Photo: Jonathan Richter
On September 27, Mark Udall announced that he has introduced a bill to preserve some of the state’s most iconic public lands in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado.
The San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act would designate 33,000 acres as wilderness – mostly as expansions of the existing Lizard Head and Mount Sneffels wilderness areas – and establish a new area called McKenna Peak, which presides over imposing sandstone cliffs rising 2,000 feet above the plain. It would also designate about 22,000 acres as a special management area and withdraw over 6,000 acres within Naturita Canyon from mineral entry.
The Conservation Alliance funded the Wilderness Support Center’s work on the San Juan Wilderness Campaign in 2008 and 2010.