This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
MOAB - A San Juan County off-road group says it had permission from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to do trail-maintenance work on a 1,100-foot section of the historic Hole-in-the-Rock trail near Bluff in February.
Not so, says BLM Monticello Field Office Manager Sandra Meyers.
Now, Meyers and Mike Washburn, president of San Juan Public Entry and Access Rights Inc. (SPEAR), hope confusion over the incident in southeastern Utah will lead to better relationships between public-lands managers and ATV users.
The two groups have frequently sparred over access to public lands in San Juan County.
Meyer said the BLM had no idea that the group planned work on an area of the trail known as San Juan Hill until an anonymous caller tipped off officials. After the call, she immediately had an employee contact SPEAR.
"They told the BLM that they were basically just going to move some loose rocks and maybe fill some deep holes," Meyers said. "We didn't really tell them they could, but we didn't tell them they could not either. What was described to us was something very small and not impacting. Based on the [BLM archaeologist's] report, they did far more work than we were expecting."
The Hole-in-the-Rock Trail - a more than 140-mile-long route first blazed by Mormon pioneers in 1879 to create a shortcut between Escalante and southeastern Utah - is a "cultural site," Meyers said, and was listed in 1982 on the National Register of Historic Places.
Chip marks and spots where the pioneers are believed to have cut out foot holds for horses are still visible in some areas near San Juan Hill, a steep rocky slope through Comb Ridge that marked the final difficult obstacle for the Mormon settlers as they completed their months-long journey. And evidence still exists of the pioneers' efforts to level the trail by stacking rocks on the low side - a process known as "cribbing."
Meyers says she will use the misunderstanding as an opportunity to improve communication between off-road groups and the Monticello BLM office, and to further educate ATV enthusiasts about the BLM's off-road policies and procedures.
She has met with the group to discuss the issue, and believes continued open dialogue will help prevent future problems.
"ATV issues are not going to go away, and it's not going to diminish. It's in everyone's best interest if we work together," Meyers said. "I wanted to make sure they understand that they were not to do work on BLM land without coming in and talking to us."
Washburn calls the relationship with BLM officials "a breath of fresh air," given the sometimes bitter disputes between San Juan County off-road enthusiasts and federal agencies. But he remains firm in his stance that SPEAR was given the go-ahead before doing any work.
"We definitely had permission," he said. "We were given the go. Then we did some work and were told to stop. We stopped. We don't want to ruin anything."
SPEAR members did use pry bars and sledgehammers to break up large rocks, using the debris to fill holes, Washburn said. And they re-stacked rocks to repair older cribbing that was deteriorated from weather and use. But the group did not damage the site, he maintained.
"There's not much left of what those settlers did, but there was some cribbing," Washburn said. "If there's no repair work done, that original cribbing will eventually wash away. We felt like we were helping to preserve the historic value."
James Carter, the BLM archaeologist who investigated the matter, said it is difficult to determine whether SPEAR damaged historic aspects of the 1,100-foot stretch of trail.
"There was a rock with some chipping from the pioneers on it, and there had been an attempt to remove it," Carter said. "But the chipping is still there. It's hard to say whether damage was done."
The incident angered Winston Hurst, a Blanding-based archaeologist and historian whose ancestors were among the Hole-in-the-Rock settlers. Hurst said the San Juan Hill stretch of the trail is really a footpath, and ATVs should not be allowed.
"It's the same thing that happens when we build a house on an archaeological site. It obliterates our archaeological record. It's just a damned shame," Hurst said.
"I get mad when idiots mess up any historical features that represent physical manifestations of our cultural memory."