Black powder blasts at Ogden Marathon usher in upper valley’s bicentennial celebration
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- Tyrel, left, Alan, center, and Dan Phister, right, fired black powder rifles prior to the start of the Ogden Marathon on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
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- Dalton Harper, left, and Paul Frandsen pose for a photo near the Ogden Marathon starting line on Saturday, May 17, 2025, in Eden. The duo dressed in buckskin as part of the 200th anniversary commemoration of Peter Skene Ogden’s arrival into the Ogden valley.
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- Paul Frandsen, dressed to help commemorate the 200th anniversary of Peter Skene Ogden’s arrival in the Ogden valley, is seen near the Ogden Marathon starting line on Saturday, May 17, 2025, in Eden.
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- A black powder rifle is fired prior to the start of the Ogden Half-Marathon on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
OGDEN VALLEY — Before the starting gun sent some 6,500 competitors out into the Ogden Valley for the 24th annual Ogden Marathon on Saturday, a different kind of blast marked the 200th anniversary of fur trapper and explorer Peter Skene Ogden’s May 1825 arrival in the area along with his troop from the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The blast came from black powder rifles, courtesy of local mountain man enthusiasts dressed in period-accurate frontier attire, similar to what Ogden and other trappers might have worn.
Alan, Dan and Tyrel Phister of the Ogden-based Fort Buenaventura Mountain Men fired the opening blasts at the full marathon starting line at Dancing Moose Farm east of Huntsville, while Paul Frandsen and Dalton Harper did the same for the half-marathon in Eden.
The group’s participation was organized in collaboration with the Ogden Valley Bicentennial, or OV200, committee, which sought to honor Ogden’s expedition and kick off its celebration during marathon weekend.
“I think it was a wonderful marriage between our historical heritage here in Ogden Valley and Ogden City — which incorporates the namesake of (Peter Skene Ogden) — and something that is a very exciting part of our modern culture now in terms of the marathon,” said Dave Martin, who chairs the Ogden Valley 200 group. “I think to merge those two things was just really neat.”
While Phister and Frandsen enjoy living the mountain man life and putting on demonstrations, having the opportunity to connect current generations with their roots and the region’s history is equally as rewarding as the activities themselves.
“It’s kind of neat to get the information that fur trappers were out here, because a lot of people don’t even realize how many mountain men were here,” Frandsen said. “I mean, this is a hotbed of mountain men.”
According to Phister, marathon spectators and competitors took note of the mountain man contingent on Marathon Saturday.
“I had a great response from people up at the marathon start. There’s people from all over the country who showed up there and people would run up, ‘Can I get a picture with you?’ with a smile and they’d run off. … We stood there after the race started and kind of waved at everybody going through. They were high-fiving and they were excited to have us up there to start,” Phister said. “It was something different, instead of a guy with a little blank pistol.
“When they offered, we wanted to get involved because it’s just part of what we do — the education for people about the fur trade.”
With the marathon in the books, the next bicentennial event will occur on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Eden’s Hearthside Event Center, located at 5612 E. 2200 North, where Brigham Young University professor Jay Buckley and Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation Vice Chairman Brad Parry will present their “In Search of Ogden Hole” lecture series.
That will be followed on Saturday by a commemoration and re-enactment at the Peter Skene Ogden/”Deserters Point” monument at the Utah Department of Transportation rest stop near Mountain Green on westbound Interstate 84, which commemorates the convergence of Ogden’s expedition with John Henry Weber’s brigade from Rocky Mountain Fur Company (under the command of Johnson Gardner) and the fallout of that encounter.
Descendants of Ogden and his chief clerk, William Kittson, are expected to be in attendance at both events. The 39th annual Fort Buenaventura Rendezvous will also take place this weekend, beginning Friday, at the historic fort.
