Sunrise-based group strives to preserve area’s public lands

For more than two decades, the Citizens for Active Management of Sunrise & Frenchman Mountain Area has been trying to raise interest in the wild country around the mountains on the east side of the valley. Following a change in the area’s status, group members have decided to redouble their efforts to preserve the unique area.

“The group went into a moratorium for a while, but now it’s coming back,” said chairman Tom Hickey. “We’ve tried a number of things to promote the area in the past, and we may repeat some things and try some new ones, but we’ve got to do something.”

The group formed when concerned neighbors and people with interests in science and nature came together to defend the area.

“People used to dump their box springs out here and come out to shoot bottles,” said Steve Rowland, a professor of geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It was a dangerous place to walk. We decided we wanted to promote this side of the valley and make it a pleasant place to walk and enjoy nature.”

The area the group is focused on is the public land encompassing the two mountains and the land between the mountains and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. It includes the Great Unconformity, Gypsum Cave, Rainbow Garden and several mines and rugged off-highway vehicle roads.

It’s no surprise that many residents haven’t heard about these features. While they are interesting and unique sites, they are not obviously spectacular, like Red Rock Canyon, or archaeologically vast and untapped, like the proposed Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument. But the Citizens for Active Management members believe the sites are worthy of protection and preservation.

“There are some really important archaeological, geological and paleontological sites here,” Rowland said.

Rowland noted the Great Unconformity, a shifting of newer rock over older rock that has resulted in a 1.2 billion-year gap in the geological age of two adjacent layers of stone, and Gypsum Cave.

“Gypsum Cave is an amazing place,” said Helen Mortenson, a member of several preservation groups, including Citizens for Active Management. “There was really just the one major study in 1930 and ’31, and that turned up amazing and important finds.”

The cave on Sunrise Mountain was explored and studied by archaeologist Mark R. Harrington, who discovered human artifacts, including baskets and hunting tools, and more ancient residents of the cave, giant sloths. While other studies have been done there, nothing has come close to the scale of Harrington’s work.

Language in the Las Vegas Valley Public Lands and Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument Act, which would turn the large fossil beds in the Upper Las Vegas Wash into a national monument. is what brought the group back into an active role regarding preserving land in the Sunrise area.

Section 11 of the act notes that the study area “has been adequately studied for wilderness designation” and suggests that any of it that has not been designated as wilderness by now it should be released from study and managed in accordance to section 202 of the 1976 act, which allows more active and varied use of the land.

None of the study area has been designated as wilderness.

“That area is home to a large amount of bearpaw poppies, which are endangered,” Hickey said. “We have pictures of hills out there just covered with them.”

The bearpaw poppy is endemic to the area, growing almost exclusively in Clark County.

Citizens for Active Management members have tried many things to attract attention and appreciation to the area. They have organized bicycle races, held Easter services and hosted a photo competition. With several other local organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America, they created an interpretative trail at the Great Unconformity that led to a plaque overlooking the valley. Because they were not allowed to bring vehicles to the site, everything was packed in by llamas.

“The Secretary of the Interior (Bruce Babbitt) and Sen. Harry Reid were there for the dedication,” Hickey said. “It was a big event.”

Vandals tagged and wore away at the markers until the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the property, opted to remove the ragged remains.

“We worked with the BLM to build that and take care of it,” Hickey said. “The problem is, we live here, but the BLM switches over management about every other year. We kept reintroducing ourselves to every new administration and explained what we had there, but eventually an administration came in and acted before we could do that. We saved the plaque at least.”

The plaque is currently in storage, and the group intends to bring it out for special events to raise interest in the area.

The group has adopted a mile-long section of the highway that runs from Sunrise Manor to Lake Mead. Members were out March 16 cleaning up trash before their second meeting.

Citizens for Active Management plans to have a booth at the Science and Technology Expo from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. May 4 at the Cashman Center, 850 Las Vegas Blvd. North. Admission to the expo is free.

For more information about the group, call Mortenson at 702-876-6944.

Contact Sunrise/Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 702-380-4532.