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The Backpacking Mother Who Saved Escalante
June 1969

Debra Wilson Frank

    From a cliff three hundred feet above a narrow swath of roiling water, June Viavant peered down at three young men struggling to stay on their feet, a struggle made worse by their backpacks filled with camping supplies, spare clothing, food. She’d warned them to bypass the chute by climbing around it with the other hikers, but they’d pooh-poohed her. Did they really think they could walk through whitewater? With all that gear?
    Too much testosterone and too little sense. Now, the men were stuck. They couldn’t move sideways because the chubby Botero-like cliffs separating them from June were unscalable. Nor could they turn around and go back, not against the torrent in those packs and heavy boots. And they couldn’t keep going downstream, rife with rapids. They were in a pickle, all right. June watched them scramble onto a boulder, but it wasn’t quite big enough, and one man, Peter, fell off. With help from the other two, he reclaimed his perch, but within moments he’d fallen again. It would make for riotous slapstick comedy—if their lives weren’t at stake.
    The site for all this chaos was in Escalante, in south-central Utah. As Peter, Rick, and Rob fought for their lives, Escalante, too, faced the fight of its life. Fortunately, June Viavant was on hand for both.

    Escalante is a kaleidoscope of towering sandstone walls, some intricately pleated, others etched in streaks of reds, grays, and browns; fanciful hoodoos—sea creatures, and castle turrets rising from red dust; petroglyphs—human figures and snakes, presided over by spiky suns, flitting across desert-orange panels; ancient Indian dwellings nestled in pale rock, discernible to sharp eyes by their neatly stacked bricks. Natural bridges spanning red rock cliffs. Petrified forests, sprawling plateaus, soaring mesas, tumbling waterfalls. On and on across 1.87 million acres. And above it all, an azure sky dabbed with the occasional cotton-batting cloud.
    It could all be lost. Where June saw threatened species, ancient artifacts, and spectacular scenery, others saw opportunities to drill for oil, mine for uranium, build coal-fired power plants, and pave over fragile habitats to bring in traffic—surely to be followed by gas stations, motels, McDonald’s. She observed that if nobody challenged development, politicians followed the money, so when Utah’s legislature proposed to build a highway through Escalante in 1969, June became the challenger. She and Ruth Frear, a University of Utah librarian and fellow Sierra Club member, formed the Escalante Wilderness Committee.
    Slender and blue-jeaned June worked as a school counselor, though when the local press began to cover her environmental projects, they referred to her as a housewife and a backpacking mother. Her reverence for the natural world formed early—she grew up camping and backpacking with her family at a time when such pursuits weren’t common. That reverence led to action, starting with joining the Sierra Club in 1956.
    That year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began building a seven-hundred-ten-foot dam to block the Colorado River at Glen Canyon, creating a massive reservoir, Lake Powell, to serve western U.S. states’ water needs. It was always a questionable choice—Lake Powell’s vast surface area has an evaporation rate of three percent per year—enough to keep Los Angeles hydrated. A deeper lake such as Mead would have functioned better.
    At the time, few people knew about Glen Canyon because it was remote and far from paved roads. Instead, the Sierra Club was concerned with another proposed dam at Echo Canyon, which would have flooded Dinosaur Monument. Not realizing Glen Canyon was the greater prize, they essentially traded it away. The Glen Canyon Institute, created in 1996 with the mission to restore a free-flowing Colorado River, describes it as “. . . a wonderland of gorges, spires, cliffs, and grottoes . . .” When Glen Canyon was flooded, twenty-four species of mammals, seventy-nine species of plants, and one hundred eighty-nine species of birds lost their habitat. And more than three thousand ancient artifacts were submerged. Tragedies the Institute hopes to reverse.
    June noted, “Perhaps when God was driven from Glen Canyon, He came to live in Escalante.”
    She hoped that when people experienced Escalante, they would join her campaign to protect it from development. Toward that end, June led backpacking trips for the Salt Lake City-based Wasatch Mountain Club, including the May 1969 trek with the rogue whitewater walkers— Peter, Rick, and Rob. Three more club members, two of June’s young sons, and the family dog, Pooky, also came along.

    They’d begun that morning at Deer Creek, which looked so calm and beautiful it seduced them to its banks. Two men lost their footing and fell in, including Rick—who was plagued by water troubles that day. Youngsters Chris and Tim waded in cautiously but only made it to their knees. Pooky plunged in, too.
    Along the Deer Creek trail, heading toward Boulder Creek, the hikers delighted in abundant wildflowers: pale pink American dragonhead, white checker mallow, sego lilies, and yellow mountain parsley. A natural pool beckoned them for a refreshing and entirely voluntary dip. When they came to the confluence, the cliffs closed around them, in some places as narrow as eighteen inches, and the route became more intriguing—and tricky.
    June loved it. Later, when she testified to the U.S. Senate, arguing against the proposed road, she said, “People deserve to . . . be drawn into the Escalante naturally—to follow a stream or a canyon rim on foot, wondering what is around the next bend.”
    Often, the next bend led to an obstacle, as happened along Boulder Creek when the hikers tried to climb a steep and narrow slot. A pitch of smooth sandstone, twelve feet high, with no handholds, stood in the way of the inviting climb above. A pond of stagnant water below added to the danger. But that was all part of the spirit of exploration—sometimes you found treasure, sometimes you didn’t.
    And sometimes you got stuck. It occurred to June that maybe Peter, Rick, and Rob could swim downstream without the weight of their packs. Maybe her air mattress would help. After inflating it, she tossed it down to them.
    “A gift from heaven!” they declared and attached their backpacks, lightening their load by thirty-five to forty pounds each. The mattress started its jumpy journey down the chute, with the men choosing their steps carefully behind it. So far, so good. But then, the loaded mattress made directly for a boulder, crashed and capsized, dunking the backpacks and ensuring soggy sleeping bags. After a mere twenty-yard gain, the men had to hoist their packs on again, now dripping.
    The water surged on, and the men stumbled. Regained their footing. Stumbled again.
    As June kept a worried vigil, her boys and Pooky played among the rocks, and the other backpackers rested. The sun was hot on June’s back, the sky vivid blue, but the narrow slot below was shaded. Even if the men could navigate the water without drowning, they risked hypothermia.
    After more tumbles, the men came upon another boulder to shelter on. June wondered, should she run for help? That would take hours. But soon, the men called to her. They had a plan.
    The air mattress was back in play, reloaded with the packs. This time, the men dived into safe patches of water beyond the swirling pocket near the boulder. This time, the air mattress didn’t disappoint; it cruised along unhampered. Then, as the men stepped cautiously through the water, they spotted an escape route through the cliffs. Disaster was averted; the remaining water hazards avoided. The men got out intact but soaked and chilled—and chastened.
    The danger the three men faced was certainly scary but lasted only an hour or so, while Escalante has faced decades of peril right up to the present.

    At the time, June was Chair of Utah’s Sierra Club branch, which she helped found in 1967. Later, in 1972, she was elected to the organization’s national board. It was too late for Glen Canyon, but the Sierra Club’s volunteers strived to prevent such a travesty from happening again.
    Representing the Escalante Wilderness Committee, June addressed the United States Senate: “We can approach this beautiful, ecologically fragile area with the care and the love of a people that respect and value its last few remaining pockets of wilderness, or we can come with bulldozers and pavement blasting our way across them.”
    The proposed highway was not built, and Escalante survived unscathed, largely because of June Viavant, Utah’s “backpacking mother.” In 1996, President Clinton conferred national monument status on the Grand Staircase-Escalante. Sadly, June did not live to see that moment. Her greatest foe proved not to be the Utah State Legislature, commercial mining and drilling companies, or coal-burning plants—but cancer. She died in 1991.
    In 2018, Escalante was threatened again when President Trump reduced the monument by over 800,000 acres. President Biden restored it in 2021. And that’s where it stands today, buffeted by political tides, but for now, intact.

    Here’s a picture: Thanksgiving dinner, hosted by June in Escalante, snug with friends and family around a campfire under a brilliant skein of stars. A turkey with all the fixings, sticky buns, pie, and wine—the latter poured from an empty Clorox bottle to save weight. June wasn’t one to stand on ceremony.

    Native tribes with ties to Escalante: Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, San Juan Southern Paiute, Kaibab Paiute, Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, Jemez Pueblo, and Acoma Nations.

Endnotes:
    Admin. (2022, June 21). A fierce green fire ~ timeline of environmental movement and history. PBS. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/a-fierce-green-fire-timeline-of-environmental-movement/2988/
    Clein, P. (1969, June). Exploring Escalante. Wasatch Mountain Club. Retrieved from https://www.wasatchmountainclub.org/rambler/archive/wmc-rambler-1969-june.pdf
    Cosme, R. (2022, December 28). Glen Canyon Dam. WorldAtlas. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.worldatlas.com/places/glen-canyon-dam.html
    Encyclop�dia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Sierra Club. Encyclop�dia Britannica. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sierra-Club
    Glen Canyon institute dedicated to the restoration of Glen Canyon and a free flowing Colorado River. FAQ – Glen Canyon Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.glencanyon.org/faq/
    Ibid: Why Glen Canyon – Glen Canyon Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.glencanyon.org/why-glen-canyon/
    Kolbert, E. (2021, August 9). The lost canyon under Lake Powell. The New Yorker. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/16/the-lost-canyon-under-lake-powell
    KUER 90.1 | By Jon Reed. (2020, September 2). The one that got away: A look at Glen Canyon 40 years after it was filled. KUER. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.kuer.org/energy-environment/2020-06-22/the-one-that-got-away-a-look-at-glen-canyon-40-years-after-it-was-filled
    LeGate, L. (2007). People & Wilderness: The History of the Utah BLM Wilderness Campaign. Utah Sierran. Retrieved April 4, 2023, from https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce/utah-chapter/utsc/07UTSClatesummer-WEB.pdf
    LICSW, L. U. (2021, October 19). The road not built: Medium. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://medium.com/illumination/the-road-not-built-cb2363bc3236
    The Need for Glen Canyon Dam. Glen Canyon Dam: Political history. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/Dams/glp01smi.html
    The Salt Lake Tribune 19 May 1973, page 21. Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.newspapers.com/image/599648766/?terms=%22June+Viavant%22+Escalante&match=1
    The Salt Lake Tribune 30 May 1971, page 52. Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.newspapers.com/image/599227219/?terms=%22June+Viavant%22+Escalante&match=1
    The United States Government. (2021, October 8). A proclamation on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The White House. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/08/a-proclamation-on-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument/

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