Early Rod RunsFRIDAY
5:00 pm -7:00 pm Pre-registration PARTY at City Park! FOR SHOW ENTRANTS ONLY!

Movie Night SATURDAY
7:00 AM CITY PARK OPENS Rain or shine for Show Entrants. Sorry but there will be NO RV’s or Trailer Parking around the edge of the Park FRIDAY night or all day SATURDAY. Food provided by Smitty’s Golden Steak & The Lion’s Club, MUSIC provided by J.C. Hackett, T-shirt design by ETC. Graphics and printed on site by Van Tee’s.

BreakfastSUNDAY
8:00 -9:00 am Continental Breakfast at City Park For Show Participants
9:15 am ROD RUN to Deadhorse Point State Park.

Movie Night No Alcohol Allowed at our Events
No Dogs ~ No Bikes ~ No ball Games OR Frisbees

EVENT VIDEO BY OMNI PRODUCTIONS
All registrants receive the Official April Action Car Show Video,
featuring the cars against the spectacular red rock background set to rock ‘n roll music ˆ a must see! Additional DVD’s of selected past shows can be ordered for only $12 each, shipping included.

For More Information: APRIL ACTION Car Show, P.O. Box 222, Moab, UT 84532
Jim Mattingly 435-259-5858 email: jim@moabvideo.com
http://www.moabaprilaction.com
check out http://www.moab-utah.com/aprilaction/ for more info

What it is…. Easter Jeep Safari consists of trail rides, mostly day long trips, departing from Moab Utah throughout the 9 day long event. The official event is hosted by the Red Rock 4-Wheelers Inc. one of the the local four wheel drive clubs of Moab. Participants provide their own four wheel drive vehicle, take care of their own food and non-alcoholic beverages for the trip. Suggested essentials, beyond plenty of water, include sun protection, and layered clothing in case of changing weather circumstances that are always a possibility during the spring in southeastern Utah.

“That is a good thing,” DeLay said, given the financial crisis in the U.S. and many other countries worldwide.

TRT tax revenues do not provide a clear picture of visitation to the area because the taxes are based on room rates, which often fluctuate from year to year. But DeLay did present other figures to bolster her position that the tourism business in Moab and Grand County has remained strong.

Visitation at Arches National Park rose by 7.3 percent in 2009 compared with 2008. That measurement is traditionally used as an indicator of the area’s popularity because it can be used as a comparison with other national park gateways, DeLay said.

By comparison, visitation to Capital Reef National Park rose two percent, while Zion National Park visitation rose by only 1.7 percent.

“We’re looking at a million visitors [in 2010],” DeLay said after noting that Arches recorded 996,312 visits last year.

The travel council’s website, discovermoab.com, received 26 million hits, up 24.5 percent from 2008, DeLay said. More than 500,000 web visitors clicked through to view additional information about local businesses, she said.

Visitors to the travel council website downloaded about 154,000 files, with Fisher Towers being the most popular download, followed by region and Arches maps, the site’s hiking brochure, and four-wheel drive brochure, DeLay said.

Based on surveys that she said indicate the average visitor spends 2.3 nights and $120 per day in the area, DeLay said that a million visitors means there is a $199 dollar return for every dollar spent by the travel council for advertising and promotion.

A second grant from the Utah Office of Tourism to appeal to Colorado residents is paying off, according to DeLay, because money spent there has resulted in relationships leading to free commercials on cable TV.

The travel council has placed advertisements at movie theaters in Salt Lake City and Denver featuring Moab highlighting free passes to Dead Horse State Park, DeLay said.

This year, DeLay is serving as president of the Utah Tourism Industry Coalition, which she described as a lobby organization that, for two years in a row, has stopped attempts in the Utah Legislature to kill a 1 percent restaurant tax created 17 years ago by the Legislature’s passage of the Tourism, Recreation, Cultural, Convention, and Airport Facilities Tax Act.

DeLay also discussed the travel council’s work at travel and trade shows, and numerous magazine articles that have been written recently about the area. This year the travel council has awarded $70,000 to 12 local event organizers, an increase of $13,000 in funding over 2009, she said.

Channeling the energy riding through the grandeur of Moab’s Canyon Country is bound to inspire. For most riders, cycling is more than just a release; it can help define a deeper sense of purpose. To add to that purpose, the Moab Century Tour was created. It is an annual fundraiser to benefit cancer survivorship programs. By focusing proceeds of the tour with foundations making a difference for survivors, each participant becomes a powerful force against cancer.

The Tour is fully supported with sag wagons, bicycle mechanics, and aid stations along the way. Aid stations have a variety of fruit, snacks, sports drink, energy bars, and water.

$75 registration per rider (no pledges to raise)

Weekend of fully supported road riding with 32, 65, 70 and century mile options

Recruit 3 riders, receive free registration (not available with online registrations via active.com)

Limited Registration. This ride closes early!

Register online at Active.com

The total registration fee will be $50 per vehicle for the first day and $25. per day for each additional day. The preferred place for final registration will be at the Spanish Trail Arena on the east side of Highway 191 about 5 miles south of the center of Moab at 7:30am on Saturday. We’ll provide a full pancake breakfast at that time, but you will be eating on your own after that. If you can’t be there for breakfast, those with confirmed reservations may register with the day-trip leaders at the meeting places designated in the trail listings. (Most trails are described in the Easter Jeep Safari Paper listing. Availability is subject to change without advance notice depending on weather and trail conditions).
For online registration visit the Red Rock 4 Wheelers

During its July 21 meeting, council members voted 5-1 against awarding the bid and contract to LeGrand Johnson, the sole bidder, after several local off-highway tour operators voiced their opposition to the project, saying the closure of the area – even for a few weeks – would negatively impact their business. Several people also voiced concerns about how an asphalt parking lot would affect the appearance of the area.

Council member Gene Ciarus said during the July meeting that putting a large “Wal-Mart” parking lot in the area isn’t desirable.

This week, the project was approved, by unanimous vote, as originally planned, but with more effort to screen the pavement from the Sand Flats Road. The additional screening will incur no additional cost, council members were told.

If construction intrudes into the fall busy season, alternative access routes have been worked out with commercial tour operators, said Sand Flats Recreation Area Director Andrea Brand who presented information to the council Tuesday that she said illustrated the need for the parking lot, and the drawbacks of the alternatives the council had directed her to evaluate.

“An estimated 35,000 visitors in private vehicles recreate on the Hell’s Revenge Trail over a four-month period in the spring and fall,” Brand said.

Commercial use adds much to this number. Large (20 or more) groups that have Bureau of Land Management permits often use the parking lot as a staging area for trips, she said.

“Many of these users are first-time visitors who need direction,” Brand said. “A trailhead sets the scene for further use in the backcountry. When a trailhead is organized and managed users tend to take this attitude with them in the back country and are more likely to follow regulations and stay on the the trail.”

Brand’s evaluation of alternatives, conducted with the Grand County Engineer Mark Wright and BLM specialists, concluded that covering the asphalt parking lot with colored sandstone chips would cost only about $10,000 extra, but new sandstone chips would have to be added periodically as traffic grinds the chips into the asphalt and brings its black color to the surface.

Building the parking lot out of colored concrete with a brushed surface would cost an additional $45,000 to $50,000. Stamped, colored concrete would cost as much as $100,000 more than simply paving the lot with asphalt and waiting for blow sand to change its color from dark black to grayish, Brand said.

While a federal grant is paying for half the parking lot’s total cost of $115,250, additional grants to cover such extra costs are not available, Brand said.

Photos of mayhem at the parking lot during the week of the Easter Jeep Safari, and of other parking lots where white lines painted on the asphalt keep vehicles in order, apparently convinced the most skeptical members of the council of the need for a developed parking lot.

“My opinion has changed,” Ciarus said Tuesday. “I really think it has to be done.”

The painted stripes will delineate traffic-flow patterns and parking for 10 vehicles with trailers and for seven single vehicles. Curbing and a v-pan waterway will be made of colored concrete to match surrounding sandstone, Brand said.

The total cost for the project includes about $75,000 for paving the lot, toilets, which have already been installed, a kiosk display, signs, and a seal coat to be applied to the asphalt later.
- Moab Times Independent

“The perception by the community was that federal agents in raid gear armed with assault weapons jumped out of black Suburbans and ‘manhandled’ the accused unnecessarily,” the Utah Republicans wrote in a joint letter to Holder dated Tuesday.  Some people reported being roughed up and facing agents with weapons drawn, said Bruce Adams, a commissioner in San Juan County in southern Utah where many of the arrests took place.  One person also came away with four broken toes, he added.  Holder, responding to questions from Hatch during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, said even arrests in nonviolent cases can pose a danger to federal agents.

“The arrests that were done were felony arrests and as best as I can tell, they were done in accordance with the FBI and Bureau of Land Management standard operating procedures,” Holder said.  Adams said there was no need for federal agents to show up with guns, bulletproof vests and a roughhouse attitude to arrest people he called “regular neighbors.”  “These people would have surrendered peacefully,” Adams said, but the federal government seemed intent on delivering “a hard message.”

U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman also said the felony arrests in Utah, Colorado and New Mexico were carried out according to procedures meant to protect federal agents.  “This case involves significant collections of Indian artifacts taken from public and tribal lands by excavators, sellers, and collectors, including priceless artifacts sacred to Native Americans, not ‘trash and trinkets’ as some have suggested,” Tolman said in a statement.  Of the 24 people indicted in the case, 22 have entered not guilty pleas. One has not yet been arrested and another is in New Mexico and has not appeared in federal court in Utah.  Several of the defendants were in federal court in Salt Lake City on Wednesday for a status hearing to make sure they have attorneys.

Defense attorneys declined to comment on the specifics of the arrests or charges except to say they were in the early stages of going through the case.  “We’ve had artifact cases before but certainly nothing of this magnitude,” said federal defender Steve Killpack, whose office is handling the cases of at least eight of those indicted.  He said his office will be looking closely at how the arrests took place — in part because of criticism from Utah’s senators.  Taking artifacts from archaeological sites has been a common practice around Four Corners, an area rich with artifacts from the Anasazi.  The FBI and the Bureau of Land Management spent more than two years investigating the theft and illegal trafficking of relics taken from federal and tribal land.

In 2007 and 2008, a confidential source paid more than $335,000 for 256 stolen artifacts, according to court documents. In most cases, the transactions were caught on video or audio tape.  The early morning arrests — most of them in Utah — shocked and angered community members. And a day later, one of those arrested, a local doctor named James Redd, committed suicide.  Adams said the frustration isn’t necessarily with the charges against those indicted — guilt and innocence will be decided in court, he said — but with how the arrests were carried out.  “These people were not violent and did not have criminal backgrounds,” he said.

He said the local sheriff is investigating the arrests and interviewing those who were arrested. The report will be given to the San Juan County Commission and passed along to members of Congress, Adams said.  Decisions to use handcuffs and drawn guns were made based on several factors, including the nature of the charges, the suspects’ criminal history, the presence of firearms and the need to protect government agents, Tolman said.  He said he was proud of the “efficiency and professionalism” of the FBI and BLM agents involved in the arrests.  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has also defended how the investigation was carried out.

Tolman also said the FBI notified the San Juan County sheriff six days before the arrests and notified police departments in Moab, Blanding and Monticello on the day of or the day before the arrests.  Those arrested were given “every reasonable accommodation,” including being allowed time to get groomed and gather medication and, later in the day, they were given lunch, Tolman said.

-Associated Press

Moab Utah scenery

Utah’s national parks and monuments are more than environmental treasures.

According to a new report released Wednesday by the National Parks Conservation Association, they are integral in buoying local Utah economies.

The report, Landscapes of Opportunity, focused on the ways in which national parks influence the local economies of Grand and San Juan counties, home to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Hovenweep and Natural Bridges national monuments. By attracting people and activity to their communities, it found that parks lend economic diversity and stability.

“The economic base has been changing over the last 10 to 20 years in these communities,” said David Nipkin, NPCA’s Southwest regional director. Apart from the current economic crisis, the departure of the mining industry in Southern Utah left large gaps in the economic fabric of the region. “These parks are a world-class asset that formed a solid economic foundation for these counties.

The report found that each year, 1.2 million people visit Arches and Canyonlands national parks, which results in an estimated $31 million of tourism-related spending in San Juan County and $107 million in Grand County.
Economist Daniel Stynes, who contributed to the report, estimated that in 2006, this spending supported 2,315 jobs, resulting in nearly $37 million in personal income.

In difficult economic times, parks encouraged growth in their communities, the report said. Between 1998 and 2006, travel-related jobs grew by 27 percent in Grand and San Juan counties, while jobs in other sectors grew by only 5 percent.

In the past few years, the effects have been two-fold. Nipkin noted that in a time of financial insecurity, “our parks have become a more affordable vacation,” encouraging domestic tourism over international travel.

At the same time, the depreciated dollar has invited more travelers from abroad to Utah.

“We’ve noticed a significant number of Europeans coming through Moab in the past few years,” said Ken Davey, Moab County’s economic development director. “They wouldn’t be coming here if it weren’t for the national parks.”