cows in the roost?

[regehr]

has anyone recently been in Robbers Roost Canyon, particularly the Middle and North forks, and White Roost? I'm considering this area for an easy backpack with a friend who hasn't backpacked before and this seems as good a place as any. last time I was in this canyon complex (winter 2019 I think) White Roost and the N Fork were cowed up pretty badly. anyway, if anyone has advice for where to find good sections of this canyon complex for walking, preferable with some un-cowed-up water sources, I'd love to hear it

 

[regehr]

to follow up on this, some friends and I spent Thurs-today in the RR canyon system, entering via White Roost using the old cow trail. White Roost isn't excessively cowed up and had a trickle most of the way from where the cow trail lands to its mouth. There was sporadic water in the RR main forks, but not a ton of it. The Robbers Roost North Fork was very cowed up, as was the middle fork, really pretty nasty, I'm not in a hurry to return to this area. However, we found decent camps up on benches the cows couldn't reach. The most fun part of this trip was exiting via Angel Arch up to the Navajo dome zone that makes sort of a pie slice between the N and S forks. There wasn't much water up there but we found a few potholes, so we camped up there with really great views and of course no cow action.

 

[fossana]

I grew up with and like cows, but the cow situation in the southern UT watersheds is frustrating. Technically cows are illegal along the Escalante River along Hole in Rock Rd, but they are clearly down there. Upper Paria is also cowed up.

 

[regehr]

I grew up with and like cows, but the cow situation in the southern UT watersheds is frustrating. Technically cows are illegal along the Escalante River along Hole in Rock Rd, but they are clearly down there. Upper Paria is also cowed up.

I don't super mind them either, but ugh. a decade w/o cows and some of these places would look entirely different.

the other year along Halls Creek the cows were not obeying the CRNP signs, what the heck??

 

[regehr]

some of the most frustrating cows are in places like the Kaiparowits Plateau where -- knowledgeable folks have told me -- the cows have done more damage to archaeological sites in the last 50 years than time alone did in the last 1000

 

[fossana]

I just saw this article on how much of the leased BLM land in the west is failing the agency's own health checks, although they didn't crunch the numbers for UT. Here's the data plotted on an interactive map. You can see grazing allotments like Upper Paria and Coyote (Escalante) in red. Unfortunately, the BLM didn't adjust grazing leases when they had the opportunity to with the GSENM management plan update.

Preview: