At a Moab restaurant filled with tourists, a waitress apologized for being short staffed when I arrived to pick up my to-go order. After 30 minutes, she brought me a free drink for the wait. Crying, she said she wanted to kill herself. I left with the order and called the Utah suicide helpline. A Utah crisis counselor and I worked out a quick plan, and I drove back to the restaurant just in time to see the waitress closing and shutting the lights off. I handed her a folded note that said, “I care about you and your well-being” and listed the crisis hotline phone number. I never saw her again and I don’t know whatever happened to her. That was in 2021.
Sadly, these are not rare occurrences. Every year since 2020, I responded or helped someone with suicidal ideation.
A recent, noteworthy story about Moab and “tourism toxification” was published by the Daily Yonder. It provides some explanation to how the National Park Service has managed public lands over the decades. It also offers a glimpse into the nightmarish fervor and mental health impacts of working and living in a tourist town.
The story highlights the Utah State University well-being survey, which several of us in Moab took. I said well-being in Utah is declining, even more so in small tourist towns like mine.
In Moab, we always look out for people and each other, but how much can we do to offset the stress placed on us by tourism?
The rest of the state isn’t helping. Utah is a wrecking ball to public lands. It’s been legislated to strategically target millions of people with tourism advertisements to the point of overwhelming national parks and the small towns that neighbor them. My neighbors and I are left to worry about the environment, our privacy and our safety.
Everyday, I check the landscape, pull out litter and pick up trash in the streets. Tourists roar by in RAZRS and off-road vehicles that rattle windows even when they idle. Noise above 55 decibels is deemed “increasingly dangerous for public health.” In our Moab neighborhoods, each off-road vehicle is allowed to be as much as 65 decibels.
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and my neighbor is, too. The noise triggers pain for both of us.
I was reporting from Arches National Park in 2021 and I found a typed will and testament thrown in the dirt on a dusty backroad.
On the way to turning it in at the Arches visitor’s center, I saw a standard poodle defecating on Balanced Rock and, upon closer inspection, saw that the entire trail loop trail was vandalized with innumerable scratches and etchings on the sandstone. The rangers told me to add water to help erase the vandalism and that finding a will in the dirt was concerning.
My 100-year-old home — dragged to Moab from an old mining camp where Johnny Cash once played — has been seen on celebrity YouTube channels and in the news. I have witnessed hundreds of tourists out front taking pictures and videos.
I often find broken down RVs, trailers and equipment in front of my home. Our homes are sometimes vandalized, too.
Some of us locals are scratching our heads. Tourism is increasing the amount of people who are here while school enrollment has dropped off and daily attendance has fallen nearly 10% since 2019.
Those who don’t want to lose the town to tourists are beginning to speak out, but like the Daily Yonder story says, some are “terrified” to talk.
Tourism marketing has changed in Moab. After the news, myself included, published stories about tourism, locals demanded changes. A “Do It Like a Local” campaign was created, but locals pushed back and messaging changed to protect and respect.
I have been a full-time resident of tiny tourist towns for a decade. As more and more longtime locals remove themselves from tourist towns out of concerns for the environment, safety and privacy, I wonder: What will be left of Moab?
(Ashley Bunton)
Ashley Bunton is a writer and journalist based in Moab.