you're right, that was the point of the THREAD, but that point was a straw argument combating the opinion piece i wrote, and if you read what i wrote i doubt there's a bit of difference between your point and mine.

i welcome any method or strategy or entity that: protects; preserves; grants public access. i liberally use both a national forest and a county park proximate to me. i'm very happy that each exist.

the only thing that you and i need to agree on to have a fruitful discussion is that we have an inherent "right to roam". you and i have a right to breathe the air, and to walk the earth. if you and i can agree on that, then we can discuss methodology. the mechanics of it.

i'm not the one who injected politics into this. i pretty clearly stated in the piece i wrote what i just wrote above. i oppose tearing down the national monument designation for more than half of bears ears and GSE because there's a clear trail of former use and campaign contributions suggesting the future desired use of these lands for heavy extraction; and there's a clear history of what that historical extraction has meant to these lands and the folks adjacent to it and affected by it.

i'm not writing about abortion here. or taxes. or immigration. or guns. you might find that my views on all these subjects mirror yours. i don't know. but THIS is an issue that affects you and i DIRECTLY in triathlon, running, cycling, hiking, roaming. what i have received is a reflexive political response (really, from those on both sides, tho most stridently from those who appear to me obviously attached to one political bent). what i would prefer (from both sides) is an acknowledgment that once we lose protections it's monumentally (pardon the pun) harder to get then back.

accordingly, i'm eager to hear the strategy for protecting and preserving both the majesty of, and the freedom to traverse, bears ears and GSE, without them being natl monuments (if that federal status bothers you). i haven't seen that. i've only seen reflexive rants. realize that once these two monuments lose these designations they remain BLM land, and while they were BLM land the fed govt. leased these lands out to extraction. the only real change in creating a monument was that these leases were bought up. what do you want for these tracts of land? what is your hope for them? and, maybe you ought to google grand staircase escalante and look at some pictures of it before you answer.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman