Joan and I love this time of the year in our neck of the Colorado Plateau: The light is sublime, the days are pleasantly cool, and the nights are cold and clear with a night sky that never fails to delight. And we seem to have the area almost to ourselves.
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And because the days are short, it lends itself to not miles but hours exploring.
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Going up and down cliffs, poking in and out of alcoves, and “seeing what see.” Miles hiked become secondary to the hours spent out here.
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We explored near the famous Comb Ridge area with its many cliff dwellings, images, and other signs of the people that called this place home hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
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I reviewed a PBS documentary on Bears Ears two years ago this month. And felt that the overwhelming theme of the documentary is that of hope. Hope for the future and hope that the wild places, in some form, will get enjoyed by future generations. And hope for America doing what’s right.
Meaning that the Ameican experiment of government by consensus and compromise will help all the parties, views, and conflicts come into agreement.
A person named Dino apparently felt different since he wrote:
Given the current administration, I wouldn’t hang on or wait for any kind of “hope” from the federal government. Be real.
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And here we are two years later. Assuming the new president-elects gets sworn in, the fate of Bears Ears may change again. With the recent election, there is the potential that this area may be part of a larger monument once more.
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We can still hope.
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So the Bears Ears remains protected, unlike the decades before Obama’s exec order in 2016? And this is a bad thing?
I like “better” versus merely ‘OK., Cheers.