Box-Death Hollow Wilderness is a

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

located in south-central

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, on the

Dixie National Forest Dixie National Forest is a United States National Forest in Utah with headquarters in Cedar City. It occupies almost two million acres (8,000 km2) and stretches for about across southern Utah. The largest national forest in Utah, it ...

. Vertical gray-orange walls of Navajo sandstone stand above two

canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...

tributaries of the

Escalante River The Escalante River is a tributary of the Colorado River. It is formed by the confluence of Upper Valley and Birch Creeks near the town of Escalante in south-central Utah, and from there flows southeast for approximately before joining Lak ...

in Box-Death Hollow. The name Death Hollow gives reference to a number of

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

that plunged to their death trying to cross the steep canyon. Running north–south through a steeply dipping

monocline A monocline (or, rarely, a monoform) is a step-like fold in rock strata consisting of a zone of steeper dip within an otherwise horizontal or gently dipping sequence. Formation Monoclines may be formed in several different ways (see diagram) ...

, Pine Creek forms the box canyon (a canyon accessible only at the lower end) known as "The Box". Death Hollow Creek, east of The Box, has carved its way through a gently dipping monocline. Raging waters often flood these canyon narrows after a rain. Pinyon and

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

cover many of the plateaus above the canyons.

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

and

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

are plentiful in Pine Creek and in portions of Sand Creek. Along the creek banks, you may see

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whit ...

, an occasional

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

, or even

elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

in winter. Three bird species listed by the

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) is part of the Utah Department of Natural Resources for the state of Utah in the United States. The mission of the Division of Wildlife Resources is to serve the people of Utah as trustee and guard ...

as "sensitive" can be found in the wilderness:

Lewis's woodpecker Lewis's woodpecker (''Melanerpes lewis'') is a large North American species of woodpecker which ornithologist Alexander Wilson named after Meriwether Lewis, one of the explorers who surveyed the areas bought by the United States of America as pa ...

, the

western bluebird The western bluebird (''Sialia mexicana'') is a small North American thrush. Taxonomy The western bluebird was formally described by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1832 and given the binomial name ''Sialia mexicana''. Six subspec ...

, and the

mountain bluebird The mountain bluebird (''Sialia currucoides'') is a migratory small thrush that is found in mountainous districts of western North America. It has a light underbelly and black eyes. Adult males have thin bills and are bright turquoise-blue and s ...

. Nine miles of trail run the distance of "the Box", while hiking in the remainder of this wilderness requires following drainages or undesignated routes. The larger Phipps-Death Hollow area, a

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

wilderness study area, is adjacent to the wilderness on the south. Phipps-Death Hollow is part of the

Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument The Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument (GSENM) is a United States national monument protecting the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of the Escalante (Escalante River) in southern Utah. It was established in 19 ...

. The Box-Death Hollow Wilderness briefly became the center of controversy during debate over the

Utah Wilderness Act of 1984 Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the ...

due to a company that was interested in drilling exploration wells for

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

. The ridge-top well sites and routes leading to them were cherry-stemmed out of the north side of the legislated boundary, but the project never went into production. Image:BoxDeathHollow.jpg, Death Hollow Image:DeathHollow4.jpg, Box-Death Hollow Wilderness Image:DeathHollowWilderness4.jpg, Death Hollow

References

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External links

* {{UT Parks Protected areas of Garfield County, Utah Wilderness areas of Utah Dixie National Forest 1984 establishments in Utah Protected areas established in 1984

See also

References

External links