Big Piney Mountain

A dam built in 1954 created what may be Utah's most accidentally perfect trout habitat, transforming a high mountain meadow into a crystalline reservoir where brook trout now reproduce naturally at 8,000 feet elevation. The engineering project meant to store irrigation water for farmers in the Weber Valley below became something unplanned: a fishery so productive that anglers drive four hours from Salt Lake City just to cast flies into water cold enough to support native cutthroat alongside transplanted eastern brook trout.

Smith and Morehouse Reservoir sits in a glacial cirque in the [[rabbit:Uinta Mountains]] of Summit County, Utah, where granite peaks rise above forests of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir. The reservoir stretches 2.5 miles long and covers 240 surface acres when full, its waters reflecting the 10,000-foot ridges of Bald Mountain and Mount Watson. Summer temperatures here rarely exceed 75 degrees, while winter brings snowpack that can reach 12 feet deep, sealing the reservoir under ice from December through May.

The [[rabbit:Ute peoples]] knew this drainage as part of their high country hunting grounds, following elk and deer migrations through passes that connected the north slope of the Uintas to the Weber and Bear River valleys. They called similar high basins "the place where water begins," understanding these cirques as the source of rivers that flowed both north toward the Snake River and south into the Colorado River system. The Ute established seasonal camps in meadows like this one, harvesting pine nuts and hunting mountain sheep on the surrounding ridges during late summer before winter snow made the high country impassable.

French trappers working for the [[rabbit:Hudson's Bay Company]] reached these mountains in the 1820s, following beaver streams up from the Weber Valley. They found the meadow that would become Smith and Morehouse dotted with beaver ponds, part of a complex wetland system that trapped snowmelt and released it gradually through the growing season. The trappers' maps marked this area as part of the headwaters of the Weber River, though the actual source lay several miles to the east in a series of small lakes and springs near the Utah-Wyoming border.

The names Smith and Morehouse appeared on territorial maps by the 1870s, attached to two early ranchers who grazed cattle in the mountain meadows during summer months. Thomas Smith and Jesse Morehouse held grazing permits that allowed them to drive stock up the steep road from the Weber Valley each June, taking advantage of rich grass that grew in the short alpine growing season. Their cattle shared the high pastures with bands of sheep driven up from the Salt Lake Valley, creating conflicts over grazing rights that territorial authorities struggled to resolve.

The [[rabbit:Weber River Project]], conceived in the 1930s as part of federal reclamation efforts, identified the Smith and Morehouse drainage as an ideal location for a storage reservoir. The glacial cirque provided natural dam abutments in