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Show TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT By Jim Stiles "That's not an arch!" complained Reuben. "It meets the criteria!" Ed repeated. "It's nothing but a piece of exfoliated sandstone!" Reuben argued. "It's an arch," Ed maintained. Reuben walked over to the pitiful little point of contention and stepped on it. MORE CONFESSIONS OF A FALLEN RANGER I am nothing if not nostalgic and this issue of the Zephyr has caused some serious flashbacks. As part of the Southeast Utah's National Parks: Then. Now. ..What next? edition, I spent a couple of days with the naturalists and rangers at my old stomping ground in Arches National Park. They actually let me ride in the official vehicles and ask a lot of questions, although I never did get to transmit mi the park radio, using my old call number (236). The story of my recent experience with the Arches staff appears on page 22, but I can't help but reminisce a bit more about, what I realize now, were the good old days. Or at least better than I thought they were at the time. Isn't that the way it always is? Quite frankly, after a painful and introspective examination of my seasonal Arches career, I'm confronted with the inescapable fact that I was a Seasonal Screw-ofBut only when it was appropriate. I speak of for many my colleagues of that time, too (whether they like it or not). We certainly had our moments, to be sure. We had rescues and medical emergencies for everything from heart attacks to gnat bites, much as they do today. But not so frequently. We were paid lousy wages, received nothing in the way of benefits, and didn't even have job security. But it was quieter then, relative to today. And so, during those quiet times, we were sort of 'on call' For a decade, my daily schedule said 'Patrol' There were three days a week when I had to baby sit the campground, 15 years ago it didn't usually fill until late in the afternoon or even early evening. Sometimes it didn't fill at all. The park roads were fairly quiet (the Delicate Arch Road wasn't even paved until the early 90s.), and often I spent a part of those afternoons in the backcountry or cm the trail r under a free. Nervous entrance station rangers (except for Kris and Sandy), used to frequently call us for campground counts when, in fact, the numbers only changed by one or two vacancies an hour. Sometimes I'd be miles from the Devils Garden and I'd get the tall... "236...200. We need a campground count real soon." "KM," I'd respond. I'd stretch out under the juniper and dreamily watch the way the afternoon heat causes the air to shimmer and the rocks to move for a few moments longer and then I'd call back. "200...236. got...uh..24 sites left." "104," they d respond. "Thanks for checking." "No problem," I'd say as I swatted a When it came to erf the number available from a distance of right predicting campsites miles, I was absolutely psychic. The Psychic Ranger. And we did a lot erf exploring in those days. If you look at the photo montage on pages 19 and 20, you'll see the mugs of four of my favorite people: The Original Arch Hunters. These guys were not exactly normal human beings but that's what I liked about them. Doug Travers, an electronics engineerVP for a mysterious company in San Antonio, Texas, started searching for arches in the mid-6Q- s with his four boys. Their criteria for dedaring an arch was: if you can throw a football through it, it's an arch. Reuben Scolnik, an engineer, arrived at the park in 1977 with a more analytical approach to He was shocked and dismayed by the rangers' lack of arch knowledge and convinced Chief Ranger Jeny Epperson to cut some of us loose to look for holes. Dale Stevens a geography professor from BYU gave the search for arches legitimacy. The Stevens Arch List was regarded as a holy document to some. Ed McCarrick was a retired accountant from New Jersey when he moved to Moab and got a seasonal job at the park. Ed probably found more arches than anyone else, but we used to remind him that a lot of his rode openings were really too puny to count Reuben, in particular, took issue with the "three foot opening" criteria, which Stevens actually determined but which Ed so thoroughly embraced. Ed was known to measure 34 inch rock openings with his ubiquitous tape measure, do a little rock and dirt removal around the base, and then discover they were a legal three feet after alL "Ridiculous," Reuben grumbled. "It meets the criteria!" Ed countered. Among Reuben's great annoyances was the platform arch. Any place the sandstone buckled on a horizontal surface and created a three foot opening even if the opening was a quarter inch qualified as an arch. f. high-stre- Yeah.-.we'v- to the left." The answer to the most frequently asked question at the Arches National Park Visitor Center. CWheres the toilet?") in a traffic accident in 1995. 1 miss them both. Travers is still looking for arches; he shows up once or twice a year, sometimes with his boys (now grown men) and sometimes solo, to continue his quest. He retired from his job as a CIA spy a few years aga(His dogs appear on page 7) Reuben splits his year between a home in Houston and Death Valley National Park, where he has volunteered for almost 20 years. His specialty these days is rock art; he probably knows the archaeology of Death Valley better than any living human. As he approaches 80, Reuben continues to prove that a man can stay healthy eating nothing but Pop Tarts and Banquet Fried Chicken. The Park Service has improved the pay and benefits for a lot of the field rangers these days. And they certainly earn their pay. There just isn't the time to look for holes like there used to be. And some of diem are bigger than 34 indies. ss e no-seeu- "Outside and Now it's a piece of broken rock." and Ed...I could write a book. died of cancer in 1992 and Dale Stevens was killed McCarrick Ed "There. Reuben ex-Na- sa arch-huntin- g. so-call- ed STEWART UDALL NEVER LEARNS I have always wanted to give Stewart Udall the benefit of the doubt. In the 1950s the Arizona Congressman was an ardent supporter of Glen Canyon Dam and even encouraged the construction of dams in the Grand Canyon. But as Secretary of the Interior under Kennedy and Johnson, Udall seemed to grow more sensitive to the fragile beauty of the American West It was Udall who, with a lot of encouragement from Arches National Monument Superintendent Bates Wilson (see profile on Bates in the JunefJuty 1997 Zephyr), pushed for the establishment erf Canyonlands National Park. Years later, he changed his mind about Bureau of Reclamation dam building projects on the Colorado River and publidy expressed regret for his support of the dam at den Canyon. Now an attorney living in Santa Fe, he is working with Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch on legislation to compensate radiation victims of the 50s and 60s, particularly uranium miners and Utah Downwinders. But a recent artide in the Salt Lake Tribune, penned by Udall himself, causes me to wonder if Mr. Udall will ever be anywhere but behind the Sensitivity and Human Evolution Curve. In the story titled "Why Not Double Our region's Tourism in the Next Decade;" Udall writes: "There is an unparalleled opportunity to double tourism in our region in the next decade by reaching out to the international market and by making our Indian neighbors full partners. "Tourism is the biggest, industry in this country and the world. Hie area I am delineating as America's Scenic Circle contains a singular display of natural and cultural resources that will bring tourism benefits to surrounding communities if we increase efforts to enlarge access and understanding of these unique assets." Udall mentions Utah's five national parks and the new Grand StaircaseEscalante National Monument as major attractions, of course, and names nine "Gateway Cities" to welcome the throngs: Albuquerque, Taos, Farmington, Durango, Flagstaff, Grand Junction, Santa Fe, St. George, ancLMoab. At the center of his Scenic Circle, Udall wants Monument Valley to be the home of a major "world-clas- s hotel that could serve as the needed new hub. Such a facility should be nestled unobtrusively into the land on the edge of Monument Valley." Such a tourist complex would "entice the kind of upscale tourists who can stimulate growth." Sure. Why not, Mr. Udall. Let's Aspenize the entire Colorado Plateau. His proposal shows a shocking lack of sensitivity for the natural beauty erf the canyon country, a region he was once charged with protecting. Arches National Park is suffering from overuse now. Mr. Udall should ask Superintendent Dabney what effect doubling that number (to 1.6 million) would have on the park resource in a decade. In the 1950s, Udall saw the land as a commodity, as a way of making money. In those days it was dam building and the generation erf hydroelectric power. Today, apparently, not much has changed. He still proposes to exploit the land. It's still just a commodity to Stewart fastest-growi- ng Converting a lovely intangible into hard currency, Mr. Udall is once again prepared to sell the Colorado Plateau, if only symbolically this time, down the river. |