Hikers and runners who want to use part of a Logan trail system south of Utah State University are now greeted with fences blocking them from wandering along an old canal.
The fences are more than a disruption, said Mark Lunt, a Logan resident and a longtime trail advocate. It’s a nuisance for many trail users, he said, especially students trying to walk between the USU campus and Logan’s Island neighborhood to the south.
The fences force people to divert to a sidewalk along the busy 400 North road, walk through a USU parking lot and hike down a narrow, steep trail.
The fencing highlights an ongoing dispute between city government and private landowners. Since the fences were put up in January, Logan city officials have tried to negotiate with the homeowners, but to no avail. A canal company is taking a hands-off approach, leaving the city to negotiate on its own.
Logan City Mayor Holly Daines said the city’s attorney met with the homeowners in late March to negotiate a solution, but no agreement has been reached.
“I know we have many trail users who are concerned about this situation and I share their concern,” Daines said in an email. “We have discussed various options with the property owners and they have agreed to meet again in a few weeks, but no real progress to report yet. We will keep trying.”
Who owns the trail?
The two fences — both labeled with “private property” and “no trespassing” signs — block a stretch of trail roughly 500 feet long. To the east, a metal and wood fence sits in front of piles of cut branches. To the west, a neat, wooden fence was recently built just off the driveway of a home.
The owner of the home is Kay Sorenson, who lives there with Joseph Sorenson, according to property records. Calls, text messages and an email to the Sorenson home were not returned.
The key question is whether the Sorensons own the strip of land that’s being blocked.
When asked specific questions about the blocked trail, Daines declined to answer and referred to her previous email.
Lunt is confident the Sorensons don’t own the property, but he can’t say for certain.
“What we know is the canal company has been using this land to maintain its canal, and there’s been public access,” Lunt said earlier this week while walking the trail.
Just beside the hiking trail is the old, open-face canal — filled with standing water and tree branches. The canal was moved underground following a July 2009 canal collapse, which triggered a mudslide, killing three people. The blocked area is just west of where the canal failed.
Cache Highline Water Association is the company that maintains the canal. When reached Wednesday, the company’s chief operating officer, Jason Morgado, said the company had no comment on the issue.
Morgado told KSL last month the canal company’s board told him not to get involved in the issue, because the canal company does not own the property and does not want to interfere with someone’s private property rights.
Cache County parcel records offer an unclear picture of who could own the land in dispute.
Online property records show no owner of the land where the old and new canals run, nor does the land have a parcel number. Older, hand-drawn maps reviewed by UPR also don’t clearly define where property lines end. The Cache County Recorder’s Office found no deed exists for the strip of land where the old and new canals exist.
Lunt — who has long pushed for expanding and connecting trails throughout Logan — said he’s reached out to a survey company to try and determine the definitive boundary, but he could only speculate on the results.
“I feel like that question can be easily answered with a surveyor, or someone at a title company, you know, could say definitively who technically owns the land,” Lunt said.
Trail access
With no clear solution on the horizon between the homeowners and Logan City, the strip of trail will likely remain blocked for the foreseeable future.
It’s a frustrating reality for people like Mark Malmstrom, another Logan resident. He said the pathway previously connected downtown to both Logan and Green canyons to the east — all via paved or maintained trails with only a handful of road crossings.
For years he’s been using the trail section that’s now blocked, and he’s never noticed any issues along the way. He thinks the current workaround isn’t a viable long term solution, especially for those on two wheels.
“I used the alternative path the other day on my bike,” Malmstrom said. “The trail is so steep, narrow and unstable that I had to carry my bike a lot of the way.”
