Maloy has long criticized this southern Utah national monument that was halved by President Trump during his first term, then restored under President Biden. One million awestruck visitors come here every year and spend money in the two Utah counties surrounding the monument, whose towns total less than 14,000 residents. Yet Maloy discounts data showing the economic value of preserved public lands. She neglects the world-class scientific value of these 1.9 million acres, detailed in Biden’s proclamation.

Rep. Maloy’s attack is wily. She and the rest of the congressional delegation know there’s too much public support to ask President Trump to again chop down the monument’s size. Nearly 3 out of 4 Utah voters are on record as wanting to keep Grand Staircase-Escalante protected as a national monument.

So Utah politicians are betting the public won’t pay as much attention to management retrenchment as they would to downsizing. They’re using a controversial tactic to force the Bureau of Land Management to abandon the current Resource Management Plan—a blueprint for how the BLM puts the presidential proclamation into effect on the ground.

But monument supporters are paying attention because management plans matter.

After President Biden restored the boundaries of Grand Staircase in 2021, the BLM worked with the public for two years to create the 2025 Resource Management Plan, listening to every conceivable collaborative partner. Such plans guide decision-making for years, and this true compromise keeps ranchers’ grazing permits in place while also factoring in a warming planet, persistent drought, the need for biodiversity and a sustainable future.

Now, Rep. Maloy has obtained an opinion from the Government Accountability Office to treat the 2025 plan merely as a “rule” that Congress can overturn. This unprecedented allowance can’t be challenged in court and permits the Utah delegation to use the Congressional Review Act to kill the conservation-based plan and bar the agency from issuing any “substantially the same” plan in the future. The Trump-era plan that would take its place leaves much of the monument unprotected from extractive industry and off-road vehicles.

Maloy says that emphasizing conservation “undercuts rural economic development.” Frrom 2001 to 2022, however, real per capita income grew by 41 percent in the monument’s counties.

She says that local residents and “trail users” oppose the Biden plan. This is cherry-picking. Motorized trail users always want greater access, even though the Biden-era plan left more than 800 miles of dirt roads and trails open for motorized vehicles.

When Maloy talks about “deep cultural traditions” being disrupted by the current management plan, she isn’t listening to Indigenous people who have made this place their home since time immemorial. The six Native Nations of the Grand-Staircase Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition oppose her move, noting that without the “clear roadmap for protection and conservation” provided by the current management plan, “our ancestral lands and … cultural sites within the monument would be at greater risk of looting, vandalism, graffiti, and degradation.”

To support their attacks, Utah’s politicians use their timeworn template to argue exclusively for “the needs and voices of the people who live and work on this land.” These politicians, however, listen only to county commissioners and legacy ranchers, not to a much broader constituency.

This is Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, not Grand Staircase County Park. The environmental, scientific, interpretive, and Indigenous values and potential of these public lands have national and international importance.

This new attack on Grand Staircase-Escalante from Congress—along with a parallel attack on Minnesota’s Boundary Waters—would set a national precedent with no public input that could upend public lands protection for years. Even the deeply conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation said it fears a “Wild West” for land-use planning if Congress acts on Maloy’s radical approach.

The exhausting years-long battle to protect the resources and restorative magic of Grand Staircase-Escalante can wear out supporters. But this place gives us no choice but to speak up once again. Staying silent puts federal agencies in an impossible position and places all of our public lands at risk. Let your members of Congress know that preservation of the monument requires leaving the current resource management plan in place.

Stephen Trimble is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He’s been hiking in Grand Staircase and writing about Colorado Plateau conservation for 50 years.

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Hours earlier, I scrambled up to this cliff to watch the sunset. A lot of people take in the play of light over the red rocks every evening. But the route up a boulder wall that seemed so clear in the daylight was no longer obvious in the twilight. I was stuck.

Count me as one of the many hikers who’ve found themselves in a pickle. I was lucky, though, and finally found my own way down to the trailhead below. 

These days, I’ve been researching how the busiest search and rescue team in Utah, based in Moab, responds to an average of 130 calls per year from people who are not so lucky. This team has to be ready for urgent calls from climbers, mountain bikers, off-roaders, backcountry skiers, hikers, BASE jumpers and river rafters. The team handles it all.

“A lot of emergency situations are like improv because you don’t get to say no,” said Grand County Search and Rescue member Jordan Lister. “It’s just ‘Yes, and…we will get through this together.’”

Lister is one of the dozens of first responders who share their personal stories in a new podcast series that I’m producing, called Back From Beyond. The 60- to 90-minute episodes are a collaboration between the search and rescue team, Grand County tourism and trails staff, and Moab-based KZMU community radio.

In the episode “Hiking Behind the Rocks,” hiker Jason Goldsmith talked about how he got turned around in the maze-like terrain above Moab’s rim. With a fast-moving winter storm approaching, he said he had no choice but to find shelter.

“It was a huge emotional roller coaster,” he recalled, “and I don’t recommend it to anybody.” 

Like most people who call Moab’s search and rescue for help, he didn’t get in trouble by pushing a sport to the limit. Instead, something unexpected happened and the person is unprepared. Perhaps a route takes longer than anticipated, they twist an ankle a few miles in, get turned around and lost, their climbing rope gets stuck or they didn’t pack enough water.

“When I was younger,” said Grand County Search and Rescue member Michelle Leber, “I would hear about accidents and think, ‘Oh, that would never happen to me.’ But small decisions can add up to a miserable day outdoors. I mean, how many things have we all gotten away with and we didn’t even know it?”

The podcast has covered climbers stuck on Castleton Tower, one of the most challenging desert monoliths in the world; a backcountry skier tells of coping with an injury in the remote La Sal Mountains; and an off-roader recounts what happened after flipping their vehicle off a 150-foot cliff. All the stories in this first season of Back From Beyond serve to remind people how quickly things can go south, and how much we depend on somebody helping when they do.

“Outdoor recreation is a community,” said Rachelle Brinkman, recounting her mountain biking accident in the episode, “The Whole Enchilada.” Brinkman suffered injuries after crashing her bike in technical, rocky terrain around Moab. A lot of people came to her aid that day, she said, and she now makes sure to check on any rider who might need a hand.

“We look out for each other,” she said, “and we help each other, whether you’re in search and rescue or not.”

By now I’ve talked to many people about their trips in the backcountry, and it still amazes me how many times they recall saying to themselves before setting out: “Better grab an extra layer, this battery charger, a headlamp, and also tell someone where I’m going.” They realize that one small, smart decision before heading outdoors can save the day.

If you’re exploring the rugged outback of Moab someday and need to make an emergency call for help, you’re in luck. A team of seasoned professionals with Grand County Search and Rescue will work hard to get you home safe.

Molly Marcello is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She directed KZMU News in Moab for more than six years and is the producer of the new documentary podcast series, Back From Beyond.

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