Landscapes of the American Spirit

A Celebration of the National Landscape Conservation System and its Community Partners

At the request of the Bureau of Land Management, the Sonoran Institute profiled six spectacular landscapes in the system, highlighting the hard work of the ordinary citizens who, through their volunteer efforts, make sure these lands remain protected and accessible to anyone who wants to enjoy some of the last, best places to experience the cultural, historic and scenic richness of America. Read, enjoy and visit.

Arizona - San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area
A Special Place
California - Santa Rose & San Jacinto Mountains National Monuments
Monumental Beauty
Colorado - Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area
Hypnotized by Nature's Beauty
Nevada - Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area
Nature Next to Neon
Utah - Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Walk Through 100 Million Years
Wyoming - National Historic Trails Interpretative Center
A Nation's Character Forged by Trails
Westwide - Landscapes of the American Spirit
All six profiles with a map of the NLCS.

Arizona - San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area
A Special Place

There is something miraculous about free-flowing water in the desert. On a blustery Saturday morning a group of visitors from around the United States are standing at the edge of the San Pedro River not far east of Sierra Vista, Arizona, and contemplating the quietly moving brown stream with a sense of awe.

Most have come to this spot for the bird-watching — the river is an internationally renowned birding site — but guide Ted Mouras, a member of the Friends of the San Pedro River, has spent the tour sharing the history of the river and the surrounding publicly owned lands. “We’ve got a lot of desert in the U.S. We’ve got a lot of riparian woodlands,” he observes. “What we don’t have is a lot of desert riparian woodlands. This is a special place.”
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California - Santa Rose & San Jacinto Mountains National Monuments

Monumental Beauty

On a spring morning the vista from the Frank Bogert Trail in the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument can take your breath away. It starts with the bright-yellow brittlebush blooming on the side of the trail, opens up to the red tile roofs of Palm Springs in the valley below, then stretches to encompass stark desert hills that quickly become mountains, ending with towering, snow-capped peaks framed in blue.

“Too bad there’s no view, huh?” says Buford Crites, president of the Friends of the Desert Mountains, standing at the trailhead.

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Colorado - Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area
Hypnotized by Nature's Beauty

Rafting down the Gunnison River on a summer afternoon is a hypnotic experience. The swift ripple of the river, the bands of color in the sandstone cliffs, the flocks of swallows swooping low over the water, all repeat themselves in an ever-changing yet endlessly repeated pattern that takes you far from the clamor of modern life.“This is my Zen,” says Ryan Mathis, a Bureau of Land Management river ranger, as he paddles two guests along a stretch of the river in the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area (NCA), 62,844 acres of public lands on Colorado’s Western Slope. “I love getting out here.”

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Nevada - Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area
Nature Next to Neon

Just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, a city full of man-made wonders, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area (NCA) performs the most wondrous trick of all. It makes the city disappear. The 200,000-acre conservation area is just a few miles from the edge of Las Vegas’s burgeoning sprawl, but amid its spectacular landscape the city seems a distant neon mirage. In the canyon, scenic overlooks provide a view of surreal stone knolls that are actually petrified sand dunes created over many millions of years, hiking trails lead back to prehistoric petroglyphs and narrow canyons shelter a wealth of wildlife, including the desert tortoise, bighorn sheep and even wild burros. Dusk fills the striated cliffs with color and the stars rise above the canyons as if civilization were a hundred miles away.

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Utah - Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Walk Through 100 Million Years

What does 100 million years of history look like? In Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument it’s breathtaking. The monument is 1.9 million acres of multi-hued canyons, surreal rock formations and limitless vistas in southern Utah. It’s the kind of western landscape that shifts your perspective, causing you to see the size and wonder of the natural world anew. It’s also one of the great treasure troves of fossils in the United States, with exposed layers of earth that go back millions of years. On a windy morning, a team from the Denver Science Museum is working along a steep ridge, brooming away the dirt in search of specimens.

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Wyoming - National Historic Trails Interpretative Center
A Nation's Character Forged by Trails

All roads may once have led to Rome, but in the mid-1800s on the North American continent, all trails seemed to lead to a stretch of the North Platte River in the wilds of what would become Wyoming. The Oregon Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Pioneer Trail, even the Pony Express route all traveled along the river to the location of present-day Casper, Wyoming. From 1830 to 1870, nearly half a million people ventured west down the trails in a vast migration that would transform the United States. Today, the story of those trails and the perseverance it took to cross them is told in the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper, established through an innovative public-private partnership that comes with a tale of determination all its own.

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Westwide - Landscapes of the American Spirit
All six profiles with a map of the NLCS.

The National Landscape Conservation System, which represents the conservation emphasis of the BLM’s multiple-use mission, is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2010. A series of events are commemorating the system’s mission to “conserve, protect, and restore these nationally significant landscapes that have outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values.” From the haunting solitude of Southwestern deserts, through the historic pioneer trails in the prairie and mountain states, to the desolate splendor of the Alaskan tundra, the system maintains the essential fabric of America’s lands.

The 27 million acres of public land also provide a variety of opportunities for outdoor recreation for millions of visitors and an important economic resource for nearby communities. If you enjoy hunting, fishing, bird-watching, mountain biking, exploring history, or simply hiking in solitude, you can find a place to enjoy yourself in the National Landscape Conservation System.

This is thanks in large part to thousands of local volunteers, who have established and joined community-based Friends groups to collaborate with the BLM, providing key support and assistance at many NLCS sites. Through their efforts, the Friends prove
these are truly public lands in every sense of the word.

The six profiles that follow offer a sampling of the varied and spectacular landscapes in the system and highlight the hard work of the ordinary citizens who, through their volunteer efforts, make sure these lands remain protected and accessible to anyone who wants to enjoy some of the last, best places to experience the cultural, historic and scenic richness of America.

Read all six profiles