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Show abruptly reveals a Monument Valley-like panorama of towering red _ buttes. Across a swinging bridge, Bottleneck Peak, Window Blind Peak, and Assembly Hall Rock rise 1,500 feet above the San Rafael River. On the Buckhorn side of the river, the escarpment is a geologic layer-cake with strata of chocolate-brown, crumbly magenta, mint, and rust. As the cliffs erode, they leave behind petrified logs and other hints of earlier worlds. Near the rock art site is a three-toed dinosaur footprint preserved in mudstone. “The old philosophy is that you don’t tell anyone about rock art sites,” said Martin. “But here that just doesn’t work.” Because it’s located in a high-traffic area, Martin and committee had to find another way to protect the site. The rock art is priceless, Martin said, it’s as valuable as any painting in a museum. “We knew if we didn’t teach visitors and residents the value of this art and this heritage, it wouldn’t do any good to clean off graffiti or build fences.” The committee believed that if they cleaned up the panel, people would respect its importance. “If you walk into a dump,” said Martin, “you treat it like a dump.” They also looked for ways to educate people about the significance of ancient artwork. The group decided to move the road away from the ancient rock art panel and remove link fence in Martin said, Service put the useless and ugly chainfront of it. They lucked out, when the State Extension them in touch with Dave Bell, a teacher of landscape architecture at Utah State University. Bell visited Buckhorn, then returned to Logan and drew a rough landscaping plan. “Bell was incredible,” Martin remembered. “He told us, ‘It’s got to feel right, no matter how good it looks on paper.’ Finding Bell was like discovering a gold mine. Bell made sense out of what we wanted.” The rough plan was to move the road 15 feet farther away from the cliff wall, then build a low berm of rock and native plants between the road and the ancient art panel. Bell designed a sandstone and rail fence that acts as a barrier, but also is a comfortable height for visitors to lean their elbows on. of the graffiti is historically significant... Some inscriptions represent historically important people in the history of Emery and Carbon Counties.” But Martin had no doubt about what was necessary. “It really was not OK in 1884 to write your name here, and it’s not OK now,” he said. “Early on we decided that we had to remove all the signatures, otherwise, we'd send the signal that it’s OK to vandalize. There’s no significant historical value in an old farmer’s signature on an art panel that’s 3,000 years old. “I hear occasional grumbles around here that we lost some of our history in removing all the signatures, but everything was photographically doc- umented, so it doesn’t worry me,” Martin concluded. “Times change, we have a lot of respect now for things like rock art,” said County Commissioner Kent Petersen. Martin’s enthusiasm spiked with BLM approval of the restoration plan. The committee began to raise the $110,000 the project required. Silver said she was moved by tiny Emery County taking on one of the most challenging restoration projects in the country. Local volunteers passed the hat, selling T-shirts, marching in parades, and The committee speaking at schools raised over $70,000 in donations and $21,000 in grants continued page 10 he Museum of the San Rafael in Castle Dale saw what the committee was planning and wanted to help. They found grant money to document the restoration work with a video and to create a mural of the panel in their museum. Late that year, the committee interviewed several experts for the panel restoration, and selected Silver. With a few reservations, the local Bureau of Land Management office approved the committee’s final plan in early 1995. “After an attempt to clean up part of the site [25 years ago], there was a mad rush to fill in the newly cleaned area” with graffiti, they noted in a letter. The BLM also said that cleanup of the site may eliminate the appearance of an inviting writing surface, but “some Lunch combos great company - the Einstein Bros” 1890 Bonanza Drive (801) 645-8489 6 19Vd A nice lunch, in a nice place with SIWIL NIVLNNOW ade just for You! |