Today we’d like to introduce you to Leo Hardy. This is his story as below:
Before we get to Leo, maybe you can give us some insight and background on his story?
Leo (aka “Doc”) is the perfect 30 years tenured Carbon County resident guide and camp host who will take you through the remarkable history, landscape, archaic/western cultures, and scenic sites of eastern and southeastern Utah. As a child, he was fortunate to have a mother who loved the last of Utah’s wild frontier who passed her interest on well before Glen Canyon dam was even built. Leo enjoyed firsthand the experience of spending childhood summers with his sister and her husband (the first of Lake Powell’s fishery biologists) in Bullfrog, Utah.
In his late teens to early twenties, he lived in the four-corners area of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah and became exquisitely familiar with the traditions, history, and culture of the indigenous peoples living there. He studied their history, language, archeology and marveled at their lands (Leo speaks Navajo). His out-of-doors life experiences began early while hiking, fishing, hunting, and mountain biking (he’s competed twice in the annual world-class mountain bike race to the top of 14,000 ft. Pike’s Peak in Colorado). In the early 1980s, he began work as a seasonal wildlife biologist aide for the Utah Division of Wildlife out of the Price office (at age 21).
During that time, he became familiar with some of the best-kept secrets and treasures of Carbon, Emery, Uintah, Duchesne, Grand, and San Juan Counties, and a lot in between! Coupled with his undergraduate and graduate studies in Wildlife Science at Utah State University (Logan, Utah) his master’s work focused on turbidity changes occurring in the Colorado river basin. The study specifically looked at the impacts the newly constructed Glen Canyon dam was having on what was then called the endangered “Colorado Squawfish” and what is now referred to as the “Pike Minnow”.
He has developed a remarkable understanding and respect for the region’s desert flora, fauna, geology, history, and culture like no other. As early as 1995 while driving his red ’57 Willys CJ5 Jeep in what is now designated the “San Rafael Swell Recreational Area” he personally drilled the Navajo sandstone using a Hilti drill and generator to place the first carsonite trail markers for the renowned “Devil’s Race Track” under the direction of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Over the past 25 years or so Leo has continuously cataloged his regional travels crisscrossing this magnificent part of Utah on an almost weekly basis between the towns of Vernal, Moab, and Price.
Just ask him about driving his young family (in his father’s 1964 Chevy pickup truck) through Beef Basin, Bobby’s Hole, the Devil’s Pocket, the Silver Stairs, and up the backside of Elephant Hill outside Moab in 1993! Now actively farming and ranching he’s collectively one of the most passionate people you will ever meet about eastern Utah’s wilderness and he knows a lot about it, has certainly lived it, and continues to love it in infinite expanding detail.
He was unquestionably the first of what would become a multitude of modern-day explorers to use a laptop computer mounted in his old Jeep running “Fugawi software” and one of the first serial-cable connected “Delorme Tripmate GPS” units bouncing along the dusty trails of the San Rafael Swell and Capitol Reef. He literally (from scratch) created what is now commonplace live tracking technology residing in cell phones, their apps, and standalone handheld map interfaced GPS units… Whatever secrets are out there he has seen them or he’s now on his way to find them. Go for a ride with him. You’ll never forget it!
Leo, would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I was raised on a quarter-acre lot in a suburb of Salt Lake City what was called “Granger” near 3500 south and 3200 west. I always dreamed of living in the country, being a cowboy, and marveling at rural life. I enjoyed visiting my uncles and aunts and in-laws who shared with me their country lifestyle in Croydon, Utah, Mount Pleasant Utah, and Sterling Utah. My father was a coal pile worker at Geneva Steele in Orem Utah during my childhood. My mother was a homemaker.
I mowed lawns to make money. I studied wildlife science as an undergraduate at Weber State, fisheries and wildlife as a graduate student at Utah State in Logan, graduated from the U of U School of medicine with an MD degree, completed a 5-year medical residency in anatomic and clinical pathology in Colorado Springs at the Penrose Cancer Hospital, moved back to Utah and planted roots in Wellington Utah. I now cut alfalfa fields that are over 100 acres in size, winter 80 head of cows on the farm, and range them over 1000 acres at our mountain property where we also have our agritourism business — The “Hiawatha Hideout.
Our family cherishes and cares for a dozen horses, a couple of goats, 2 dogs, a mule, a donkey, and a miniature horse. Obstacles/Challenges? Daily during my lifetime. I don’t view them as such, but prefer to address them as hidden blessings and opportunities borne of hard work, commitment and focus.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My professions have and currently include Teenage landscaper, undergraduate/graduate student wildlife biologist, physician, anatomic and clinical pathologist, team roper, rancher, cattleman, recreational guide, and camp host.
What am I most proud of? Sustainably and conservatively managing more than 1000 acres of farm and ranch land in our heaven of South Eastern Utah with my wonderful spouse Roberta, 4 children Ashley, Jessica, Jake, and JJ, and my three buckaroo grandson’s Gus, Ryu, and little Leo!
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
There have always been three. Honesty, focus, and hard work.
Contact Info:
- Email: HiawathaHideout@gmail.com
- Website: www.HiawathaHideout.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/windwalker_akaltee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leo.hardy.58
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0wMyXtvTR_2gH4Clk9ePhg
