OGDEN — Sheriff’s officials are hoping to gain better ongoing law enforcement access to a secluded plot of land at the mouth of Ogden Canyon where a woman was found dead last week.

Lt. Josh Gard of the Weber County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday an Ogden woman in her 40s was unresponsive in a geothermal pool after paramedics were called at about 4:45 a.m. Friday. The death is under investigation and deputies have no conclusions about an apparent cause of death, Gard said. “We’re waiting for the autopsy results from the medical examiner’s office,” he said.

It’s not the first time that deputies have responded to an unattended death at the so-called geothermal “hot pots,” which sit on private land on the south side of the canyon mouth, opposite the waterfall, Gard said. “People using narcotics is the typical problem up there,” he said. “It’s out of the way and out of the sight of everybody.”

Because the pools are on private property, the sheriff’s office does not actively patrol the site. But Gard said the agency’s street crimes division will seek the landowner’s signature on a “letter of agency,” which allows deputies to move in swiftly to combat trespassing, intoxication and other offenses on commercial or other private properties.

Gard said other people were at the hot pots when the woman’s body was found. Further details of the investigation were not released, including the woman’s name.

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