More New Mexico Badlands

August 28, 2010 - On this day I made a discovery worthy of note in the Ah-shi-sle-pah WSA. While hiking back to my car, late in the afternoon, I found myself following tire tracks where there should never be tire tracks. I was hoping to find out how anyone had actually gotten a motor vehicle into the lower badlands. Amazed that you could drive down there at all, I was also outraged at the act itself. Sure enough, the tracks led up one of the bentonite hills and snaked their way to the parking area. Someone had driven around the three metal stakes which are placed across the old access road, a road I assume dates back to the days of archeological digs in the area.

All the way home I brooded about it, and the thing which bothered me most was not that some people were so thoughtless or destructive, but that the people who had made those tracks might not even have known they were doing wrong. The old signage was gone, a casualty of sun and pervasive high winds in that remote place. Just as more and more people were visiting these badlands, there was no reminder left of the status of these lands: A Wilderness Study Area (WSA), just short of actual wilderness status, and subject to some of the same rules. No mechanized vehicles are allowed, including cars, trucks, all terrain vehicles, dirt bikes, and mountain bikes.

October 13, 2010 - On this day I paid a visit to the BLM offices in Farmington, New Mexico, hoping to talk to someone in charge. The Bureau of Land Management oversees many of the public lands in the west, including the Ah-shi-sle-pah WSA. They signed me in as a guest, allowing me behind the counter, and one of their employees (I wish I had gotten her name) spent a good amount of time with me. She showed me maps and other documents, and assured that the person who dealt with the badlands was in a meeting at the time, but he would certainly be informed of my concerns. I had done what I could, I supposed, but left unsure that I had really accomplished anything.

December 10, 2010 - On this day I returned to Ah-shi-sle-pah and got an early Christmas present. The BLM had planted two signs out near the county road, right in the middle of the jeep path!

So to those folks out there who only knock the government at every turn, please remember that while bureaucracy lumbers along and is often an impediment, the government is made up of individual people, many of whom care about the same things you care about. These people work for you, so let them know what you think, hopefully in a constructive manner. You have nothing to lose but time, and everything to gain. Here are some more agencies which deserve to hear from you: the US Forest Service, the US Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency.

On my first trip to the Bisti Badlands, I followed two parallel tracks as I hiked, and they led toward some rather famous rocks. I think that those tracks were made by a photographer pulling a wheeled case, something perhaps not permitted. On another occasion I met two young guys at the parking area who had arrived in an old sedan with all of the windows broken out. They were using a mountain bike, definitely not permitted, as a shuttle to the area where they had set up camp. The tracks left by these visitors were visable for months afterward, and I wonder whether they were aware of that. On two other occasions I have seen ATV tracks into the Bisti, and I suspect that those people just didn't care, since knocking down fences seemed okay to them.

So what can people who care about the badlands do to preserve their fragile features for future generations? I have not seen any real evidence of willful destruction out there, but the ballooning numbers of visitors over the few years that I have known the badlands make me frightened for their health. Are we loving them to death?

I think that all we can do is try to impress upon others the fragility of these places, and show by example how to walk lightly in them. One problem I note is the need people have to see particular rocks, to take the same pictures over and over which others have taken. This concentrates the wear and tear on the badlands immensely. Posting GPS coordinates is a leading culprit here, and I firmly believe that finding a place through blind exploration is more rewarding than following a beaten path. I am probably wasting my time suggesting this.....so it goes.

I sometimes worry, due to a few e-mails I have received, that there are some out there who have taken a project of mine a bit too seriously, the Bist Mini-Jeep Tour, and so here I will go on record: It is a joke! There are no jeep tours in the Bisti Wilderness, unless you are less than three inches tall.

I also want to address the subject of secrecy. Over the last two years, numerous folks from both sides of the Atlantic have asked me for the location of a rock often called the "King". On one European forum, it was supposed that not disclosing favorite locations was selfish or elitist, or even somehow not ethical. One gentleman objected to being told that he could not go to a place. I replied that nobody was telling him that he couldn't go to this place, but others were under no obligation to tell him exactly where it was! My analogy is that of a favorite "fishing hole", and while it would be wrong to actually prevent access, it's an entirely different matter to keep mum about the location.

Up until late in 2010, I honestly had no idea where the "King" was. I had my guesses, and I had trekked many miles looking for it. But now that I do know, it will remain a secret, not because of selfishless or elitism, or even out of fear for the pristine nature of the locale (a valid reason, I believe), but because I made a promise to another person, and that person then provided me with the clues I needed.

Along the way I discovered many wonderful things, and the enjoyment was in the seeking. I am probably wasting my time suggesting this.....so it goes.