A draft backcountry management plan for Wupatki National Monument is available for public comment/NPS file

Public input is being sought on a draft backcountry management plan for Wupatki National Monument, which protects ruins from an ancient civilization that cultivated a living from a site in present-day northern Arizona that evolved into a regional trading center of sorts before being abandoned after about 300 years.

Designated a national monument on December 9, 1924, by President Calvin Coolidge, Wupatki is approximately an hour’s drive north of Flagstaff. Take Highway 89A north for a few dozen miles, and make the turn to the east to reach this unusual monument. (This is a 35-mile loop road that also accesses Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, so you can choose not to backtrack.)

The visitor center is located next to the three-story Wupatki Pueblo, with its more than 100 rooms that once housed 300 people. There are more than 800 identified ruins here, tucked between the Ponderosa-dotted mountains and Painted Desert, and all with a distinctive dark red color of the native Moenkopi sandstone, punctuated with black volcanic sand.

At the peak of its influence, Wupatki was "the tallest, largest, and perhaps the richest and most influential pueblo around," according to the National Park Service. "It was home to 85-100 people, and several thousand more lived within a day’s walk."

Now the Park Service is seeking public input on the draft backcountry management plan and associated environmental assessment for the monument. The purpose of this plan is to provide "protection and preservation of irreplaceable resources and wilderness character, while establishing long-term direction for public access and experiences to be had in eligible wilderness and other backcountry lands of the monument," the agency said in a release.

The EA describes two alternatives: a no-action alternative and an action alternative — which has been identified as the NPS preferred alternative. The no-action alternative reflects a continuation of current management practices, as established in the park's 2004 General Management Plan. Under that plan, rangers have been leading “Discovery Hikes” into Wupatki’s backcountry seasonally for years. Backcountry archaeological sites are fragile and obviously irreplaceable, so the hikes are limited to a dozen visitors and offered seasonally to avoid dangerously hot or stormy summer weather and to protect sensitive wildlife species during their breeding periods.

The action alternative presents a phased approach to expanding visitor opportunities in the monument’s backcountry through additional guided hikes and the potential for permitted, unguided access to a section of the backcountry. The action alternative also includes updated management zoning descriptions and boundaries, visitor capacities, and monitoring indicators and thresholds established to guide resource protection and management.

You can find more details on the plan at this site, and leave comments there. Comments are being taken through January 16.