Why fuss suddenly over Factory Butte?

I got an e-mail sometime back suggesting that if I was upset about Dean Potter's questionable climb of Delicate Arch, I should be more inflamed over misuse of another Utah icon — Factory Butte.

For those of you unfamiliar with Factory Butte, and I'm sure there are many, it's roughly a dozen miles northwest of Hanksville on the road to Capitol Reef National Park. It is a freestanding rock formation, very large, slightly oblong in shape, whose steep cliffs connect with the flowing Mancos shale escarpments down to a very sterile landscape.

Aside from the fact that both the arch and the butte are strikingly beautiful, all comparisons end there. Which makes me wonder why all the ruckus.

I hiked to Delicate Arch a few weeks back, an hour before sunset, and there were roughly 250 people sitting on nearby ledges waiting for the last rays of sun to touch the red stone.

I started visiting Factory Butte more than 30 years ago, taken there by a Hanksville local to see what he thought was one of the most remarkable areas in the state.

I've visited Factory Butte maybe 30 times, on motorcycles, in vehicles and even tried to hike up the shale to the rock face.

In that time, aside from others on motorcycles or all-terrain vehicles, I have seen no one, not a single person, driving on the dirt road to enjoy the splendor of the butte . . . not a single passenger car, not a single hiker, not a single bicycle rider, not a single onlooker pointing a camera in its direction.

The closest thing to sightseers that I've seen have been those in cars and motor homes driving past on the highway at 65 mph.

About 800,000 people will likely visit Arches this year. A thousand may visit Factory Butte and 99.9999 percent of those will have gone or will go there to ride motorcycles or ATVs.

Granted, some tracks are visible from the highway, but most aren't. Blink at the wrong time and you wouldn't even see those tracks.

Even then, a good wind or a rainstorm will erase most signs. I've visited the butte and returned two weeks later and there was not a trace of my earlier visit.

But suddenly, now, motorized use has become an issue with environmentalists. It seems they've discovered the butte. First they simply wanted riders removed. Unsuccessful, they found another avenue — a cactus called sclerocactus wrightiae. It was placed on the endangered list in 1979 and grows in the area of Factory Butte and south into the Henry Mountains.