A Monumental Road Trip: Bears Ears

by mfa-admin | Aug 28, 2017 | Uncategorized

So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.

We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.

A Monumental Road Trip: Bears Ears National Monument!

Whose Ears? Bears Ears! Whose Land? Our Land!

We were finally headed to Utah, the epicenter of the public land privatization movement and home to two of the hot-spots of the Administration’s monument “review.”

Our first stop in Utah was Salt Lake City (SLC) to attend the, “This Land is Our Land,” march during the Outdoor Retailer Show. Like any good Portlander, we will drive hundreds of miles for a good rally. This would be the last Outdoor Retailer held in SLC, as the show is moving to Denver in response to the continued push by Utah elected officials to sell-off public lands and their opposition to the designation of Bears Ears as a national monument.

On our first morning in SLC, we got up bright and early to attend Conservation Alliance’s breakfast. Conservation Alliance is a membership organization comprised of outdoor recreation businesses. The membership dues are passed on to advocacy groups working to protect the places that we rely on for outdoor recreation. Conservation Alliance has been hugely successful in galvanizing the outdoor industry to support public lands advocacy, including working to protect many of the monuments that are now under threat.

Conservation Alliance hosted a great breakfast with a talk by photographer Joe Riis to a packed house. Check out his forthcoming book Migrations written about large migrations into Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.

Shout out to the Patagonia SLC Outlet store for providing sign-making supplies for the march.

In the afternoon, we marched for public lands! People were there to celebrate the public lands that we all depend on and enjoy. It was fantastic to see the Utah State Capital Building overrun with supporters from a wide-range of backgrounds that all connect with public lands in different ways. There were hunters, cyclists, climbers, tribal members, wilderness lovers, business leaders, politicians, hikers, Democrats, Republicans and more all unified around the support of public lands.

After the march, we packed up and headed to Bears Ears. We were going to meet Southwest Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) for a volunteer weekend. SUWA has been a strong, steady and successful voice for the conservation of public lands (and wilderness areas in particular) in Utah.

The volunteer trip was focused on constructing fence to protect aspen. The La Sal Mountains have beautiful old aspen groves; but unfortunately, new aspen only grow when the old ones are disturbed (historically by fire). Fire suppression and over-management has resulted in a lack of new aspen growth. Aspen that do attempt to come up are quickly eaten by cattle and ungulates. We fenced three areas in the afternoon and then had a great potluck learning about our fellow volunteers, discussing Bears Ears, and hearing more about SUWA’s and the Forest Service’s work.

The next day we did some work on Hammond Canyon trail.

After Hammond trail, we finally drove to the namesake of the monument, the Bears Ears buttes. We quickly learned why they advise not driving after rain: the mud is fiercely slick and our caravan became stuck. We turned around and decided to try again another day.

The next night we camped at Muley Point, an amazing overlook that has sweeping views down into the Goosenecks and out to Monument Valley in Arizona.

Bears Ears is beautiful; without a doubt, but more importantly, it is and feels like sacred land. The designation was an effort spearheaded by five Tribes to protect cultural sites, and after even a short visit, the deep history of the place was obvious. From Lyle Balenquah’s essay, Spirit of Place: Preserving the Cultural Landscape of the Bears Ears, in Jacqueline Keeler’s Edge of Morning, native voices speak for themselves:

The Bears Ears Monument is about more than just preservation for preservation’s sake, more than drawing a line on a map to protect a fragile ecosystem from the development of the fossil fuel industry. It’s also about more than protection of archaeological sites from wanton vandalism or preservation of these sites solely for scientific purposes. It’s about the protection of Indigenous cultures so that we retain our ability to pass on our traditional knowledge to future generations. Protection of this landscape allows us to share with the outside world that we are more than historical footnotes, to show that our connections to ancestral lands traverse distance and time. [. . .]

Bears Ears has become the lightning rod for the public lands debate, and unsurprisingly; after a perfunctory visit, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended that the monument be reduced in size. The designation of Bears Ears represents not just the protection of important lands but is also milestone in tribal/federal relations. A reduction of the monument would not just be an affront to the conservation of public lands, but also to the Tribes who proposed the monument and whose important cultural and spiritual lands were protected through the designation. Stand With Bears Ears!

As we travel onto our next national monument, I urge you to please help preserve this incredible place.  Visit here to take action!

A Monumental Road Trip: Grand Canyon-Parashant

by mfa-admin | Aug 27, 2017 | Uncategorized

So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.

We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.

A Monumental Road Trip: Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument!

This monument in Arizona is vast and magnificently diverse. It includes deep canyons, 30 degrees hotter than the forest, to 8,000’ Mount Trumball with beautiful Ponderosa Pine. It’s also remote and undeveloped. There are no paved roads into the monument and it would be simple to find complete solitude. The remoteness, vastness and huge landscape-level-protection is what makes this monument so, well, monumental.

Our exploration of Grand Canyon-Parashant began in Nevada, where we contemplated a western entrance to explore Pakoon Springs. A couple we meet in Gold Butte told us a feral alligator lived in Pakoon Springs for almost a decade surviving on rabbits. However, it was the roads from Gold Butte and not the giant carnivorous lizard that kept us from exploring the western side of Grand Canyon-Parashant.

We ended up arriving from the north via the Kaibab Paiute reservation. There were plenty of warnings about the roads into the monument in this area as well, but after driving it we say “Pfft, they haven’t been to Gold Butte!” The roads in this section were far better and softer and we breezed forty miles down Antelope Valley Road for an evening visit to peer into the Grand Canyon itself. Toroweap (technically in the National Park), or as Sam likes to call it, “No Leap,” was a remarkably sheer overlook into Grand Canyon itself. Butterflies, shaky legs, and woozy stomach all show up to meet those carefully half-stepping to the ledge to look 3000’ down to the muddy Colorado River.

We camped near Nampaweap, (aka Two Foot Canyon), a mild rock and forested canyon that was the gap between two foothills and a path from the high country to the low Grand Canyon. At night the moonlight sliced perfectly through the canyon.

In the morning, we walked to the petroglyphs. Like Mt. Irish in Basin and Range National Monument, it was a regular art district with petroglyphs all over the place. There was a mountain goat or sheep that was quite striking and on the next rock over a life-sized but small human hand. It was impossible to not feel a connection with the hand.

From the petroglyphs, we headed to the tall peaks of the monument for a view. Most of what we had seen so far was sagebrush rangeland, and Nampaweap was juniper and pine forest, but heading towards Mt. Trumbull and Mt. Logan, we entered a beautiful taller forest of oak, grass, and Ponderosa Yellow Belly pines. We passed a pair of windblown Ponderosas so big that they could have made small canoes. They were perhaps four feet across and must have come down in the same windstorm. We hiked up to a high point and got some great views of the canyons snaking across the landscape. We found two turkey, two bluebird, and one goshawk feather on the way.

Parashant felt like a really unique and special place that I could enjoy visiting for a lifetime. Department of Interior Secretary Zinke announced that this Monument has been excused from attempts at revision. I’m glad to know that Grand Canyon-Parashant will continue to be preserved for others to enjoy for their lifetimes as well.

As we travel onto our next public lands adventure, I urge you to please help preserve all our incredible national monuments.  Visit here to take action!

A Monumental Road Trip: Gold Butte

by mfa-admin | Aug 9, 2017 | Uncategorized

So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.

We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.

A Monumental Road Trip: Gold Butte National Monument!

In far southeastern Nevada, Gold Butte National Monument preserves a remote and rugged desert landscape. Gold Butte isn’t your typical desert though; it has outcroppings of red and pink rock, sculptural red sandstone piles, mountains rising to 8,000 feet, and deep canyons. These features make for a stunning contrast to the desert basin stretching between the Virgin River to Lake Mead.  Scattered throughout the basin and rock formations are amazing reminders of the over 10,000 years of history for the people who have called the area home. There are remnants of indigenous cultures such as agave roasting pits and petroglyphs, and of western settlers, including ghost towns and a small dam. Gold Butte also provides a home to numerous desert species, including the endangered Mojave Desert Tortoise and is an important migratory corridor for mammals. While exploring, we also saw jackrabbits, cottontail rabbits, various lizards and a prairie falcon.

If you head out to Gold Butte, be sure to visit the 21 Goat petroglyph panel and the Falling Man petroglyph. Along the way to Falling Man, you’ll pass an ancient agave roasting pit which is hard to make out after years of people driving over it and removing artifacts.

The red sandstone formation known as the Devil’s Fire, Little Finland or Hobgoblin’s Playground is a sculpture garden in the middle of the desert. The red sandstone has been carved by wind and water to create beautiful and odd rock formations.

The Devil’s Throat is an aptly-named large sinkhole in the middle of the desert.

An almost-full moon illuminated the rocks and surrounding desert through the night.

Gold Butte was designated in 2016 by President Obama, and while its designation enjoys widespread support from Nevadans, the monument has some detractors. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recently made a short visit to the monument, but he cut short the tour and did not meet with the local elected officials, business and tourism leaders, and other community members who support the monument, including the Moapa Band of Paiutes who hold Gold Butte sacred.

Given the focus of Secretary Zinke’s visit, Gold Butte certainly seems under threat. After visiting and seeing the amazing landscape, we stand with Gold Butte!

As we travel onto our next national monument, I urge you to please help preserve this incredible national monument.  Visit here to take action!

A Monumental Road Trip: Basin & Range

by mfa-admin | Jul 31, 2017 | Uncategorized

So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.

We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.

A Monumental Road Trip: Basin & Range National Monument!

“The vast, rugged landscape redefines our notions of distance and space and brings into sharp focus the will and resolve of the people who have lived here.”

– Presidential Proclamation establishing the Basin and Range National Monument.

The Basin and Range National Monument, created by President Obama in 2015, protected 704,000 acres and is an ecological and geological powerhouse, offering unparalleled opportunities for solitude. The Monument includes two large valleys surrounded by eight separate mountain ranges, and is home to much wildlife (including many threatened or sensitive species) and unique and endangered plants found only in Nevada.

The monument is also pristine. During the two days we spent in the Monument we saw only two people. We were following a great driving route we discovered on the Friends of Basin and Range website.

Murphy’s Gap

Any pocket of water is life.

Not a plant.

Afternoon storm.

The road from camp.

The Monument has many unique and geologically significant features hidden throughout, including caves, arches, and shallow boulder fields and canyons.

Boulder field. 

Deceased but intact bat.

The author looking out of a cave.

Rock Arch.

Basin and Range is also an art gallery displaying the work of both ancient and contemporary artists. It is home to priceless petroglyphs in different pockets of the Monument and more recently; the artist Michael Heizer has been working on an earthwork sculpture, City.  The BLM recently accepted a conservation easement for the private land where City is located.

Men in the rocks.

One of the hundreds or thousands of Mt. Irish Petroglyphs.

Basin & Range is a landscape for survivors. We hope it can withstand the current political glare and continue to be a place protected for art and life in the future.

As we travel onto our next national monument, I urge you to please help preserve this incredible wildlife haven for future generations to enjoy.  Visit here to take action!

A Monumental Road Trip: Craters of the Moon

by mfa-admin | Jul 15, 2017 | Uncategorized

So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.

We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.

A Monumental Road Trip: Craters of the Moon National Monument!

Craters of the Moon National Monument preserves an other-worldly landscape in Southern Idaho. The Monument was designated in 1924 by President Coolidge to “preserve the unusual and weird volcanic formations” and significantly expanded by President Clinton in 2000 to include the Great Rift zone and three additional lava fields. Because of its expansion, it was included on the current administration’s review list. Just before we arrived, Secretary Zinke announced he had decided Craters of the Moon would not be reduced or eliminated. It’s a relief to know this special place will continue to be protected!

We were driving in from the east, after stopping in Pocatello to attend a “science pub” night hosted by Idaho Conservation League. The event was focused on the state of public lands in Idaho. It was a perfect stop for us and we learned a ton from Jonathan Oppenheimer, who gave a great overview of the threats facing public lands in Idaho. ICL does a ton of work in Idaho, including supporting Craters of the Moon.

The next morning, we headed to the monument. The stark black lava fields come up abruptly as you arrive. Craters of the Moon has 60 distinct lava fields, covering over 618 square miles, and has the largest basaltic lava field in the contiguous US.

Our first stop was the visitor center to meet Ranger Matt Daniel. We were VIPs (Volunteers in the Park) and were tasked with visitor surveys. Our volunteer work involved posting up at trailheads and asking visitors to provide feedback on the monument’s services and facilities. It was near 100 degrees and standing in an asphalt parking lot for four hours isn’t glamorous, but it was a great opportunity to chat with people about the monument, where they were from and why they were visiting. As always, there’s a crazy number of international visitors who come to appreciate our public lands.

The second day, we volunteered in the morning and then hopped on a cave tour with Ranger Mauro, a recent transplant from California and a chiropterologist (a bat specialist). There are believed to be 15 different species of bats, some endangered, that use the monument’s over 500 caves.

Along the cave trail you can see stone circles built by the Shoshone-Bannock. These stone circles were built over 2000 years ago. The exact purpose of the circles is unknown, but guesses include navigation, windbreak to protect campsites and ceremonial use. The Shoshone-Bannock legend is that the lava fields were created by a serpent who coiled around a mountain to sleep. During a lightning storm the snake became angry and squeezed the mountain releasing liquid rock and fire. The snake was buried by the falling lava and today you can see its shape in the rock.

While the area looks barren, it’s very alive. It has great wildflower blooms every year and also has some of the last remaining native sagebrush steppe of the Snake River Plains. We even saw a large elk crossing through the lava fields at dusk.

As we travel onto our next national monument, I urge you to please help preserve this and other incredible National Monuments for future generations to enjoy.  Visit here to take action!