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Show CHAPTER VIII CANYON LANDS OF SOUTHEASTERN UTAH LOCATION Broadly speaking, the region considered is the portion of the Colorado River Basin between Lees Ferry, Ariz., the Dewey Dam site on the Colorado, and the town of Green River, Utah, on the Green River, excluding the San Juan River Basin above Bluff, Utah, and the high plateaus along the west side of the basin. The region is roughly bounded on the east by State Highway 47 and United States Highway 160; on the north by United States Highway 50; on the west by State Highways 10, 72, 24, the road through the Dixie National Forest from Xorrey to Boulder, the county road from Boulder to Escalante, Utah, State Highways 23, 22, and 12, and United States Highway 89; and on the south by United States Highway 89, and the road through the Indian reservations from Tuba City, Ariz., to the Utah State line where it connects with Utah State Highway 47. This report is especially concerned with the vast, colorful land of deserts, mountains, canyons, plateaus, and buttes that lie within the fringe of settlements and the connecting roads- more than 20,000 square miles, in which probably less than 200 people have their permanent residence, exclusive of the Indians on the Navajo Reservation. Men running cattle and sheep in the area live in the bordering settlements and go out to their stock occasionally by truck and horseback. The sheep- herders camp here during the winter and move to higher mountain pastures for the summer. ( Plate 9 in pocket.) PRESENT ROADS AND TRAILS This region is part of the largest section in the United States in which there are no improved roads. Within the belt there are no improved roads except the short; spur to Henrieville, the road in Bryce Canyon National Park, and in the settled section around Price. Two hundred and ninety miles of the 800 miles of roads forming the belt are unimproved. State Highway 24 crossing the northwest portion of the area from Green River to Fruita in Capitol Reef National Monument is only a fair- weather trail, as is State Highway 95 from Blanding to Natural Bridges National Monument. The remaining roads in the area are truck trails constructed by the Grazing Service ( now the Bureau of Land Management) or the local people to give access to cattle and sheep camps, mines, and oil prospects. Between Lees Ferry and Moab on the Colorado and the mouth of the San Rafael River on the Green River there is only one place where it is possible to drive to the rivers without extreme difficulty. The old trail down North Wash Canyon and up White Canyon to Blanding has been improved. The lower end of the trail from Escalante to Hole in Rock, a distance of about 6 miles, has not been used since the Hole in Rock pilgrimage in 1939, except by men on horseback. There has been a trail from Notom on State Highway 24, down Halls Creek to within a few miles of the river, but this was not passable in 1943 beyond a point 18 miles from the river. In the spring of 1943, trucks were driven from Kanab to the site of the old town of Paria, thence southeast to Lone Rock on Wahweap Creek, about 8 miles west of the point where the Colorado River crosses the Utah- Arizona State line. On the east side of the Colorado it is reported that an automobile has been driven to a point west of the Clay Hills on the old Mormon Trail which runs from near Natural Bridges National Monument southwest toward Hole in Rock. Fourteen miles north of Monticello there is an unimproved road leaving United States Highway L6Q which gives access to the north side of the Abajo Mountains and Indian Creek Valley. Following this road down Indian Creek and around the 149 |