Activity Report Explorer

Greater Wasatch • Entered by Barbara McConvill on July 31, 2023

Nine-Mile Canyon Site Visit

July 12, 2023 – July 13, 2023

Key Issue: Multiple apply
Activity Type: Education & Outreach (tabling, films & lectures, regional B-walks/works)
Key Partners: Greater Wasatch Broadband

Short Description of Activity

Four Broads from Greater Wasatch took an educational trip to better understand the threats to Nine-Mile Canyon in central Utah. Located in canyon is the longest outdoor art gallery in the world at 41 miles. Contained in the canyon are hundreds of ancient petroglyphs and pictographs, many located a few steps from the main highway. The threat is a movement to pave a section of the road that will create a “carbon highway” from Duchesne to Price. We wanted to explore the area see for ourselves what needs to be protected.

Reflection/Evaluation

Two of our group of four had never been to Nine-mile including Linda Laws. She is our conduit to the Save Nine-Mile effort. The other two had visited the canyon prior to this new threat, seeing it in a new light. Here is what Linda had to say about the trip: “It is very apparent the moment you arrive in Nine Mile Canyon that it’s been a place used by many peoples for more than a millennium. Ranchers, homesteaders, pioneers, the Ute and Paiute and the Fremont before them…a special, sacred place.

I had never been to Nine Mile before but had long wanted to go. So when we planned our great adventure there, I was really excited. We spent the night in Wellington, the nearest town to the canyon, and headed out the next morning supplied with food, drink and a jug of spring water we had procured the day before in Spring City, a fun little central Utah town on the national historic register. We also had maps and guides provided by our fearless leader Barbara.

For me, who is somewhat of a history/archaeology nerd, I was awestruck. Panels upon panels of petroglyphs and pictographs adorn the red rock walls and these were only the ones we could access from the highway. The representation of the animals and humans and creation stories of the ancient indigenous inhabitants are breathtaking and I can only imagine how many more exist up narrow side canyons and on private property. There are also crumbling cabins and buildings that tell another, more recent story of the hardships the pioneers faced in a beautiful but difficult landscape.

It’s hard for me to imagine this unique place under attack from the extraction industries who want to use it as a hydrocarbon highway. It deserves to be treated with the respect and reverence the ancients had for it so it can be a place our children and their children can come to be awestruck and inspired just like I was.”

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Photo Captions

Linda Laws, Sharon Roghaar and Janifer Larson view the Owl panel in Nine-Mile Canyon
Barbara McConvill is trilled to have arrived at the gateway to Nine-Mile Canyon
One of the many petroglyph panels in Nine-Mile Canyon
Barbara McConvill, Sharon Roghaar, Janifer Larson and Linda Laws pause for a selfie in front of a panel.