Last Saturday, over 700 vehicles entered Arches Nat'l Park. There could have been one, or two, or six people in each of those vehicles --the majority of which bore license plates from states other than Utah-- and you can do the math as well as I. I have no way to gauge how many visitors there may have been in the town of Moab, here to go mountain biking or 4-wheeling or whatever in the many areas outside the park(s), but it is 'Spring Break,' and during brief forays away from home then and over the following days, I've seen groups of (twos or fours or more) tourists walking along Main Street, congregating outside open restaurants or the few shops that remained open, and pausing to look in the windows of other shops or businesses that were closed.

When I was a Ranger at Arches, it would not have been uncommon to personally interact with several hundred people any given day. When I worked at Canyonlands, my job generally took me places where the majority didn't go, and there were days when I might only have interacted with only a handful --if any-- of backcountry campers, but those were days when there wasn't the threat of a highly communicable virus.

I still know many of the Arches' staff, some I've worked with and others I've met since, and I've been concerned about every one of them, whether I know them or not.

I'm glad the park(s) have finally been closed. To paraphrase what my friend Emily (the Mayor of Moab) was quoted as saying in a Washington Post article today: 'Recreate in your back yard. Moab will still be here once this is all over.'

I shot the attached pix a week ago yesterday. Short of pulling others shot in Arches from my archives, they'll likely be the last I post for some time to come.