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SALT LAKE CITY — Eight LDS missionaries serving in the Salt Lake City East Mission and their leaders are working with the Forest Service to remove a flagpole that the missionaries cemented to the top of Mount Olympus earlier this week.
Hikers discovered the flagpole with a U.S. Flag and an autographed mission T-shirt on Forest Service lands and alerted rangers. The Forest Service confirmed that posting the flagpole was indeed breaking the law.
“You would need to get a permit to put up a flagpole. In wilderness it wouldn’t be allowed at all,” said Kathy Jo Pollock of Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.
Jessica Moody, a spokeswoman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said the missionaries were responsible for the placement of the flagpole, and that Salt Lake City East Mission is “looking into this and will address it appropriately.”
Mount Olympus’s wilderness designation means no mechanized equipment or permanent improvements are allowed to be put there, not even patriotic displays or memorials.
