Dinosaur National Monument Staff Wins Regional Wilderness Award

Park staff ready to launch rafts loaded with building materials to be removed from recommended wilderness.

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News Release Date: February 5, 2010

Contact: Carla Beasley, [phone]

Staff at Dinosaur National Monument received an Intermountain Region Wilderness Stewardship Award for their project to remove deteriorated structures from recommended wilderness.

The award recognized that “the project stood out as a great example of 1) applying the minimum tool in the true sense and 2) teamwork and the interdisciplinary nature of the project… The project demonstrated Dinosaur National Monument staff’s vision of applying wilderness management practices in the recommended wilderness.”

The structures were located in the Jones Hole area of the monument, about four miles from the nearest road but only about a quarter-mile from the Green River. The condition of the 1960s structures had declined over the years, and the monument’s management team determined that the appropriate course of action would be to demolish the structures to re-establish the wilderness character of the area rather than to make extensive and expensive repairs to the structures.

Using only hand tools, staff demolished the buildings and cut all the pieces into short lengths. The pieces were then floated by raft on the Green River to a pick-up point outside the Recommended Wilderness area. Fourteen monument staff from the Ranger, Maintenance, and Resource Management Divisions worked on the project during the course of the summer. Thirty-four trips, many using multiple rafts, were needed to remove the structures.