Rich Beckman

I don’t know these people and I didn’t want to interrupt them. They seemed a good fit for the foreground of a photograph of Bridal Veil Falls, a 607-foot-tall double cataract waterfall at the south end of Provo Canyon, UT.

The area surrounding the falls has quite a history. In 1929, Utah State Sen. Rue Clegg acquired the land surrounding the falls at a tax sale. He and his wife, Margaret, worked for years to construct the resort of their dreams at the site. Tragically, following its first operating season, Rue Clegg died of a sudden heart attack. Control of the resort fell to Margaret, who sold it but then bought it back several years later.

In its hey-day, the resort included a gift shop, a petting zoo, an aerial tram house, a railroad caboose snack shop and a restaurant perched on the cliff. The restaurant was called the Eagle’s Nest Lodge. It opened in 1961, and the only access was via a four-person tram ride. It was called the steepest tram ascent in the world as the restaurant was perched 1,228 feet above the canyon floor. The resort operated successfully until the lodge, gift shop, snack shop, and tram house were destroyed in 1996 by a massive avalanche. In January/February 1996, after a large accumulation of snow over a two week period, the avalanche roared down from the top of Bridal Veil Falls and destroyed the bulk of the resort.

The highway below was a two lane country road, and it was closed for more than seven months as avalanche debris and snow still covered the road. On July 25th, 2008, a man-made fire completely destroyed the abandoned Eagle’s Nest Lodge. Only a charred frame and rusted metal beams remained and any hope of renovating and reopening the Eagle’s Nest Lodge was gone. On August 13, 2008, after nearly 50 years in Provo Canyon, the dangling tram lines that once led to Eagle’s Nest Lodge atop Bridal Veil Falls were cut down and removed.