dmcphoto
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From a detached and purely artistic standpoint the photograph is, IMO, quite nice. What bothers me is that some _______s (insert whatever term you want, mine isn't printable) saw fit to install this thing where they did. There are obviously some mixed feelings and comments about the whole thing, and I'll try my best to explain another side of this.
I first discovered Moab in 1983, and it was a paradise. I spent something like 2 years in chunks between 2 and 4 weeks long between 1983 and the middle 1990s doing nothing but exploring the area. I stopped going, and in fact started avoiding the area around 2000, though I still stop randomly for a day or two when I'm driving through on the way to somewhere else.
Back then US-191 from Crescent Junction to Moab was a narrow 2-lane road. Heading south Moab began at Cermak Road, which was named by the person who then owned the Inca Inn, after a road he owned a store on in Chicago before moving to Moab. The Inca Inn was the first motel in town if you came from I-70. To the south, Moab ended at a Ford dealership, which was located where the McDonald's restaurant is now. Between Moab and Monticello there was no development at all except Hole in the Rock. I came to know lots of Moab residents, but all have since moved elsewhere. I stayed in contact with and occasionally visited the one I mentioned, who moved back to Chicago. I remember him saying that the Chicago traffic is as bad as Moab, but the restaurants are better.
Between early September and late May you could hike all day in Arches National Park and see just a few other people. If you took the rough dirt road to the Delicate Arch trailhead and hiked to Delicate Arch at sunset, you'd either be alone or there might be another person or two. Untrampled cryptobiotic soil was everywhere and everything in the park was pristine.
Canyonlands Island in the Sky district was even less crowded and absolutely pristine. There were no railings, paved roads, or paved overlooks. UT-213 after Seven Mile Canyon where the big switchbacks begin was a narrow and rough dirt road. It took an hour from there to get from there to Grandview Point if you drove way too fast. The "visitor center" was an old house trailer and one ranger lived up there. If you got to Mesa Arch at sunrise or anytime before there was never anyone around. The rest of the overlooks up there were the same. All were generally vacant until an hour or so after sunrise, and they could never be described as crowded.
If you went down the Potash Road and up to Poison Spider Mesa you'd never see a soul. I think you could literally camp in the Poison Spider Mesa trail and never be disturbed.
As you might imagine, the more isolated Canyonlands Needles District was almost, but not quite, a wilderness. I never saw the campground full or even almost full. I'd sometimes hike to Druid Arch, where I never saw anyone. In fact the NPS used to issue backcountry camping permits to stay within 1 mile of Druid Arch, which I did in order to be there at sunrise. Now it's the most popular trail in the Needles and the campgrounds are booked a year ahead.
A number of times I drove the Lockhard Basin Road, along which this monolith was located, back to Moab. Sometimes I'd camp along the way. I don't recall ever seeing another person back there. When I read the post saying "Lots of people camped near Hamburger Rock Weds night, and there was maybe 15 cars headed up as I was headed out on Thu morning" it seemed unimaginable, but I guess not surprising. Lockhart Basin road joins a road called "Chicken Corners" that becomes Kane Creek and goes back into town, but don't try doing this without a capable high clearance 4WD and some experience. You can easily damage the roof (really) not to mention other parts, on the northernmost part of the Lockhart Basin road.
I could go on and on, and I suppose I already have. Things were pretty much as I've described them until the early 1990s when Moab exploded, and in just the last 30 or so years it went from the paradise it was to the relative hell-hole it is today. Everything anywhere near Moab is completely overrun with people and trampled. The town, which used to be quaint, lovely, and quirky (in a nice way) in its own right is now just another seriously overcrowded tourist town.
Park rangers now call the gatherings at Delicate Arch around sunset "the nightly melee" that can reach numbers well over 100 people. There can be a 2 hour wait at the park entrance and traffic still spills out onto US-191 in spite of the greatly expanded "car holding" road/parking lot. Mesa Arch is the same and neither is still worth visiting (IMO). Most areas not in a national park are overrun with people riding every description of the noisiest terrain destructing and dust generating machinery you can imagine. There are literally ATV traffic jams on the trail to Poison Spider Mesa!
Now a monolith drawing more people to yet another area that virtually no one would have a reason to visit, beyond trying to experience some solitude.
What will things be like in another 30 years?
What I've described is happening everywhere there is a pristine natural area, simultaneously, all around America and the rest of the world. The monolith can be as much a symbol of destruction as anything else.
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