Land owner cuts off access to Anniversary Narrows near Lake Mead

A private landowner has closed off access to a narrow slot canyon beloved by hikers at the northwestern edge of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Visitors to Anniversary Narrows used be able to turn off the main route through the recreation area, drive up a few miles of dirt road and park right at the mouth of the canyon.

Then, sometime last month, the road was gated shut by the owner of a 150-acre tract that lies between Lake Mead and the Muddy Mountains Wilderness Area, cutting off the only direct route to the slot canyon.

Lake Mead spokeswoman Christie Vanover said the National Park Service found out about the closure last week, when more than a dozen hikers called park headquarters to complain.

When he was contacted by park officials, the landowner told them he decided to block the road across his property for liability reasons after several people filed insurance claims against him for damage to their vehicles, Vanover said.

The owner is free to close his property if he wants, she said. There’s really nothing the Park Service can do about it short of letting people know that the road is no longer open.

A number of visitors are still accessing Anniversary Narrows by parking at the gate and hiking the roughly three-quarters of a mile across the private parcel, but Vanover said the owner could pursue trespassing charges against anyone caught doing that.

County property records list Robert Ford as the owner of the land, which appears to include a limestone mining operation. Attempts to contact Ford or his representatives were unsuccessful.

Records show his property is surrounded on all sides by federal land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management just north of Lake Mead’s boundary. Anniversary Narrows is on a portion of that BLM land, though the best way to access it is through the recreation area.

Vanover said park officials are worried that people will try to skirt the private property using alternate routes across steep terrain to reach the slot canyon.

“We’re worried it could lead to search and rescues,” she said. “Instead we’re encouraging people to go to Red Stone,” a picnic area surrounded by orange sandstone about 15 miles northeast from the turnoff of Anniversary Narrows.

Rudy Evenson, spokesman for the BLM in Nevada, said his agency has received maybe a half-dozen calls about the road closure so far. “Right now, we’re looking at all our options,” he said. “We’re trying to find ways for the public to access that area.”

Evenson couldn’t say whether the bureau might try to buy some or all of the private property or if the government had tried to purchase the land in the past.

He said Anniversary Narrows can be reached from the north by way of BLM’s designated Bitter Springs Backcountry Byway, but the unpaved road is rough and “a lot more circuitous.”

It also doesn’t get very close to the narrows, said one local hiking expert, unless “you want to spend about three days hiking across the desert.”

Jim Boone is an ecologist and avid hiker who operates birdandhike.com, a comprehensive — and free — online guide to outdoor activities in the region.

He laughed off the detour suggested by the BLM. Instead he pointed to an alternate hiking route sketched on a map on his website that crosses the private land in another, unfenced area far from the mine works, though he couldn’t vouch for the route personally because he hadn’t tried it yet.

Boone hopes to get out to the area and see it for himself in the next few days.

The closure is a big deal, he said, because when the road is open Anniversary Narrows is as easy to reach as it is spectacular, making the perfect place for even novice hikers and families with young children.

“It’s a really popular area,” Boone said. “Without data to support it, I’d say it’s one of the main destinations for hikers at Lake Mead.”

At least it used to be.

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Find him on Twitter: @RefriedBrean