Utah’s 2022-23 winter season was a wet one, and the most productive in decades. With the ongoing drought, Utahns are celebrating the much-needed rain and snow, but they’re also looking forward to warmer weather and getting outside and connecting with nature.
No matter the type of recreating you do in Utah, remember to follow the Leave No Trace principles, which help protect Utah’s wildlife, rivers, lakes, trails, and other precious resources. Beyond those principles, here are some practical tips from experts at the University of Utah to help you keep the outdoors as natural and pristine as you can.
The basics of environmental stewardship
(U-Explore, sponsored) The U-Explore Program has been around for about 40 years, and most of the classes are two credits, which count for elective requirements for graduation—a huge benefit to students who have had little to no exposure to outdoor recreation.
Nate Furman is the director of the U-Explore Program, the University of Utah’s academic outdoor program. The program has a diverse range of courses (about 85 in all) ranging from backcountry yoga, to avalanche education, to sea kayaking Lake Powell.
“What we do is help University of Utah students learn outdoor skills, create a sense of community, and walk away understanding the basics of public land policy and environmental stewardship,” Furman says.
The U-Explore Program has been around for about 40 years, and most of the classes are two credits, which count for elective requirements for graduation—a huge benefit to students who have had little to no exposure to outdoor recreation.
Furman says people fail to recreate responsibly mostly due to ignorance. There are several different kinds of land management agencies, such as the state parks, national parks, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
“Most folks don’t have a good working vocabulary of what those land management agencies do and what’s allowed—particularly in Utah where there’s so much BLM land, which is like the Wild West in so many ways,” he says.
“Most of the time, it’s people not knowing any better, rather than defiance or doing something that’s intentionally against the rules or regulations. You can’t expect everyone to have a fluent vocabulary of different land management agencies,” he says.
Dorothy “Dart” Schmalz is the interim chair of the U’s Department of Parks, Recreation, & Tourism. Agreeing with Furman, she said ignorance is the biggest barrier that prevents people from being responsible when they’re recreating. Schmalz’ advice is to spend time researching before visiting an area.
“People can learn quite a bit by scratching the surface about what biodiversity is of the Utah desert or the Wasatch Front, what the issues are, and how human presence in that environment affects its health,” Schmalz says.
In southern Utah in particular, she noted how some of the trails are slickrock. “It can be harder to stay on trail because it’s not a well-worn path like the grasses we’re accustomed to on the Wasatch Front,” she says.
(U-Explore, sponsored) People should familiarize themselves with the area and trails before visiting someplace new so they can properly respect the area and stay safe in unfamiliar terrain.
Her advice is for people to familiarize themselves with the area and trails before visiting someplace new so they can properly respect the area and stay safe in unfamiliar terrain. Schmalz also brought up the issue of drones and how studies are coming out on how they can disturb wildlife and the human outdoor experience.
“One of the foundational values of wilderness areas, of which we have many in this state, is the ability to experience solitude,” says Schmalz. “Does that drone and the noise of the drone inhibit someone’s ability to experience solitude? I would say there’s a good argument that it does.”
Furman says anyone can choose to be more sustainable. “Hop on rocks—don’t go through the marshy meadow where you’re going to leave footprints in the mud that are two inches deep,” he says. “Think about what your options are and choose the less-destructive option.”
Preserving recreation gateway communities
Danya Rumore is the director of the Wallace Stegner Center’s Environmental Dispute Resolution Program, which encourages a culture of collaboration around the environment and natural resources, particularly in Utah and the Mountain West. She is also the founder and co-director of the Gateway & Natural Amenity Region Initiative (GNAR).
Much of Rumore’s research has been devoted to what are called “gateway communities,” and the planning and development challenges faced by these small towns and cities, which are proximate to high-quality natural amenities, national parks, state and federal public lands, ski areas, scenic lakes, and rivers. For example, the town of Springdale is the gateway to the Zion National Park region.
Rumore’s survey data found that as these communities are discovered, they start to experience planning development challenges—housing availability and affordability challenges, transportation challenges, impacts on natural resources, changes to community character, and worry about losing their small-town feel. Also, many of these rural communities don’t have a massive planning staff in place, which further taxes them.
Housing in these gateway communities, especially post-pandemic, has become a crisis since so many people want to visit or relocate to them, Rumore explained. “It’s really skewing the housing market,” she says. “Housing is an issue throughout the country, but it continues to be a significant issue in these communities, which is unusual for rural communities as we don’t think of them as having extreme housing prices.”
(U-Explore, sponsored) Think about not just consuming the community or the outdoor amenities, but ask yourself how you can invest back in them, and steward them well.
Rumore urges visitors to think about how they can be a steward of the community they’re visiting. She said that when she travels, she asks herself, “Would it be more appropriate to stay in a hotel in this community because there aren’t enough long-term rentals for the local workforce?”
Such choices do matter, she said, and visitors need to advocate for gateway communities to protect their futures. For example, instead of buying a house in Moab and turning it into a short-term rental, though tempting, why not buy that house and rent it out long-term to someone who lives and works there locally?
Her other advice is to go into these communities and spend money. Dine locally. Buy your groceries locally. Buy your camping gear locally instead of at a big retailer—the concept is to bring financial benefit to gateway communities by spending money while visiting.
The idea is to think about not just consuming the community or the outdoor amenities, but ask yourself how you can invest back in them, and steward them well.
“I think this is a shift of thinking because for a long time in the recreation world, we’ve talked about extractive recreation, extracting from natural resources. I think we’re doing the same thing to the communities, and we just need to shift that mindset.”