What's in a name?

des o la tion
noun

a state of complete emptiness or destruction: the stony desolation of the desert.

Martin Litton named his armada of dories, all painted in bright and distinctive colors, after natural wonders which, in his eyes, had been foolhardily despoiled by man. The names of women, royalty, mythology, and the heavens have all been thoroughly seined for depiction upon the bows and transoms of thousands of boats. But for me, Litton's approach seemed fitting, and organic.

His boats took the names of Hetch Hetchy (a canyon north of Yosemite described by John Muir as the holiest temple ever consecrated by the heart of man, and later flooded to feed the burgeoning city of San Francisco as it struggled to pick up the pieces after the devastating 1906 earthquake. www.hetchhetchy.org); Music Temple (a feature in Glen Canyon on the Colorado River first described by John Wesley Powell in 1869. Powell wrote of this place "When 'Old Shady' sings us a song at night, we are pleased to find that this hollow in the rock is filled with sweet sounds. It was doubtless made for an academy of music by its storm-born architect; so we name it ‘Music Temple." The temple entrance was lined with majestic box elder and cottonwood trees. Inside there was a clear, deep pool of water. A one second note was said to resonate for eleven seconds. In 1963, Glen Canyon Dam was completed, flooding 186 miles of the Colorado River and a spectacular region that had been proposed as a National Park before WWII. The 125 major side canyons of Glen Canyon, comprising the biological heart of the Colorado River, was flooded as Powell Reservoir backed up over the next 17 years. David Brower summed up the feelings of many when he called the loss of Glen Canyon, "America's most regretted environmental mistake." www.glencanyon.org); and Sequoia (for the worlds largest trees, endangered by development and harvest. Litton is often attributed as the Father of Redwood National Park, which exists in part because of his consistent drum beating on behalf of the mighty trees. www.savetheredwoods.org)

And that brings us to Utah - the center of a three- decade-old debate over wilderness protection - and the Canyon of Desolation:

North of Green River, Utah, the 2,000-foot-high escarpment of the Book and Roan cliffs marks the southern perimeter of a million-acre wilderness of exceptional geographic and biological diversity. Bounded by a 250-mile-long thousand- foot-high band of cliffs, the longest continuous escarpment in the world, the Book Cliffs Region is one of the largest unprotected natural and predominantly roadless areas in the western United States. This region is rich in wildlife habitat, ancient cultural remains, and current recreational opportunities. Because of its size, lack of human intrusions, and the diversity and abundance of its habitat, the Book Cliffs Region is an important sanctuary for wildlife. An estimated 375 vertebrate species-half the number found in all of Utah-are found in this region. Its historical significance to humans is marked by numerous archaeological sites, including rock art, rock shelters, campsites, and burial grounds. Today people float the region’s White and Green Rivers, hunt its canyons and mesas, or simply enjoy observing wildlife bound over silver-green sage and early light burn on redrock cliffs. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently called the Desolation Canyon
area “a place where a visitor can experience true solitude - where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape.”

"Wilderness At the Edge" - Utah Wilderness Coalition, 1989

After barely surviving the Canyon of Lodore, and traveling through the vast open expanses of the Uinta Basin, Powell and his remaining crew must have felt some apprehension upon approaching the rising walls of signaling their descent into yet another unknown canyon. Powell's writings reflect this anxiety:

After dinner we pass through a region of wildest desolation. The canyon is very tortuous, the river very rapid, and many lateral canyons enter on either side. The region is cut into a wilderness of gray and brown cliffs. Piles of broken rock lie against these walls; crags and tower-shaped peaks are seen everywhere, and away above them, long lines of broken cliffs; and above and beyond the cliffs are pine forests of which we obtain occasional glimpses as we look up through a vista of rocks. We are minded to call this the Canyon of Desolation.

"The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons" - J.W. Powell, 1869

In some ways, little has changed since Powell first surveyed the Canyon of Desolation. But in many ways, everything has changed. What was once an impossibly unreachable wilderness is now traveled by thousands of people every year; so many that the BLM has been forced to implement a permit system for anyone wishing to undertake a private trip through the canyon.

But river runners are far from the only impact to the region. U.S.Geological Survey estimates a mean of 21 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas and a mean of 60 million barrels of undiscovered oil in the Uinta Basin. According to the federal government’s Energy Information Administration, the state of Utah holds approximately 2.5 percent of the country’s proven natural gas reserves and a mere one percent of the country’s proven oil reserves. Only a fraction of that lies beneath proposed wilderness. In fact, government figures show that “technically recoverable” (but not necessarily economically recoverable) undiscovered natural gas and oil resources on proposed wilderness lands amount to less than 4 weeks of natural gas and roughly 4 days of oil at current consumption levels. Such a trivial amount will hardly make or break our nation’s energy independence. But it sure can make a few people rich, and as so it is being exploited. The White River, and the Canyon of Desolation being squarely in the center of this most incredible proliferation of extractive industry and it's accompanying infrastructure of roads, pipelines, pumps and compressors. The worst has yet to penetrate the depths of the inner canyon in Deso, but one only needs to look at the White River and Upper Deso to see what the effects would be if it did. Paradise, lost.

And so, following in the footsteps of Martin, I offer up my tribute to one of the greatest natural treasures of our world: Desolation Canyon. In lament of the reaches already lost to development, and in hopes that the rest remains wild.