Changes Are Already Felt On The Local Level

Extremists seem to dominate discussions of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, whether they’re in Congress or the Burr Trail Cafe in tiny Boulder, Utah.

In the middle, however, is a group of people trying to work out issues created by President Bill Clinton’s September proclamation.

They’re not waiting for a coal mine or the Tooth Fairy to provide a livelihood. But they’re not necessarily sure whether the monument will be a boon or a blight to their lifestyle.

Mark Austin became the father of his first child last month, the second of two great adventures he’s recently conceived.

The first was the Boulder Mountain Lodge, an upscale resort and restaurant in the scrub of a sickly one-store cow town.

Austin took a big risk as an outsider building the resort before there was any talk of a national monument.

Now he seems poised to reap the windfall of tourism.

“The state travel people say this type of place is the future for the economic growth in this area,” Austin said.

His faith in tourism based on protected federal lands and a clean environment free of coal mines has put him at odds with town fathers in Boulder Utah.

The lodge isn’t likely to get the local nod required for a liquor license that would boost income.

Austin still tries to be a partner.

“We use only local beef in our restaurant,” he said. “It’s the best meat you’ll eat. It’s organic. I’m trying to convince ranchers here to market it that way.”

While he seemed humbled by the challenge of parenthood, he downplayed the gamble he’s made on the lodge.

“It’s not a risk if you look around,” Austin said. “You know something’s going to happen here. The landscape is too special.”

Kim Nelson and her husband followed the lure of ranching and small towns 20 years ago, leaving the city and settling near Boulder to rear a family.

They had no illusions it would be easy. And it hasn’t been.

“Ranching is a tough life anywhere, but especially here,” Nelson said, as she flipped pancakes at the Burr Trail Cafe. “You pretty much have to work other jobs as they come to make ends meet.”

“Of course it’s tough to raise cattle here,” said a customer at the counter. “This is a desert.”

Nelson didn’t argue. Drought and weak cattle markets, not environmentalists, have been the major factors bullying area ranchers in recent years, she said.

“The monument hasn’t changed things, yet.”

A retired rancher downed his cup of coffee and interrupted: “Sooner or later it will. You can’t put people and cows in the same pasture.”

Steve Stoner, the only resident fishing guide in Boulder, didn’t want to assist writers in pinpointing the best fishing holes in the new monument.

“Publicity is going to attract millions of people to places where only a few people ever went,” he said.

Tourists are surprised to learn there’s good fishing in this parched landscape. Hundreds of natural lakes dot Boulder Mountain. Irrigation reservoirs hold trophy trout. Surprising numbers of brown trout spawn naturally in desert spring creeks.

The new monument has given Stoner much to think about. Photo albums in the Boulder Mountain Lodge feature the guide holding stringers of large, bloody, dead trout.

Now he’s preaching the gospel of conservation.

Stoner said he wants to make a living, “but I’m not in the business of exploiting the place. Before this was a national monument, it was easier.”

Sue Fearon and Grant Johnson saw their backcountry guide business take off this spring, after seven lean years.

In mid-April, Johnson was leading the season’s first big expedition for Escalante Canyon Outfitters, guiding a crew of National Geographic photographers.

“The monument has been a big boost,” Fearon said. “But maybe it’s just new-thing disease.”

With her first baby bouncing on her knee, she tended an office phone that’s never been so busy.

“We’ve done lots of different things to stay in this country,” Fearon said. “We’ve worked at uranium mining and road construction, but a full-time outfitting business has been our goal. This was our pie in the sky.”

Publicity about the new monument will bring tourists - and opportunists, too.

“Competition for the guiding business is healthy,” Fearon said. “Competition for the resource is a bummer.

“BLM and local people were going to have to deal with these issues anyway. Now we just have to do it faster.”

Craig Sorenson once had a fairly quiet position as the Bureau of Land Management’s recreation planner in Escalante, Utah.

Since September, the job has grown exponentially.

Sorenson is one of five scientists and specialists on a team charged with producing a management plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by 1999.

The historic nature of the task doesn’t escape him. Most monuments are managed by the heavier environmental hand of the National Park Service. This will be the first monument under the charge of BLM.

“This agency has always managed special areas for recreation, but never anything like this at the national level,” Sorenson said.

He favors treading lightly and moving slowly with changes.

“Many people are glad BLM is running the monument because of the agency’s history for working with grazing and hunting,” he said.

“I think the monument proposal was well thought out. There was concern for the people who live here.”

Changes eventually will affect everyone, from canyoneers to ranchers, he said. The key will be to keep the monument looking pretty much as it is.

Said Sorenson, “This region has always been a discover-on-your-own type of place.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 5 color photos