Boulder has never been an easy place to make a living; the pioneer ranching families struggled for a century to shape and cultivate sustainable pastures out of the desertscape winding among mesas and drainages. Their efforts defined today’s more pastoral scene and tourist-based economy. However, tourism comes in different forms.

The current hot-button issue in Boulder is the ever expanding ATV use.  Alarms sounded in Spring ‘06 when Garfield County published their maps of motorized routes throughout the county in tandem with promotional material dubbing Garfield County as an ATV Headquarters.  Having seen what happens in other communities when they actively promote large scale ATV club and “jamboree” events, Boulder residents and businesses quickly united, personal and business petitions were signed and the Boulder Town Council passed a resolution addressed to Garfield County essentially opting out of their promotion.   

This controversy also energized a group of concerned citizens from Boulder, Escalante and afar which led to the formation of the Alliance for the Escalante River Basin — now known as “The Basinheads”.  In addition to the county promos, we must address GSENM and Forest Service route designations and enforcement efforts.  Our mission is to shape a more sensible plan than the current one-size-fits-all of randomly mixing motorized and non-motorized users.  The western section of the County is much more suitable for ATV events in terms of infrastructure, political will, route configurations and effective enforcement.  In our mid-County region, we will work to preserve the entire Escalante River Basin with its vast and varied terrain for quiet, low impact, non-motorized tourism - hiking, horseriding, fishing and hunting.

We hope that you will join in this effort by signing up for our newsletter and other updates.  Basinheads unite!!