ShareTrails | RELEASE: BlueRibbon Coalition Will Challenge Plan to Close Labyrinth Rims/Gemini Bridges

SALT LAKE CITY – BlueRibbon Coalition (BRC) announced today that it opposes the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) proposed final travel plan for the Labyrinth Rims/Gemini Bridges area near Moab. The plan closes 317 miles of the most popular backcountry roads in the world. It limits or prohibits camping access to countless free, primitive dispersed campsites. It closes numerous RS2477 county roads. It closes several trails featured in BRC’s Volume 2 of the Lost Trails Guidebook. It also restricts recreation access to scenic viewpoints, high value jeep trails, and scenic driving routes.

Since 2008, BlueRibbon Coalition has been party to a legal settlement between the Bureau of Land Management and several wilderness groups that requires BLM to reevaluate 13 travel areas across the state of Utah. This planning process is part of this legal settlement.

“Clearly, the Bureau of Land Management didn’t listen to the thousands of recreation users who sent route-specific and substantive comments to the agency to keep this area open,” BRC Executive Director, Ben Burr said. “Most of the surrounding area is protected as National Parks, National Monuments, and Wilderness. The BLM was managing this area well for all uses, and the excessive amount of closures in this plan is a handout to radical environmental groups and completely unnecessary.”

The BlueRibbon Coalition will be working with allied organizations in the recreation community to use all tools available to challenge this plan that will hurt millions of recreation users, the state economy of Utah, and BlueRibbon Coalition members.

Supporters of BlueRibbon Coalition can donate to our legal fund here: https://www.sharetrails.org/donate-legal-fund/