NORTH LOGAN, Utah — Cache Valley can rest easy. Green Canyon has been cleared of all zombies.
Of course, there never was a real threat of the “living dead” wandering loose on National Forest land east of North Logan, but it did look like it for a time last week when a film set for a product commercial was erected outside what’s known as Boy Scout Cave in the canyon.
Makeshift, ramshackle wood and metal fencing partially blocked both the trail and entrance to the shallow cave, and a crude spray-painted sign, obscured by loose boards, read “No Zombies.”
To passersby not in the know, it might have looked like squatters had taken over the cave, and that’s exactly what the Cache County Sheriff’s Office suspected after receiving a phone call from a hiker to report the odd installation.
“It was a strange occurrence,” said Corey Hyer, who made the call to the Sheriff’s Office. Hyer said not only was the cave fencing a concern, but a group of three or four “old beater” automobiles parked at the nearby campground made him think something inappropriate was afoot.
Sheriff’s Lt. Mikelshan Bartschi chuckled Monday when recalling the situation, explaining that deputies responding to the scene were also taken in somewhat by what they saw.
It just so happened the Sheriff’s Office in recent days had dealt with an individual with a history of mental health problems, and they thought he might have set up a stronghold of sorts in the canyon.
“We went up there thinking, ‘Well, this is crazy. What the heck is going on?’ Then we found out what it was, and we all laughed at ourselves,” Bartschi said.
What they found out, according to Bartschi, was that the creepy scene had been created for a commercial film set for iFit, the exercise equipment company based in Logan.
“They were filming some kind of apocalyptic, ‘run, follow me’ type of thing,” Bartschi said. “Sometimes you just can’t make stuff up. We’re like, ‘I think maybe he’s barricaded in the cave,’ and it turns out it’s a movie set.”
Bartschi said officers contacted the Forest Service and found out the company had permission to do the filming. However, representatives for the Cache Ranger District visited the site later and ordered the set be taken down and removed.
Though not identifying iFit by name, District Ranger Marshall Alford said the “infrastructure” established at the site was not in keeping with National Forest policies and practices.
“It’s not allowed to construct those things, use fencing on forest lands that way,” Alford said. “When you have a structure created on forest lands it requires a permit, and I’m not interested in approving that type of structure. … It’s gone.”
Contacted by The Herald Journal on Monday, iFit spokeswoman Colleen Logan said she wasn’t aware of the situation but would make some inquiries within the company. She did not get back to the newspaper before 5 p.m.
Alford declined to offer more detail, saying, “I’d love to tell you more about certain things, but I do have to take care of some of those issues that are ongoing. The important thing for people to know on this one is that that type of use isn’t appropriate, and so we were working to resolve that as promptly as we could.”
Alford, who assumed the district ranger position after the recent retirement of Jennefer Parker, said he appreciates local residents who are concerned about activities in the National Forest and draw situations like last week’s to his office’s attention.