To the Editor:

Re “Trump Reverses U.S. Protections for 2 Utah Sites” (front page, Dec. 5): As a backpacker and repeat visitor to Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments, I awaited the Trump administration’s review of these monuments with apprehension.

These monuments are remarkably remote, rugged and inaccessible. But for those who brave the challenges, the reward is great. The experience of navigating the undulating bends of a slot canyon in Grand Staircase-Escalante or stumbling upon 700-year-old pictographs in Bears Ears is unparalleled.

The Antiquities Act dictates that national monuments “be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management.” However, the revised boundaries proclaimed by the administration fail to do even that. The landscapes, wilderness and antiquities that fall outside of these arbitrary lines, such as those of Grand Gulch or along Hole in the Rock Road, represent some of the best that America has to offer.

Stripping these areas of the protection afforded by their status as part of a national monument exposes these areas to sale, development, mining and/or the whims of Congress. The damage to our shared national heritage would be tragic and irreversible. I fear that all too few would even know what we have lost.