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Amid a cacophony of gunfire, high-pitched whistle of a ricochet, and astringent smell of gun smoke lie thousand-year-old rock carvings on the west side of Utah Lake on Lake Mountain.1 These prehistoric carvings have withstood wind, rain, and wildfire but now face a new threat familiar across much of the West: recreational shooting. On much of land administered by the Bureau of Land Management, including at Lake Mountain, target shooting is a largely unregulated activity, allowable nearly everywhere. In 2012, after noting significant damage to rock imagery along the west side of Utah Lake on Lake Mountain, the Salt Lake Field Office (SLFO) of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) enacted a temporary closure order for nearly 900 acres of public lands, with neighboring lands managed by the state of Utah through the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) also being closed. The closure order specifically targeted recreational shooting activities. This is only one example of how urban and suburban sprawl, recreational activities, and population growth are placing modern pressures on public lands and the remaining traces of humans who left their mark at earlier times there.
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Utah Lake Rock imagery: An Intersection of Public Lands, Recreational Shooting, and Cultural Resources
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The archaeology of Lake Mountain, including its rock imagery, represents eight thousand years of human life and experience along the rolling foothills of Utah Lake’s western shore. The area’s natural outcrops of sandstone attracted prehistoric people as an ideal location for rock imagery and fishing, hunting, and gathering camps. The rock imagery covers long stretches of sandstone that overlook expansive panoramas of Utah Lake and the Wasatch Range. Other than views of urban development on the other side of the lake, the experience of visiting Lake Mountain allows an immersive experience into a distant human past. Unfortunately, recent changes to this landscape diminish the feeling of the space and our ability to learn more about the past through archaeology. Although development has not reached this area of Utah Lake, recent vandalism
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