Update: Sanpete National Park?

(I don’t often give this type of disclaimer, but I’m giving one this time: What follows is fantasy – mostly. Don’t write letters and/or lose sleep over this column – like some of you, who don’t know me or my writing style very well, did the last time I mentioned this proposal.)

Generally speaking, I’m a fan of National Parks. As I write this piece now, for an early Labor Day weekend deadline, we’re contemplating a trip to Bryce Canyon N.P. for Labor Day. We really like it there and go relatively often.

I brought up an idea here a few years ago and I think a version of it deserves mentioning again. See what you think.

What I’m proud to announce, again — right here, right now, is my personal proposal for the formation of the new Sanpete National Park! Yes – that was an exclamation mark!

This is serious business (see my disclaimer at the top of the column). I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while. And by “quite a while,” I mean this has passed through my brain several times.

Don’t knock this process. You don’t think that Tom Edison just waltzed into the laboratory one day and invented the light bulb, do you? I’m suspecting that he used the “think method” for quite a while too.

Whether we like it or not, National Parks are a big deal. Utah’s “Mighty Five” parks are heavily visited. As of Aug. 16, 2024, there are 431 areas in the National Park System. There are 63 of those areas with “National Park” in their name. (I know that sounds weird. But, surprise, surprise – the government has a weird way of classifying and administering their parks and properties.)

In 2023, Zion National Park in Southern Utah was No. 3 on the list of most visited “National Parks” with 4.623 million visitors. Grand Canyon N.P and Great Smoky Mountains N.P. and, exceeded Zion. Interestingly, Yellowstone N.P. is geographically nearly 15 times larger than Zion, but has fewer visitors. (Yellowstone is No. 4 on the list.)

Now I realize that the chance for a new Sanpete National Park is kind of a “shot in the dark.” Actually it’s more like the odds in the movie “Dumb and Dumber” when Jim Carey’s character, Lloyd, asks the pretty girl what his chances are with her. Upon hearing that his chances are “one out of a million,” Lloyd quietly processes the answer. He then is ecstatic and exuberantly responds, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”

Hear me out on this. Sanpete County has a total of 1,588 square miles. Fifty one percent of that is already federal land. The state of Utah has 5% of Sanpete and water makes up 2%. That leaves 42% in private ownership. Why not just convert about half of the roughly 810 square miles of federal land into a national park? (That’s 405 square miles – just helping out, if dividing by 2 isn’t your thing)

That would put our new park in the same league size-wise as Capitol Reef N.P. (378 square miles) and much larger than Bryce Canyon N.P. (56 square miles) and Arches N.P. (120 square miles).

Of course, we’d carve out some special places up the canyons for traditional camping and some areas for ATVs to run amok. We don’t really want too much to change; we just want to be “put on the map.”

We’d make sure we preserve the Sanpete way of life. That, in fact, would be the whole point of the park. Come see a place where pioneers settled, made peace with the natives (after a couple of wars), and still pretty much live in the past. We do have indoor plumbing here, but in a strange sort of way; we have a primitive and spiritual bond with the mountains and the land.

Current visitors to Sanpete already feel the difference between life here and everywhere else. They feel the draw of something indescribable. It’s more than the sunsets and sunrises. (I’ve seen lots of sunsets. And I’ve heard about sunrises. And I might have even seen one or two.)

It’s more than deer running like packs of dogs in our communities. And it’s even more than our isolation and our own manner of speaking.

There’s a magnetism here in Sanpete with our mountains, lakes and streams (regardless of whether there’s water in them or not), historical sites, and unique people. We just need to get the new National Park designated and start beating the drum of publicity.

We need to recognize our Christian duty to ease the heavy visitation burden at the other Utah parks by shouldering some of the load here. And before you could say, “Euros and Yen equal dollars,” tour buses filled with Europeans and Asians would be running up and down Highway 89 and every other road in Sanpete.

Motels and restaurants would fill up. Gas stations would thrive. Tourists would open their wallets to be guided to see a real live elk. They’d toss money in the hat after mock Wild West gunfights on Main Street in Mt. Pleasant. Credit cards would come out to pay for rides on horses up our canyons. We’d only be bound by our imagination as to how the local population could be benefited.

The Fairview Museum would be the initial Visitors Center on the north. The Axtell Post Office on the south would house an entry station for rangers.

There are so many possibilities. We already have “cultural resources” in place. We have a historic drive-in movie theater, various pioneer museums, trails for hiking and riding, and a prison. (I don’t know. Maybe that last thing I mentioned there doesn’t need to be publicized all that much)

There may be a few kinks to work out. I’m sure our congressional delegation could tweak the idea a bit and kick it through Congress. Certainly, Gov. Spencer Cox would see the value of the idea and carry the banner for us.

Like I say, I’ve spent some quality time considering this idea. With that kind of investment of time and pondering, this proposal is not to be taken lightly. — Merrill

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