Merrimac and Monitor Butte Viewpoint

This trail is part of the Labyrinth Rims / Gemini Bridges travel management process being conducted by the BLM’s Moab Field Office, which is expected to be completed by 2024. This trail is threatened with either complete or partial closure in at least one alternative under consideration. A new travel plan is being created for this area due to a lawsuit settlement with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), which seeks to close as many trails as possible so that the land west of Moab can be managed as Wilderness. The Grand County Commission and Moab city government are also calling for the BLM to close numerous popular 4x4 trails based on false allegations of “user conflicts” to convert them to hiking and mountain bike trails. The BLM published the Draft Environmental Assessment on September 7, 2022, and is accepting public comments on the various alternatives until October 7, 2022, at the BLM website. The BLM will host a public meeting through Zoom on September 22, 2022, from 5:00-6:30 PM MDT.
Many extremely popular 4x4 trails (including most of the Jeep Safari trails northwest of Moab) are at risk of closure, including Hey Joe Canyon, Ten Mile Canyon, Hell Roaring Canyon, Mineral Canyon, Golden Spike, Gold Bar Rim, Rusty Nail, Day Canyon Point, Dead Man Point, Hell Roaring Rim, Dry Fork Bull Canyon, Four Arches Canyon, the 7-Up trail, the 3D and Mashed Potatoes Jeep trails, the Dead Cow and Tubes motorcycle trails, and parts of Where Eagles Dare, Buttes and Towers, Wipe-Out Hill, and Sevenmile Mile Rim. Please comment, opposing these closures and asking the BLM to keep all of these trails open to motorized use. More information can be found on the Blue Ribbon Coalitions website. You can submit a comment either through Blue Ribbon’s action alert or write your own comment directly to the BLM here. The deadline for comments is October 7, 2022. A map of the route designations for each alternative is available here.