Utah Lake Rock imagery: An Intersection of Public Lands, Recreational Shooting, and Cultural Resources

Utah Lake Rock imagery: An Intersection of Public Lands, Recreational Shooting, and Cultural Resources

BY ELIZABETH HORA AND CHRISTOPHER MERRITT

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.

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 from bullets has irreparably damaged the record of the past.

Map of Lake Mountain and surrounding area. Map created by Deb Miller, Utah Division of State History.

With the threat of losing rock imagery that has endured for millennia, land managers, target shooting groups, county commissioners, archaeologists, advocacy groups, and others came together to enact a temporary closure order that would protect priceless archeological resources. In 2018, the initial protective effort and constant pressure from concerned user groups bore the fruit of a final decision, the closing of 2,004 acres to target shooting, preventing further damage to the archaeological resources under threat. Although the damage from shooting is extensive and permanent, the Lake Mountain rock imagery still retains the potential to yield clues and evidence of earlier peoples while inspiring and educating a new generation of visitors to Utah’s public lands.

Prehistory and Rock imagery of the Lake Mountain Region

Rock imagery persists on the landscape long after its creators, leaving many modern viewers with an impression of both a connection to earlier people and a sense of mystery as to its message. Descendants of the creators often have traditions that help decipher the code, but even without such insider knowledge and without knowing what a particular image or depictions “means,” rock imagery induces a universal feeling of awe and connection to the past.

The term rock imagery applies to any human-made modification of a stone surface, which commonly consists of carved and/or painted designs on non-portable rocks. Canvas surfaces may include bedrock, rockshelter walls or ceilings, or detached boulders, and the designs themselves range from single small images to sprawling scenes woven from several individual patterns. Throughout time people created subtly different kinds of rock imagery by varying artistic style or subject matter, with the American West (particularly the Great Basin and Intermountain West) sharing many similarities in style over time and space. Archaeologists analyze the physical remains of rock imagery in order to place these designs into the context of ancient human lives and as an indicator of temporal and cultural affiliation. As archaeologists cannot interview the creators of the images, they create categories to differentiate types of rock imagery. In the Lake Mountain area two types dominate, the Great Basin and Great Salt Lake Fremont styles.

The Great Basin Style is among the oldest and most geographically extensive rock imagery tradition on the continent. Archaeologists estimate that Native Americans created these designs as early as 8,000 years ago, slowly shifting their designs with the arrival of more agricultural traditions around 1,000 years ago. These Native American groups, termed Archaic peoples by archaeologists, traveled well-worn paths across their homelands in the American West in search of plants and animals. Little wonder, given Archaic peoples’ mobility, that Great Basin Style rock imagery predominates in Utah and Nevada and in parts of Arizona, California, Oregon, and Idaho.

Elements of the Great Basin Style are animal, human, and abstract geometric designs. Prey animals, such as bighorn sheep, feature frequently in Great Basin Style rock art, which may be related to hunting magic, as some researchers have noted that these images occur near prehistoric hunting ranges. 2 The creators of Great Basin Style rock art infrequently depicted humans; no hypothesis has yet been put forth to explain this relative absence. The more abstract Great Basin Style rock imagery includes straight or nearly straight lines that may form into parallel lines or “rakes,” circles, or a curvilinear “meander.” These animal and abstract rock images share consistent design traits that suggest that members of the same culture—Utah’s Archaic peoples—created them. Archaeologists also assume that the repeated use of symbols across time and space means that contemporaneous viewers could “read” these images whose meaning eludes modern observers.

A shift from the mobile lifestyle of the Archaic period to more sedentary village life along the Wasatch Front in the first millennium AD is reflected in changes to the area’s rock imagery. These semi-sedentary village dwellers, the Fremont, lived across much of modern-day Utah and followed lifeways as varied as the Utah landscape. In the Lake Mountain area the Fremont people still regularly moved about in pursuit of wild game and seasonal plants but also clustered into small villages raising corn, beans, and squash. 3 The ensuing phase of human artistic expression in Utah that resulted from the move to villages is known as the Great Salt Lake Fremont Style. Across the Fremont world, subject matter for artists turned toward the depiction of people, often what archaeologists perceive as real or perhaps mythological leaders. Based on the figures’ regalia including sashes, headdresses, and jewelry, archaeologists surmise that these depictions symbolize the power that stems from controlling economies and trade. Animals important for hunting form a strong motif throughout Fremont rock imagery, with abstract elements persisting in this new style, though in much less prominent ways than the Archaic Period. The Fremont Period, while much shorter than the millennia-long Archaic Period, produced prolific artists who pecked, scratched, and painted designs onto thousands of rock surfaces across Utah. At Lake Mountain both Fremont Style and Great Basin Style rock imagery can be found in abundance, likely owing to the continued cultural importance of the area.

Lake Mountain and the area around Utah Lake continues to be of cultural importance. In general, where modern people build our cities and towns tend to be where people in the past settled in villages and hamlets. This geographic overlapping of past and present creates conflict across the state, since the over 100,000 known sites in Utah—representing only ten percent of surveyed sites in the state—appear frequent and sometimes densely packed in places that are today highly populated. As at Lake Mountain, the vast majority of known sites occur on public lands close to populated areas. As Salt Lake and Utah Counties continue to grow, their populations spill out into nearby public lands for recreation and other uses, most unaware of the ancient symbols on the rocks around them.

Lake Mountain Archaeology and Vandalism

Portions of the Lake Mountain area, south of Saratoga Springs, have been open to recreational shooting for decades, among the approximately twenty-three million areas of BLM land in Utah currently available for recreational shooting. 4 This once-remote area of Utah County became attractive to shooters owing to its proximity to major urban centers. A dirt road parallels the Lake Mountain foothills and provides convenient entry to the BLM- and SITLA-administered lands. Along this road, shooters have established about twenty ad hoc shooting lanes facing west toward the mountainside, away from Highway 68. The dark, oxidized surface of sandstone provides a satisfying pop of bright tan color when struck, allowing shooters to assess how close they came to their target. Although the BLM advises that ammunition hitting rocks can ricochet and be deadly, many recreational shooters intentionally target sandstone outcrops—the same sandstone that ancient people valued for rock imagery. 5

Before and after photographs of rock imagery damaged by recreational shooting, comparison from 2014 (L) to 2018 (R). Photos by Steve Acerson.

At Lake Mountain, recreational shooters were unaware of the damage they were causing, since rock imagery around Utah Lake is uniquely hard to find; even the most experienced rock imagery aficionados and archaeologists have difficulty finding and revisiting favorite designs. The ironrich sandstone forms a patina over time, creating a dark—almost black—outer crust. This dark patina on the rocks mutes and disguises the ancient rock imagery. Although the BLM records the locations of rock imagery, they are legally prevented from sharing this information with the public because looters and intentional vandals find archaeological sites irresistible. BLM and SITLA’s solution to erect signs stating that rock imagery existed in the general area and urging caution did not deter shooters from inadvertently damaging rock imagery in the area. As happens to signage around shooting areas, the signs elicited more bullet holes than compliance. 6

As the populations of Utah and Salt Lake Valleys grew, more and more recreational shooters ventured to Lake Mountain to practice. An estimated 50,000 people come to this area annually, spiking reports of damage. 7 In the spring and summer of 2018, the scene at Lake Mountain was grim—dozens of boulders that once contained rock imagery were shot beyond recognition and shooters were pushing further out into virgin territory looking for new places to shoot.

Legal Process for Protection

In August 2012, the SLFO completed analysis for the Temporary Target Shooting Public Safety Closure on the Lake Mountains Environmental Assessment after identifying direct resource damage to rock imagery from uncontrolled shooting activity. 8 This temporary closure did not ban hunting or carrying firearms, but it specifically applied to those individuals using this stretch of public lands for recreational target shooting. 9 In its initial 2012 analysis, the BLM identified serious public safety issues, including numerous target shooting—caused wildfires, significant amounts of garbage like televisions and mattresses used as targets, and shooting-related waste such as shell casings. 10 This initial temporary closure approved in 2012, was extended in 2014 for two years to allow negotiation of a final decision on a much larger shooting closure area.

Using the 2012 temporary closure as a springboard, the BLM initiated a multiyear consultation effort to engage local, regional, and even national stakeholders in a permanent solution to the Lake Mountain target shooting issue. While the BLM does possess the authority to complete a temporary closure for resource protection—in this case the cultural resources identified as rock imagery—they instead chose to focus on the health and human safety aspects of the issue. At the kickoff of this public process, primary stakeholders included the Utah County Commission, SITLA, the Utah Rock Art Research Association (URARA), Utah State Historic Preservation Office, Congresswoman Mia Love, several local Native American tribes, and a variety of concerned citizens.

In comparison to the lengthy and deeply bureaucratic federal process, SITLA has the authority to unilaterally close their lands, as it is not “public” or under a multiple-use mandate like BLM lands. Using this authority SITLA withdrew 1,460 acres in Lake Mountain from all public access in 2014, decommissioned and reclaimed 9.45 miles of roads illegally entering its land in 2015, and removed twelve tons of trash from the area using volunteers and prisoners. Sometimes negatively viewed by outside parties, the streamlined decision–making rubric of SITLA, with no public process, allowed for a quick and effective solution to the shooting problems on at least state lands. In 2016, Utah state senator Margaret Dayton proposed a bill to allow a process for the withdrawal of SIT- LA lands from public target shooting statewide, codified as Section 53C-2-105. After passage, SITLA closed 1,533 acres of Trust Lands to public shooting and rescinded the earlier withdrawal of public access. This allowed the public to enter SITLA lands, as long as they were not involved in target shooting activities. 11

In December of 2016, four years after the temporary closure, the BLM issued a draft Plan Amendment, identifying 2,004 acres for potential permanent closure to target shooting activity. After the required thirty-day protest period, in which none were received, the decision was shipped off to Washington, D.C. for final review and approvals. 12 Meanwhile, under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act (43CFR2740), the BLM deeded 160 acres to Utah County for the construction of a new and formalized target shooting range just to the south of the proposed closure areas. 13

Unfortunately, a year later in December of 2017, the finalized draft Plan Amendment remained unsigned in Washington, D.C. due to vacant positions at the BLM’s Washington office from the transitioning of the new presidential administration. This left the protection of the rock imagery along Utah Lake in a type of limbo that prevented the BLM from enforcing the closure. URARA, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of rock imagery throughout Utah, raised concerns about increased target shooting and that the temporary closure inadvertently pushed shooting into other, perhaps even more sensitive, areas rich with rock imagery. 14 URARA, specifically its president Steve Acerson and wife Diana, spearheaded a public information campaign regarding the continued damage to rock imagery at Lake Mountain, and the Acersons even camped at the most sensitive of the rock imagery locations to inform target shooters of their inadvertent damage. 15 URARA partnered with the BLM, SITLA, and a National Rifle Association–affiliated group, #ChangeYourRange, to organize volunteers to clean up target shooting waste while providing those same individuals with a personalized and guided tour to the sensitive petroglyphs. 16 By the end of the #ChangeYourRange event, 260 volunteers had lent their support to cleaning and protecting public lands by removing nine and a half tons of trash. 17

Finally, on September 6, 2018, six years after the initial temporary shooting closure, and

probably in no small part resulting from the continued pressure of URARA, Congresswoman Mia Love’s office, and other interested parties, the final closure decision of 2,004 acres appeared in the Federal Register. 18 This now gives the BLM authority to implement the closure, erect signage, police target shooting, and plan for the long-term preservation and interpretation of these irreplaceable pieces of Utah’s past. But the door is always open for a future BLM action to reopen the area for shooting, or other activity.

A Tale of Two Lake Mountains

While land managers, the public, and other parties wrestled with closures, trash piles, and shooting on lands at the base of Lake Mountain, directly across the highway along the shoreline the Adelbert Doyle Smith Family Preserve remained relatively pristine. Acquired by the Archaeological Conservancy to protect sensitive rock art, the 196-acre Smith Preserve contains over 250 boulders with Great Basin and Great Salt Lake Fremont Style rock imagery, as well as other archaeological evidence of past peoples camping, fishing, and hunting in the area. These two rock art hot spots, Lake Mountain and the Smith Preserve, lie less than a mile apart as the crow flies, and as a result have similar rock imagery. Both feature rock imagery pecked into sandstone outcrops with similar—although not quite the same—motifs and designs that indicate repeated visitation over thousands of years. The rocks themselves, though the same type of sandstone, are slightly different: the outcrops at the Smith Preserve stand tall and broadcast their rock art like a mural. Lake Mountain’s sandstone is more deeply embedded in the ground, and many boulders with rock art look like raised decorative tiles. Visitors to both sides of Highway 68 delight in comparing and contrasting the rock art found in each area, but despair at the stark contrast in preservation. 19

Because the Smith Preserve is privately held by a not-for-profit organization and was previously private land, trespassing has been prohibited and visitation kept to a minimum for generations. Touring the eastern and western sides of the highway and moving between private and public land is a dramatic experience—the damage present on Lake Mountain stops abruptly at the highway, and the Smith Preserve holds some of the best, most intact examples of rock art in the region. Visitation to the preserve is currently limited to guided tours, which provides a high-quality experience for visitors and continues the tradition of providing the highest possible protections for the rock art. 20

Rock imagery at the Smith Preserve is relatively undamaged by human activities. Utah Division of State History.

Looking to the Future to Interpret Lake Mountain’s Past

If Lake Mountain’s rock art is a book about North America’s deep human past, it now has a new chapter on resource conflict and resolution. Across the West, but particularly in Utah, discussions about balancing conflicting resources on public lands capture the public attention. Lake Mountain provides one tale of how a coalition of partners came together and encouraged a federal land managing agency to act on behalf of a fragile, nonrenewable resource. A long-lasting protective decision has been reached, but what happens next and how can that lesson be applied across the West? Also, how can the story of the Smith Family Archaeological Preserve help to convey the comparative message of public versus private lands, and the impacts of that status upon cultural resources?

Currently the human-caused deterioration of the Lake Mountain rock art has come to a halt. Most of the recreational shooting community respected the closure order, and public outreach efforts from URARA, #ChangeYourRange, SIT- LA, and the Utah SHPO resulted in excellent news coverage and a widespread appreciation for these fragile resources. As Steve and Diana Acerson of URARA patrolled the area in spring and summer 2018, they found recreational shooters who didn’t merely stop shooting but wanted to learn about rock art and how they could join URARA to protect this heritage. Respectful and meaningful engagement by concerned citizens leads to visitor education, and this by itself will provide compelling reasons for protection.

Most importantly, though damage is done, education and even recreation are still possible in the Lake Mountain area. Over the next few years the BLM, SITLA, and other partners will seek ways to make this area a viable recreational and educational destination that balances potentially competing resource issues. Public interpretation, hiking and biking trails, and a host of other potential infrastructure improvements will continue to build on the success stories of past efforts while thinking towards a more appropriate future use of these sensitive lands. 21

The juxtaposition between rock art on the east and west sides of the highway is something that federal land managers should embrace. The contrast between the Smith Preserve and the BLM and SITLA lands of Lake Mountain offers a before-and-after look at one beloved cultural resource and provides a unique immersive experience for visitors to learn about the past. At Lake Mountain though, the lesson goes one step further about the complex relationship between mixed-use public lands and the policies that control their usage. While unfortunate, the Lake Mountain example can be an educational template for other endangered archaeological sites across the state. The Lake Mountain solution was reached through a largely bipartisan consensus, without heightened animosity on either side, and occurred relatively quickly (by Washington D.C. standards, that is). By creating interpretive materials available online and on-site at Lake Mountain, the BLM can highlight that resolution is possible for controversial and threatened archaeological sites and can give the Lake Mountain rock imagery a second life. Where once these carved designs held meaning to prehistoric people, now modern people can find new meaning in their damage and ultimate protection.

At the end of this singular saga it is hard not to reflect on the question of what the future holds for all of the other cultural resources on public lands facing increased pressures and threats from population growth, suburban sprawl, development activities, and climate change. Processes exist within existing state, federal, and local laws to identify, interpret, protect, and conserve these parts of history, and only through a continued and engaged conversation with all stakeholders can we hope to find a tenuous balance in this tension-filled world of public land politics and policy.

Notes

1 Rock Imagery is a term that includes petroglyphs, images pecked or carved into stone or rock, and pictographs, images painted onto a rock surface using mixtures of minerals and binding agents.

2 Robert F. Heizer and Martin A. Baumhoff, Prehistoric Rock Art of Nevada and Eastern California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962).

3 Simms, Steven R., Ancient People of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau (New York: Routledge, 2008).

4 “Recreational Shooting on BLM Utah Lands,” Bureau of Land Management, accessed October 23, 2019, https:// www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/utah/recreational _shooting.

5 BLM, “Recreational Shooting.”

6 Brian Maffly, “Sure as Shooting, Target Practice is Spoiling Utah’s Public Lands,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 24, 2015.

7 Brian Maffly, “Feds Ban Shooting on 2,000 Acres West of Utah Lake,” Salt Lake Tribune, updated September 7, 2018.

8 U.S. Department of the Interior, BLM, “Notice of Closure: Target Shooting Public Safety Closure on the Lake Mountains in Utah County, UT,” Federal Register, 77 Fed. Reg. 75186.

9 The BLM has authority to temporarily close public lands to protect people, property, and public lands and resources under the authority of 36CFR438364.1, with policy directives under the Washington Office (WO) Instruction Memorandum (IM) 201-128 “Requirements for Processing and Approving Temporary Public Land Closure and Restriction Orders”; WO- IM-2015-157 “Advanced Congressional Notification for Proposed Closures Related to Recreational Shooting, Hunting, or Fishing”; and WO-IM-2015-131 “Implementation of the Federal Lands Hunting, Fishing and Shooting Sports Memorandum of Understanding.”

10 U.S. Department of the Interior, BLM, “Lake Mountains Temporary Shooting Closure, 2016,” BLM Decision Record, DOI-BLM-UT-W010-2016-0025-DNA

11 Collation of data provided by Joel Boomgarden, archaeologist with SITLA.

12 Eastern Lake Mountains Target Shooting Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment, Decision Record, DOI-BLM-UT-W010-2015-0023-EA.

13 Brian Maffly, “BLM Transfers Public Lands to Utah County; Parcel to be Used as a Shooting Range,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 2016.

14 See Diana Acerson to Ed Roberson, January 18, 2018, “RE: Amendment to RMP to Close Target Shooting at Lake Mountain, Utah County, Utah,” on file at the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, Section 106 Case Files, 14-1586.

15 Katie England, “Protecting Petroglyphs as Utah County Develops,” Springville Daily Herald, February 19, 2018; Braley Dodson, “Rock Art Activists Are Sitting on Shooting Sites to Protect Petroglyphs,” Springville Daily Herald, April 1, 2018.

16 The BLM allowed disclosure of archaeological site locations in this situation pursuant to their authority under Section 9 of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, which states that such disclosure is allowed if it “further the purposes of the act” and does “not create a risk of harm to such resources.”

17 Personal communication via email, Andy McDaniels, Director of #changeyourrange, October 3, 2018.

18 Prohibition of Target Shooting on Public Lands in Eastern Lake Mountains, Utah County, Utah, Interim final supplementary rule, 43CFR8365, 83 Fed. Reg. 45196, September 6, 2018.

19 The Archaeological Conservancy, “Smith Family Preserve, Utah,” February 15, 2014, online at archaeologicalconservancy.org. The Archaeological Conservancy is the United States’ primary non-profit organization that purchases threatened or endangered archaeological sites for protection, preservation, and educational purposes.

20 Jennifer Morrison, “Smith Family Archaeological Preserve,” Crossroads Journal, April 6, 2018, available online at thecrossroadsjournal.com.

21 Already, the Utah Division of State History has partnered with Granite School District and the Utah History Day program to take educators to both the Smith Preserve and the adjacent BLM and SITLA lands to use this landscape to discuss Native peoples, archaeology, rock imagery, land management principles, and social ethics. Future improvements at both locations will make these sites increasingly accessible for these types of educational uses.