a range of BLM, national forest, wilderness, and other special-use study areas. So Obama’s
designation wasn’t a federal land grab, as many politicians tried to make it out to be. The
biggest change the lands in Bears Ears saw under the designation was a prohibition on
future extraction and grazing. Under the Trump Administration boundaries, 84 percent
of the original monument was opened to mining and energy speculation. Meanwhile, in
late October, the nonprofit World Monuments Fund named Bears Ears to its biennial list
of cultural heritage sites in urgent need of conservation.
As we move through the desert, I’m struck by the absence of development. On some
of my favorite National Forest and BLM lands that have been opened to extraction back
home in New Mexico, gas wells and fracking pad sites have become grotesque blemishes.
“People, when they go to camp at a BLM campsite and instead find an oil rig there or a
large bulldozer for a mining operation, then they may finally wake up to what’s happened
in the last 18 months,” Pat Shea, the director of the BLM under the Clinton Administra-
tion, recently said in an NPR interview. He was commenting
on the BLM under the Trump Administration’s acting director
of the organization, William Perry Pendley, an energy-sector
stalwart and champion of privatizing federal lands.
Though studies have tried to estimate the economic impact
of long-term sustainable adventure tourism, it’s impossible to
put a value on having wild lands where you can pedal day after
empty day as an antidote to the clutter and stress of modern
life. Says Kurt, “To ride the length of Bears Ears and see how
remote and quiet it is for the duration makes it clear how dif-
ferent this is from other places.”
We climb through low slopes of Gambel oak and scraggly
juniper into the Abajo Mountains, and the trickle of vehicles
recedes. Beneath a crown of ponderosa, the roads under our
tires are so smoky with baby powder–fine dust that we just hold
on and steer. Still, we ride three abreast all day because there’s
zero oncoming traffic. On day three, we spot the Bears Ears, a
surprisingly understated pair of buttes that Kurt says you can
see from hundreds of miles in every direction. The formation is
considered sacred by Navajos and other tribes, hence the coalition
that aligned to lobby for the land’s preservation. Archaeologists
estimate 100,000 artifacts, remains, and other cultural sites
are scattered within the original boundaries of the monument.WE WAKE WHEN THE SUN HITS,
BREAK CAMP WHEN WE’RE READY,
PEDAL ALL DAY, AND STOP WHEN THE
LIGHT FADES. THERE’S NO HURRY.
Blasted by time and the elements, Ute Cabin (left) is still a glistening
spot for lunch and a water refill. | Riding on Lockhart Basin Road below the
Needles Overlook on BLM land which used to be part of Bears Ears (right).72 BICYCLING.COM • ISSUE 1 | 2020