For the third time since October, someone has fired
shots into the empty fee booth at the entrance to Moab’s Sand Flats
Recreation Area, which includes the popular Slickrock bike trail.
The Bureau of Land Management and Sand Flats are offering a $2,000
reward for information leading to the culprits. Investigators have
no leads, but police and Sand Flats officials are convinced that
local residents are responsible.
Last year,
vandalism cost about $7,000, almost 90 percent of the recreation
area’s entire maintenance budget. Sand Flats program director
Michael Smith said not all the vandalism is caused by area
residents, but he believes that the more serious acts, like the
shootings, are committed by locals. Smith said recently that he is
more concerned about incidents that directly threaten visitors’
safety than about the fee booth
shootings.
“They’ve been shooting the booth when
no one is in there,” Smith said. “But last fall we had several
reports of drivers trying to run down mountain bikers. I’m worried
that someone is going to be physically injured.”
Smith also cited instances of people
intentionally driving through occupied campsites late at night. In
one such incident, three pickup trucks roared through a camp at 3
a.m. “The people in the trucks threw beer bottles (at campers) and
shouted, “Yuppie scum, go home,” “””said Smith. “No one got a
license plate number, but the trucks had Utah plates. We believe
they were locals.”
Since a $5 per vehicle
admission fee was imposed in 1995, Sand Flats staffers say they
have continually encountered resistance from local residents who
resent having to pay to go to the area.
*Lisa
Church
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline No love for Lycra in Moab.
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