First Trip: Zion National Park and Weed Control

Walking to Camp

Our first project was in the backcountry setting of Hop Valley in Zion National Park.  We camped in the side canyon shown above next to a stream.  Zion is in red rock country where the canyons are made of red sandstone with a few splashes of white "Navajo" sandstone in there (turned white by calcium carbonate and other marine minerals that accumulate in sediment on ocean/sea bottoms).  One day, similarly impressive canyons will form in what is now the Sahara.  Hop Valley is in the northwest arm of the park.  It is small and flat-bottomed with high walls.  The trail runs it's length towards La Verkin creek and the Kolob Arch and was used by about 10 people per day while we were there in mid-June.

Our job was to spray for several invasive weeds, namely mullein (which is not considered noxious in Northern Utah) and bull and scotch thistle.  We used a homemade mix of Roundup, which I was surprised to find out is very friendly on the environment for an herbicide.  It doesn't drift to neighboring plants and it degrades in hours.  Plus it sticks to dirt much better than it dissolves in water so it doesn't runoff.  We used backpack sprayers, so we looked like shoegazing ghostbusters as we walked in lines across the canyon floor.  The area needed spraying because it was actually privately-owned land next to the park owned by a certain Mr. Lee.  He lets Zion run a trail through his property and spray for weeds to protect their own lands.  Zion hopes to purchase the land if/when the Lee family ever decides tos ell the land.  Many National Parks actively try to acquire new lands next to their parks.  Even if that weren't the case, there is plenty of reason for the Parks to be on good terms with their neighbors.  Mr. Lee owns thousands of acres next to the park that he uses for grazing his cattle, who carry the seeds and burrs of invasive plants far and wide.  An angry neighbor can cutoff access to sections of a park by disallowing use of roads on their property and the like.  Land in Utah is a complicated mess of private parcels, refuge and wilderness land and more open-use for commercial and recreational use public land.  The success of Zion National Park is partly due to the limited use for commerce and recreation on the three large neighboring private land tracts (Mr. Lee owns one).  Zion has a nice buffer of quiet surrounding properties that helps for the deer and water quality and light pollution and that type of thing.

It was hot, and we spent the day walking around in full leather boots, work pants, long-sleeves, non-breathable gloves, and safety glasses, but it was worth because there is treasure in Hop Valley!  I found a leatherman, and Chris found a twenty dollar bill (off the trail up a side canyon no less).  Below is a picture of a sandy part of the Hop Valley floor.

The sandy streambed of Hop Valley

We worked with a team of national park workers.  One of them, Ben, is the dude on the right in the top picture.  He only uses ultralight gear that is either dehydrated or multifunctional.  Over the last few weeks, I've gotten a taste of the different types of people who are attracted to the outdoors.  There are the wannabe manly-macho men, the high tech gearsters like Ben, the spiritualites like John Muir, and finally really dirty gorp lovers.  All of them have some hippy tendencies.  All of them typically want some wilderness experience, where wilderness is an area not affected by human activity.  Such a place a doesn't exist.  And actually, some of the better preserved parts of Utah are actually the overgrazed rangeland governed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  In Zion, I thought about the wannabe manly-macho men who thankfully are in other groups and gearster Ben trying to be cutting edge in their ability to handle the outdoors.  Wilderness is kind of a joke (not a fact, but my opinion right now), but that doesn't mean that places aren't tame or that the outdoors isn't scary.  In my four days in the backcountry I saw eight rattlesnakes, one of whom twice came right through our camp.  It seems so arrogant to try to take your gear or your ego into the wild to live some idealized rough life on the trail.  There are impressive sights out there to be sure, especially if you accept that they are gifts to be discovered by those with a healthy caution and respect.

Here's a little rattlesnake that warned me that he was about to cross the stream and that I was coming too close. (zoomable--like all my pictures)