Bob Poulton, rancher and mulepacker
“They need to leave it alone … Wild country has defined the western United States, since the beginning, and we need to keep what’s left of it, because it defines who we are.”
DISPATCHES FROM MONUMENTAL AMERICA: A LISTENING TOUR: Locals speak about the Trump administration’s review of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
When the Grand Staircase-Escalante was under consideration for monument designation, Bob Poulton called the White House and asked to speak to President Bill Clinton.
Poulton — not a Democrat — wasn’t able to get Clinton on the line. In a voice that could put Sam Elliott out of work in Hollywood, Poulton gave a member of the president’s staff a message to relay.
“Tell him that if he turns that into a monument I’ll vote for him for hell’s sakes,” said Poulton, 72, seated on the wooden front porch he built underneath a red cliff next to the Fremont River in Torrey, Utah near the border of the monument. He wore a white beard, bushy as a buffalo’s, blue jeans held in place with a silver belt buckle, flannel button up-shirts and a blonde cowboy hat.
He added with a matter-of-fact nod, “So he did and I voted for ‘em.”
The monument, Poulton said, is a “treasure.” Not only for what it is — “probably the last wild country in the lower 48” — but what it represents. Freedom.
Poulton grew up on the wild edges of Salt Lake City in the mid-1900s. His grandfather had come west with Brigham Young in the 1840s. Poulton worked on ranches in Idaho and though he dreamed of becoming a rancher himself, he ended up studying history and philosophy in college, serving in the Army and working as a peace officer in Utah.
Wild open country always called to him. Be it the Wind River Range in Wyoming, which he is loathe to travel to now, because of all the oil and gas development in the Pinedale Anticline. Or the Henry Mountains in Utah, where buffalo still roam. Or, memorably, the place he considers wilder than them all — Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
When he went there, his main concern was water. Because he can pack a mule, he had been tapped to lead an expedition including an aide to Utah Senator Robert Bennett, who had never been on a horse before, to see the country just after it was designated a monument. Their destination was so little-known that Poulton sought out a man in his late 90s who had once run cattle there.
“So we talked to this old guy, and he said stuff like, ‘When you get to the big rock that looks like a black dance floor, turn left and keep on that until you see another rock that looks like a donkey’s head, and then keep going straight past that,’ he says, ‘until you hit Snake Creek,’” Poulton said.
They never found Snake Creek. Poulton’s dogs might have died of thirst had they not gotten lucky and found jugs of water stored in a pinyon tree. The treacherous ruggedness of the land made a deep impression on Poulton. “It’s scenically spectacular,” he said. When he came out, 100 acres of sagebrush, ripped to ribbons by illegal off-road riders, also left a deep impression.
“They need to protect it,” Poulton said. “All of it.”
What Poulton loves about the west is freedom. “I like to be able to go where I want to go,” he said. “And here you have a lot of freedom.” He loves that on public lands, unexploited, he can saddle a horse on his property in Utah and ride it to Colorado if he pleases.
“In my opinion, that kind of freedom is what has defined the west,” he said. “The ability to go where you want and it’s because of our public lands, and without them we would be like everyplace else.”
He said he would hold a “grudge,” and could “never get over it” if the monument was reduced. He believes most Utahns feel the same way. He shook his head and said the review was destroying the remaining credibility of the Republican Party.
“They need to leave it alone,” he said. “Wild country has defined the western United States, since the beginning, and we need to keep what’s left of it, because it defines who we are.”
He coughed back a sob. “It’s formed our character,” he said. He pushed at tears turning his blue eyes red.
“I get emotional about it,” he said. “As you can tell it’s an issue for me. I…I like it.”
VIDEO: Bob Poulton recalls calling the White House when Grand-Staircase-Escalante was being considered for monument designation.
