Recreation, tourism, development, grazing and water interests often clash, making management of the Wasatch complex. With extremists squawking at both ends of the spectrum, balance is the battle cry for those charged with managing the mountains.

Perhaps the U.S. Forest Service knows that as well as any organization.

"By law, we are a multi-use agency. By law, we have to find a balance," said Richard Williams, a Wasatch-Cache National Forest wildlife biologist. "We have to realize, and people have to realize, you cannot do everything on every square foot."

Making everyone happy isn't possible.

"In the end," Dick said, "we're going to have to figure how to share it without destroying it."

Despite human attempts to manage and utilize the Wasatch Mountains, it is the mountains themselves that have the ultimate say.

The Wasatch Fault — the ancient geological fracture running the length of the range — is just a hiccup away from mass destruction.

The fault, which the Utah Geological Survey has mapped through Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties, is the largest of its type in the world. Scarps are visible on the surface all along the Wasatch Front.

Seismologists say the unpredictable earthquake clock is ticking. Little activity along the fault has been recorded the past 40 years. But the possibility of the "big one" looms. A major earthquake could snuff out everything the mountains make possible in what Brigham Young saw as the "right" place.

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