Hiking time required from car to car was 31 hours that, for several reasons, was split into three and a half days.

Thanks go to Bud Bingham who, with Bobbie Lilley and Verne Jones, pioneered this traverse and whose advice helped us considerably.



***** NEWS *****


RAINBOW BRIDGE DECISION STAYS GLEN CANYON INUNDATION

Thousands of acres of Glen Canyon may be saved from inundation by District Court Judge Willis Ritter's judgment ordering the Bureau of Reclamation to take immediate steps to prevent the waters of Lake' Powell from entering Rainbow Bridge National Monument in southern Utah. The permanent injunction could also prevent the flooding of a significant part of the Escalante Wilderness, the Dark Canyon Primitive Area, some major rapids on Cataract Canyon, parts of the Dirty Devil River, parts of the San Juan River and hundreds of other scenic side canyons of the Colorado River. The decision, handed down in Salt Lake City in the case of Friends of the Earth et al. vs. Commissioner of Reclamation and the Secretary of the Interior, leaves the future magnificence of the Glen Canyon country and the upper Colorado River System in some doubt, however. According to Club director June Viavant, the Reclamation Bureau could choose to build coffer dams rather than keep Lake Powell at the 3600-foot level, could try for a stay or an appeal, or could benefit by legislation introduced in Congress by Utah Sen. Frank Moss (S.1057), which would obliterate Section 3 of the Colorado River Storage Project Act--thus removing the legal basis for the conservationists' suit.

CLUB ASKS HEARINGS ON ARIZONA WATER PROJECT

The final environmental impact statement by the Bureau of Reclamation on the proposed Central Arizona Project is unclear and incomplete, the Sierra Club has written Washington, and public hearings on the massive water project should be held. Since the bureau has held public hearings on lesser projects, wrote Henry Zeller, vice chairman of the Sierra Club's Southwest Regional Conservation Committee, "we cannot fathom why the Bureau (and the Department of the Interior) is so reluctant in the case of the CAP unless it be through simple fear of losing public backing if the facts of the project should be widely known."

BARSTOW-NEEDLES FREEWAY TO OPEN 67-MILE STRETCH BY APRIL 1

The California Division of Highways has announced that it will open a 67-mile stretch of Interstate Route 40 through the Mojave Desert between March 20 and April 1. The new segment will complete a freeway link between Barstow and Needles on the Colorado River.

The Division, while noting a number of advantages to the new route, including removing traffic from the old two-lane Route 66, warns that temporarily there will be a 100-mile gap between off-road motorist service, including gasoline. The new route traverses some of California's most spectacular and isolated desert scenery where until freeway construction was completed it was impossible to build roadside facilities.
 
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