Richard WarnickA Worthless and Impracticable Region
Everybody loves Utah’s national parks, and being lucky enough to live in Utah means we have time to appreciate equally amazing wildlands in between the parks. The week before last, I went to visit the backcountry south of Canyonlands and north of Natural Bridges.
About 150 years ago, the Deseret News called this part of Utah “one vast contiguity of waste and measurably valueless, excepting for nomadic purposes, hunting grounds for Indians, and to hold the world together.” The leader of an 1859 expedition to map the confluence of the Green and the Grand (now Colorado) Rivers, Captain Macomb of the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers reported, “I cannot conceive of a more worthless and impracticable region than the one we now found ourselves in.”
Captain Macomb’s men accomplished the very first scientific survey of southeastern Utah, up to then represented on maps as as a blank space marked “unexplored.” His assessment of the region as “impracticable” meant that neither the Army nor anybody else could bring wagons through there without a great deal of trouble. Needless to say, that was well before the uranium prospectors and the San Juan County road department arrived on the scene. But Utah’s largest county didn’t see its first paved highway until the 1950s, and a bridge across the Colorado River didn’t exist until Utah 95 was completed in 1976.
We dropped by the Needles District visitor center in Canyonlands National Park, driving past Newspaper Rock and the Six Shooter Peaks. I remember back in the early 1980s, when I lived in Monticello. Davis and Lavender Canyons adjacent to Canyonlands were on the short list of sites for a national high-level nuclear waste dump adjacent to the national park. Calvin Black, the chairman of the San Juan County Commission and an old uranium prospector, was fine with that. “It came out of the ground here,” he used to say, “and it can be buried here.” Black was the real-life model for the character of Bishop Love in Edward Abbey’s classic novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Taking the dirt road to Cathedral Butte, we passed by the Dugout Ranch, once part of the sprawling Scorup and Somerville Cattle Company that ran 50,000 head of cattle in the early 1900s and gave Beef Basin its name. The Nature Conservancy bought the ranch in 1998 to preserve open space, but the Indian Creek Cattle Company is still in business. It’s a classic cow and calf operation, trailing the stock between the winter and summer ranges.
The road has to climb up into the Manti-La Sal National Forest to get around the head of Salt Creek. Then we pass by informally-named Dave Minor Mesa. I worked for Dave Minor as an intern for the Bureau of Land Management in the summer of 1984, helping to look after the BLM’s recreation facilities in Canyon Rims Recreation Area and along the Colorado River. His desk was always piled high with paperwork because he spent most of the day out in his other office, which was millions of acres of spectacular redrock country.
Butler Wash Wilderness Study Area was on our right, a maze of sandstone spires that ought to be part of the national park.
Dropping down into Beef Basin we explored Ruin Park, inhabited by ancestral Pueblo people hundreds of years ago. It’s been estimated that San Juan County had a bigger population in 1200 C.E. than now. The “basin” is really more of a plateau, cut off by the Colorado River and a network of deep canyons. The view from our campsite was worth three hours of dirt road.
The next day, we went on the scenic backway over Elk Ridge to the Bears Ears. At The Notch, the road clings precariously to the ridgetop overlooking Dark Canyon, still the only designated wilderness in San Juan County although there are plenty of other spectacular wildlands that qualify. Back in 1984, I got a chance to go to Washington and testify at the House hearing for the Utah Wilderness Act– and I definitely told them about my favorite canyon!
On the subject of Utah geography, let me recommend Frank Staheli’s recent post on Simple Utah Mormon Politics: Utah: The Most Beautiful Place on Earth.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Richard - Living in Utah most of my life, I’ve learned that it requires a unique vision to see the beauty and value of the desert. Friends of mine come from wetter places and see wasteland - until they step into a canyon and see the light shimmering through the rocks. Suddenly the wasteland becomes magical.
Did you see the Man Vs. Wild in which Bear was dropped into the Moab desert? He was walking along a rocky cliff and looked at the camera and said, “This is the hottest place I’ve ever been.” Considering what other places he’s been, I was kind of blown away by that.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:43 am
I much prefer Las Vegas. Look at all there is to do there. And all the beautiful people.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Still true… a hundred years later. If you had to survive, take my word for it, run for beaches where it rains all the time..plenty to live on.
In a capitalist society the inherent value of utah is in her commodities which must be extracted with power equipment. There is some decent growing land, and a bit of water, but without the Federal subsidy what would Utah be?
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall, when General Johnston made the deals between the cull mormon church, and the US Federal Government after the civil war. The initiation of utah as a willing parasite began there.
June 14th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
I remember the first time me and a friend decided to go to southern Utah instead of the Uintas. I was actually worried that without the sound of the stream, it would be terrible and boring. What a stupid fear that was. The desert at dusk is silent all right, but can only be described as a religious experience. That first night was in a canyon in Capital Reef which the native people called “The Sleeping Rainbow”. My life was made better just by being there one night. We went back to Utah’s “Color Country” many times after that.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Nice. Thanks for the report.