Our third day-hike in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah took us to Deer Creek Canyon, a short drive east of our lodging in Boulder, Utah, along the Burr Trail Road. Because it is a national monument and not a national park, and because they wanted to ruffle as few feathers as they could when they established the national monument by presidential proclamation, President Clinton and the Interior Department allowed considerable flexibility in land use within the monument--including continued grazing. Deer Creek Canyon is a poster child for overgrazing in the West. Though we actually never saw a live steer during our walk (we did see two carcasses), all edible vegetation had been nibbled to within an inch of its life, the landscape was strewn with cow pies, and countless cattle trails obscured the sandy, unmarked hiking trail. Deer Creek itself, in contrast to Calf Creek (our previous day's hike), is visibly more turbid and less appealing from cattle wallowing and runoff.
Nevertheless, the walk still offered some very pleasant scenery and some good opportunities for capturing images.
Nevertheless, the walk still offered some very pleasant scenery and some good opportunities for capturing images.
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