What’s better for controlling and educating crowds of
hikers in Utah’s Grand Gulch – a brand-new visitors’ center visible
from the highway or more rangers on the trail?
The Bureau of Land Management has removed an old
mice-infested trailer and wants to build a 1,600-square-foot center
to teach people how not to disturb sensitive archaeological sites.
But some Utahns, including outfitter Ken Sleight and local Navajos,
oppose the plan because they say it will make the area – already
well-known by pothunters – more accessible. The main reason for
building the center seems to be the availability of $500,000 for
such a project, adds Dave Pacheco of the Southern Utah Wilderness
Alliance.
“They should be looking toward
protection rather than promoting visitors,” says Sleight. The BLM
has only two seasonal rangers to watch over some 55,000 annual
visitors; Sleight and other critics would like to see at least
seven rangers on site.
BLM Area Manager Kent
Walter says critical comments have improved the plan. The agency is
working with the Navajo Nation to jointly fund a minimum of three
Native American rangers and the proposed center is now smaller and
solar-powered.
While SUWA staffers say they
probably won’t appeal the plan, Sleight says he will file a lawsuit
if the agency decides to build. “(Writer Ed) Abbey went down with
me into Grand Gulch,” he says. “We were fighting this even then. It
just keeps rearing its ugly head.”
*Elizabeth
Manning
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline If they build it, will more come?.
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