Mormons to the American West. Then, in 1850, the gold rushes began, while during this entire time, the Utes fought to protect their homeland from the influx of the new Nation of people. In 1864, it was Brigham Young who persuaded the then US President, Abraham Lincoln, to forcibly remove the Utes still in utah to an Indian Reservation. Then, in 1881, the Colorado Utes were forced onto a reservation.

Sometime before 1300 CE, the ancestral Utes, still living a hunter-gather lifestyle, had arrived in the Four Corners region. The Ute occupied much of the present state of Colorado by the 1600s. The Comanches from the north joined them in eastern Colorado in the early 1700s. Then, in the 1800s, the Arapaho and Cheyenne invaded southward into eastern Colorado.

By the time the Europeans arrived upon the scene, the Utes came to inhabit a large area including most of Utah, western and central Colorado, and south into the San Juan River watershed of New Mexico and as far as into California. Some Ute bands stayed near their home domains, while others ranged further away seasonally. Hunting grounds extended further into Utah and Colorado, as well as into Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. Winter camps were established along rivers near the present-day cities of Provo and Fort Duchesne in Utah and Pueblo, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs of Colorado. Between all of this territory, the pathways came to be called The Ute Trail. Later, the European explorers and settlers began to use these several pathways to traverse from their eastern origins to their western destinations. Some time during the years after this time, the Ute Trail came to be called The Old Spanish Trail.

Others who walked these old pathways include: Dominguez-Escalante (1776-1777), Francisco Garces (1774), Jedediah Smith (1826-1827), Northern OST (1831), Majave Road (1826), Armijo Route (1829) and North Branch (1848).

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American Fork Canyon

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Utah Campground Index