A few years ago the BLM destroyed one of the airstrips in Browns Park, along the Green River near the Utah-Colorado-Wyoming borders, they didn't ask anybody if it had any value or necessity at all, they went in just like that pos mayor in Chicago in the middle of the night with a bulldozer and totally destroyed it for use as an airstrip. The Ute Indian tribe thought that was so cool they trailed a D-9 off the top of the East Tavaputs Plateau, went over 20 miles down Chandler Canyon and ripped the hell out of one of the emergency strips in Desolation Canyon of the Green River. I'm pretty sure that the typical low level bureaucrat is not a friend of General Aviation, especially we that enjoy using our airplanes to frequent parts of the world not over run by motor homes and 4 wheelers.....not that those are bad things, I just prefer to camp alone in nature but they make it harder ever year and every time some new fresh out of college kid decides to take charge and change things we have to go through the re-education process and try and win his heart and mind by proving aviation access far outweighs hoards of us loving the back country to death with our trucks and horses and scooters. Some private ground in Range Creek (ten miles west of Desolation canyon and just north of the price river) was offered to the State of Utah a few years ago, the ground had ranch buildings, corrals, a meat shed for wild game and the occasional calf or lamb. To their credit they jumped on it, a tri agency group was formed consisting of the Utah Fish and Game, The BLM, and a Private Sportsman Group. The purchase was made with the full approval from the Governor on down that the ground would be open to sportsmen, the airstrip would be available for use by back country aviator's for camping and hiking etc., total compensation for the Wilcox family was a little over three million. I used to fly Waldo Wilcox into this garden of eden in the winter with a C-206 full of 50 pound protein blocks for the herd of cows that wintered in there. So when I heard that he had sold the Range Creek Ranch and it was open for airplane camping I was a little excited, so excited I went in there and camped 5 or six times over a space of maybe 9 months, it had all the potential to become Utah's Johnson Creek, a little stream, some fantastic scenery for photography, the storied history of a hundred year old Pioneering Ranching Family. Neatest place by far on Planet Utar.....Then one day the sky dawned with a darkness akin to Satans' return to earth....one of the visiting University of Utah's Archaeology Professor's found an Arrow Head and raised holy hell about this window in the past being offered up to of all things people that fly airplanes...the gutless bastards in the BLM and Fish and Game let them take it away from us, after we had ponied up private money in equal amounts to the Government contributions it was given over to the University for the study of ancient civilizations.....seems to me there are more ways to ruin access to the back country in a Super Cub than raising the price of gas.
db
