Though the 370-mile Eco-Challenge race through southern Utah is nearly over, controversy surrounding the event endures:
- Some visitors to Canyonlands National Park still wonder why they were stopped and questioned by Eco-Challenge personnel on a public road Saturday.- A protester in Horseshoe Canyon has complained to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that Eco-Challenge personnel threatened to cut his climbing ropes while he was hanging a protest banner on a rock wall.
- Two men arrested for trespassing on the eve of the race have pleaded not guilty and plan to fight the charges.
Those two men - at least one of whom has ties to Utah's most active wilderness group - were arrested after they walked through a camp set up by Eco-Challenge Lifestyles Inc. near Huntington, Emery County.
Kevin Dwyer, 31, Boulder, Colo., and David Scholten, 23, Moab, have pleaded not guilty to trespassing, an infraction. A trial has been scheduled for Aug. 29 before Justice Court Judge Stan Truman.
According to Emery County Sheriff Lamar Guymon, Dwyer and Scholten were observed roaming through the camp the night of April 25, which was the eve of the start of the race.
Eco-Challenge's security staff stopped the pair, but they refused to identify themselves. The staff then called the sheriff's office.
Dwyer and Scholten still refused to identify themselves so they were arrested and booked into the jail, said Guymon.
"The only problem we had was with the fact they didn't (identify) themselves," Guymon said, noting that the pair would not have been arrested had they given their names.
Deputies also impounded a 1975 Toyota found nearby. That car was registered to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), which has spearheaded the environmental opposition to the Eco-Challenge.
Keys to the car were found in the possession of Scholten, who works as a canvasser for SUWA and was bailed out of jail the next day by SUWA spokesman Dave Pacheco.
But Pacheco says the pair's visit to the Eco-Challenge camp that night was not planned or endorsed by SUWA.
"It was bad judgment," said SUWA spokesman Dave Pacheco. "It was an error. (Scholten) shouldn't have taken the car."
Last Friday, Dan Kent, also of Moab, rappelled down and hung a protest banner over the rim of a wall 200 feet from an Eco-Challenge rappelling station. He was upset that the race course was going to pass through an Indian archaeological site in the Horseshoe Canyon Wilderness Study Area, near the northwest boundary of Canyonlands National Park.
In a letter to the BLM, Kent says Eco-Challenge personnel threatened to cut his rope and push him over the edge.
Guymon said the protester was a safety concern to Eco-Challenge and was asked to leave.
Kent denies he was a safety risk. "It seems clear to me that the reason for removing me was not safety concerns but rather their desire for TV footage clear of unwelcome reminders of what a mess their race is."
On Friday night and Saturday morning, Eco-Challenge personnel were apparently stopping traffic along the dirt road that leads to Horseshoe Canyon from U-24.
The road passes right next to private property where Eco-Challenge participants and staff were camped.
Nancy Coulam, an archaeologist with Canyonlands National Park, said nearly all of the 63 people she took on a guided hike through Horseshoe Canyon on Saturday had been stopped and "harassed" at the Eco-Challenge camp.
One of those people was Laurel Casjens, who told the Deseret News that the vehicle she was in was stopped Friday night.
"They flashed a flashlight in our car, which I thought was rude," said Casjens, a Salt Lake resident.
Coulam, an admitted opponent to the idea of running a race through Utah's redrock wilderness, said she's dismayed that Eco-Challenge was paranoid enough to stop people on a public road.
Eco-Challenge officials were in the field and unavailable for comment, said Mary Kay Lazarus, owner of a public relations firm retained by Eco-Challenge.
The Eco-Challenge race sent 50 five-person teams on foot, mountain bike, horses, ropes, rafts and kayaks through a grueling course that began April 26 in Emery County and is ending this week at Bullfrog, Lake Powell.
Environmentalists and others complained that the race would harm the fragile desert, which they say is already overrun by too many people.