South East Utah
National Park Management - Mesa Verde
Mesa Verde is probably the most famous pueblo ruins in the area. You would think it would be one well managed park, but Chris was unimpressed.
- So called 'stabilisation' is not supposedly about rebuilding. Take a look at the photos though, and about half of it wasn't there when the ruins were first discovered. And some of it has been built to help take HUGE volumes of tourists through (around 40 every half hour!) I guess your views on this depend on whether historic heritage is about seeing what things were like, or about the stories of people that lived in the places. For me, 'stabilisation' and rebuilding are indicative of our inability to cope with our destructability - as individuals and a species. I prefered the ruins of hovenweep to Mesa verde.
- We were horrified at the lack of saftey management in mesa verde. Two sites have wooden ladders up to 30ft (10m) high. up to 8 people at a time climb these ladders, and if you are lucky, a bolt holds the rung on; if not, a nail or maybe 2. No hand rails. Apparently you can't sue the federal government! No-one here had heard of cave creek, but this place is an accident waiting to happen...and a site that will eventually be shut down. Shame on the NPWS.
- The money - where the f*** is it all going? This is a site where tours of 40 got to each of 2 ruins every half hour from around 9am to 6pm with each person paying $3 for each tour. Thats around $4000 a day, or $28000 a week, let alone the entrance fees, camping fees etc. Ok, so maybe it funds a nice program where the existing pueblan cultures (Hopi, Zuni and others) and the existing indigenous people get to help tell the story? No such luck.
- Dine moved into this area after inhabitants had left. Both they and existing pueblan cultures claim links to the people. How nice it is to be in a place that could show current heritage, traditional stories, and be a prime site for co-management. and helping with the >50% unemployement rate on the reservation nextdoor. Instead, you get: 25 year old forestry graduates telling the archealogical story; a Hopi centre in the national park but not on the map; no involvement of indigenous peoples in management at all (I'm guessing it's because they think visits into the buildings are not on - they see it as an invasion of those peoples homes); managers who say Hopi and Dine want nothing to do with the places (maybe they just weren't asked? it's not the sense we got when we were on the reservation). All this begs the question: whose stories are these? who has the moral right to tell them? who has the moral right to profit from them? It saddens me to see a grand opportunity to support indigenous people, storytelling and employement going to waste.
We thought we would visit a Dine managed area and see what was different. This is Dine, in the middle of the Navajo heartland, where we learn that Navajo is a spanish word, Dine is what these people call themselves, but the reservation is on maps as Navajo so its an easier sales pitch. Sad that people can't even use their own language and words on their own lands.
The $5 entry fee was really reasonable compared to NPs across the USA. This site reminds me of the Ngai Tahu site in Kaikoura. A nice hotel and bar to take the views in (its what people come for), and a cunning rough 4wd track down the valley, with multiple tourguides in 4wd waiting up the top to take tourists around (or you can go on your own as we did). Appropriately so (but a nice money spinner), many areas are off limits without a guide. However, there are then the craft stalls for the famous silversmithing and turquiose jewlery, which sadly have reverted to selling plastic beads, and the campground with no water and maggot infested loos (luckily a short walk from the hotel), and the locals who tallk about money being sucked into government in the nations capital; so my overall impression is a good intention but the same old colonial version of post-colonial governance traps that makes it difficult to lift a people from the poverty they are in.
Park Management - Glen Canyon Recreational Area
It must be arizona and colorado borders that are off. Surely. Our experience here with staff was not that pleasant either. In federally managed parks, fees apply for entry and camping. We have no problem with that. They are a great asset, and provide excellent services in stunning places. What we have a prooblem with is inconsistent policy interpretation at this site. For entry passes (we have an annual pass) a vehicle is interpreted as having four wheels. Two motorcycles, 1 pass. For camping everywhere else, where you have 1 tent, you pay 1 fee. But at lone rock, they tried to charge us 2 camping fees -1 per vehicle, which they defined as two wheels in our case. We went to the ranger station and were told to listen. Apparently its an off road area, so each bike is charged. But a car carrying a trailer and a boat with unlimited number of people, and two atvs is charged 1 camp fee. It's ridiculous - think of the space they take up, and the resources that are expended on them. We were told if we didn't like it to go elsewhere. Back we went, be grudgingly for one night (a swim was irresistable), rather than our planned three, and we got a different story from the head of fees boths section. If we were married and in one tent, we only had to pay one fee. All I can say mr ranger and mr superintendent is sort your shit!
Park management - BLM vs Forest Service vs NPS vs State parks
Public land management in USA is and interesting beast. The prime spots are under National Parks Service, Federal Department of Interior. There are huge volumes of visitors, and spectacular scenery. Some of the camping ground management is contracted out to private companies (which means higher fees), while other is managed by NPS. The scenery is amazing, but you have the trappings of managing that number of visitors - toilet blocks, eateries, cabins etc. Great to visit, but only for short periods of time. Camping services ($14-20 per night) generally limited to loos, picnic tables and water taps. If you are lucky, a kitchen sink. We only do these if the other option is RV park outside the park.
BLM lands (also federal department of interior) are generally less spectacular, but just as nice and more interesting to visit. They manage graziers and are more multi-use (horses, 4wd, atvs, snow mobiles). Camping is also cheap when a loo and water is provided (around $8 per night), or free anywhere else but you have to carry water (more difficult on a bike). We love BLM, as it often borders National parks, and is usually close on deserted. Our camp in Moab was BLM, and we also enjoyed Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument on the northern border with Glen Canyon. Just as spectacular, and no drunken yobs!
Forest service is in a different federal department, and was once all about foresty, but they are also now targetting multiple use. That means forestry roads, and like BLM, they are also often next to NPs, which means wildlife galore. Camping is also on the cheaper end (usually around $12), with picnic tables, nice private sites, water, sinks, and sometimes showers (for example, at Flaming Gorge).
State parks are the oddity. Washington was a shocker - they are campgrounds in great locations with pay showers but pretty much just a few trees and no privacy between sites, although you do get picnic tables and water taps. But the cost? up to $28 a night, and also often a separate entry fee. The exception is some Utah state parks. We LOVED Kodachrome. $16/night, free hot showers, filtered water, a great kitchen sink, and nice, private campsites. Plus the caretaker's wife gave us lotion to stop the dredded knats, which ignore deet. A great place to hide during the 4th July long weekend.
