Heading toward the Needles District park welcome center, Utah's Route 211 follows alongside Indian Creek and takes visitors through vast stretches of canyonland country. This westerly view shows off an imposing Bridger Jack Mesa and the distant North and South Six Shooter Peaks, pointing upward over 6,000 feet.
This wide expanse of arid territory falls under protection of the Bureau of Land Management and the National Parks Service. Maintaining public land is a much larger task than can be imagined. Besides overseeing road and facility construction, and interfacing with the public, guarding against unseen threats total up countless hours. Less publicized duties include, monitoring of river pollutant levels, tracking down pollution sources, backfilling abandoned mines, studying mining proposals and taking a proactive look for potential trouble spots adjacent public park land. These are just a few of the items on BLM's to-do list.