Gold Butte worthy of protection
Jud Burkett
jburkett@thespectrum.com
I've wanted to find the time to get out to Gold Butte for quite some time now. My friend and former colleague, Desert Valley Times editor Dave Bly, brought back some amazingly beautiful photographs from out there that he shared with me once upon a time, and since then, it's been on my "to do" list.
Considering that Bly left the DVT in 2012, I'm almost ashamed it has taken me this long to make the trip.
Last week, the Friends of Gold Butte, an organization whose mission statement says they exist to "achieve the permanent protection of Gold Butte's biological, geological and cultural resources through education, community outreach and advocacy," invited me and Steve Kiggins, executive editor of The Spectrum & Daily News, to join them for a hike through Gold Butte to introduce us to the lands they are trying to protect.
To get there, you take the Bunkerville exit, just south of Mesquite on Interstate 15. Just after you pass over Virgin River turn right. There's a small parking area and a kiosk with a map at the turnoff, and drive out on Gold Butte Road.
After passing the Bundy Ranch and a few other homesteads along the banks of the river, you'll soon find yourself surrounded by creosote, sage and the occasional Joshua tree with jagged mountain peeks to one side and a gentle slope leading down to the shores of Lake Mead on the other. Gold Butte is surrounded by the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument to the west and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to the south and east.
The area is classified as a National Area of Critical Environmental Concern and is supposed to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management. However, Cliven Bundy's cattle still roam freely over much of the land that encompasses Gold Butte, and following the stand-off in Bunkerville two years ago, the BLM ceased actively managing Gold Butte for fear of violence, officials said.
It really is a shame the land is the subject of so much contention that it's being left unmanaged. We only had time to visit a couple of spots in Gold Butte, but what we saw was well and truly deserving of protection.
Byron George, the president of the board of directors for the Friends of Gold Butte, described why he fell in love with the area while we drove out through the desert.
"Gold Butte is an absolutely peaceful wilderness area that brings serenity," he said. "It's a place of solitude. Out here, when you're out in the wilderness, you're totally alone, especially after dark. You're blown away by the awesome expanse of the space and it's just incredibly quiet. It's hard to find that in today's world."
Our first extended stop was at the Falling Man Petroglyph site. After about 12 to 13 miles of riding on the rather rough but paved Gold Butte Road, we turned west onto a side road and after a short ride arrived at the trailhead. There is a small parking corral surrounded by sandstone rising up from the desert floor, but not much more to mark the trail. There is a sign asking visitors to take care and to respect the cultural sites, but none of the usual interpretive signs you'll find at BLM-managed sites like the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. In any case, most of the larger signs we passed bore multiple bullet holes and were a perfect illustration of why this land needs to be better protected.
After a short hike along clearly defined trail through the sandstone, you begin to spot them. First, just a few here and there, but as you hike through the rocks the petroglyphs become more and more numerous.
As you walk over solid sandstone, the trail becomes less clearly defined and you begin to wander through the small canyons, but at every turn there are more figures carved into the rock. Some are hidden under ledges, some look like the carver had to do a good bit of rock climbing to reach the spot where they would leave their mark and there are multiple huge slabs of sandstone etched with dozens of petroglyphs.
I've been out to some of the most spectacular petroglyph sites in the area from Little Black Mountain to the Tempi'po'op Trail in the Santa Clara River Reserve and I've never seen a greater concentration of rock art in one place than there is to be found at the Falling Man site.
The site takes its name from a lone etching carved at the base of a cliff that looks just like a man falling through space, but that one carving is just one among hundreds, if not thousands of carvings. It is, quite literally, an outdoor art museum built by the ancient occupants of these lands.
It helped that we had guides; when you have George along with Tom Cluff, the vice-president of the Friends of Gold Butte, and Jaina Moan, the organization's executive director, leading you through the maze of rocks, it's much easier to find the more spectacular rock art locations. Had I gone without them, I would've been lucky to have found a fraction of the number of petroglyphs we saw.
We also saw the marks from gunfire on top of the petroglyphs on at least one of the same panels where rock art was located.
It really is a shame that these lands aren't being cared for better. The beauty of the landscape, combined with the cultural resources, really should be more accessible and open to the public.
As it is, not too many people even know it's there, and there are no sings, no rangers, not even any restrooms available for the few visitors who do manage to find Gold Butte.
After wandering among the rock art, we took the Gold Butte Road all the way to where the paved portion of the road ends at Whitney Pockets. The scenery is beautiful, and while the weather on this particular day started out cold and a bit rainy, by the time we stopped at Whitney Pockets for lunch it had turned into a beautiful day.
We spotted a couple of Bundy's emaciated cows on the side of the road and numerous piles of manure around the campsites at Whitney Pocket, giving me a whole new perspective on the issue. While I can understand the frustration that comes with dealing with large bureaucracies, the alleged crimes still being perpetrated in Gold Butte aren't an appropriate response. Gold Butte doesn't belong to Cliven Bundy, it belongs to everyone.
Gold Butte is a resource that we should all be able to share.
The Friends of Gold Butte hope to see the passage of legislation currently making its way through Congress that would designate Gold Butte as a national conservation area. Such a designation would afford the area greater protections for Gold Butte. It would provide education and help to preserve the cultural resources in the area, prevent the few signs from becoming bullet-riddled and stop the creation of illegal roads crisscrossing the landscape. It would provide funding for things like a visitors center, trail maintenance, interpretive sings, rangers and restrooms.
While I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface of what there is to see in Gold Butte, I truly hope the area can be protected and preserved for future generations. While it may be fashionable in some local circles to bash the BLM and cry for greater local control of public lands, this is one area that definitely deserves the protections that come with a national conservation area designation.
I'm glad I finally got out there to begin exploring it.
Follow Jud Burkett on Twitter and Instagram @judburkett. Email him atjburkett@thespectrum.com or call him at 435-674-6262.
Gold Butte speaker series opens this week
Gold Butte full of treasures
City supports NCA for Gold Butte
Hardy plans to fight wilderness designation for Gold Butte