BLM - Why Is The Wave In Arizona So Inaccessible?

Bureau Of Land Management

This federal agency like several others are involved in managing the outlandish large land owned by the federal government, including national parks and national monuments.

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument In Arizona

See e.g. here and here.

To quote from the BLM website: “This remote and unspoiled, 280,000-acre Monument is a geologic treasure, containing a variety of diverse landscapes from the Paria Plateau, Vermilion Cliffs, Coyote Buttes, and Paria Canyon.”

The Wave

The Wave is one of the spectacular attractions of the Vermilion Cliffs NM and beyond. You can search the Internet for photos of it.

Outrageous Access Policies

As can be expected from a big federal government, the access policy is such that it severely restricts access to the people of this country.

The website of the BLM hides the information about the permits required, thus I will quote from Wikipedia here: “BLM limits access to the North Coyote Buttes Wilderness Area to just 20 permits per day. Ten of the permits are available in advance by an on-line lottery conducted four months before the month for which the permit is sought. The remaining ten permits are made available by lottery the day before one's intended hike.”

The Wave can only be accessed via a dirt road of 5-10 miles length, which may not be suitable for regular vehicles. Once you reach the trailhead, one has to hike another 3 miles across desert to get to the Wave.

Thus, effectively a large majority of the people of the U.S. will probably never in their lifetime be able to see the Wave thanks to these outrageous measures imposed by the federal government.

Wilderness For Wilderness’s Sake

I am personally opposed to such extreme nature conservation.

We The People should ask big federal government:

1. To return such federal lands to the respective states
2. To develop attractions like the Wave by private businesses for more tourism

Previous, Related Blog Posts

See here and here.

U.S. National Park Service Hostile To Individual Freedom

Trigger

My recent visit to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park (SR). This is the second of a series of blog posts about the U.S. National Park Service (first one here).

Toll Trail

Nearby are three photos I took from displays at the SR created by the National Park Service. When I read them on location I was stunned. Expressions of hostility towards individual freedom and free enterprise. The propaganda of the NPS here is that thanks to the federal government’s land grab we are now all much better off.

“Imagine if all the park trails were privately owned and every time you wanted to use them you had to pay a toll …”

Well first of all admission per vehicle to the Grand Canyon National Park is $25. Sure there are other options available like $10 lifetime pass for over 62 year old persons. However, most of us pay with our taxes for this as well whether we ever visit this park or not.

Of course Ralph Cameron had a “precarious legal” claim to the Blue Angel Trail and he dared to collect tolls for the trail all the while until finally in 1928 our savior the “National Park Service gained control”.

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to do more research into Ralph Cameron here, but this guy was among other things a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator from Arizona.

The above photo was taken inside the Verkamp’s Visitor Center at the South Rim at Grand Canyon Village. I believe, this used to be a private business as well until fairly recently. Perhaps, a story for another time. The official NPS story about Verkamp is here.

I believe, the “Mining For Tourist Dollars” exhibit above talks about the early days of the Grand Canyon Village. To excerpt from this chapter: “No one spent a dime on community services, however, or thought to develop sensible zoning.” This is an incredible hogwash!

The early private entrepreneurs provided a variety of community services to common people: affordable, quality lodging and meals; guided tours; jobs and other services. The NPS said about Verkamp among other things following (emphasis added): “The Verkamps built their business on service to their guests, service to their employees, and service to their community.”

To use hyperbole, because there was no “sensible zoning” the federal government was entitled to grab the land for the Grand Canyon National Park? First of all, I would assume zoning was not yet widely established anywhere in U.S., except perhaps for the Northeast, around the turn of the 20th century when the Grand Canyon began to be developed (See e.g. Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co., a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of November 1926 regarding zoning).  I would also argue that government mandated zoning is no blessing and the disadvantages may have well outweighed the benefits (a story for another blog post). Not least it is often a severe interference with private property rights and freedom of contract.