Panel’s plan would expand Canyon’s access By Steve Grazier, Cortez Journal

A plan for transportation management at the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument was unanimously approved Tuesday by the monument’s citizens advisory committee. …

The committee’s decisions are recommendations to the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency charged with management of the monument.

Some goals of the transportation plan include providing protection of resources for present and future users, avoiding detrimental impacts of privately held resources within and adjacent to monument boundaries and designating six to 10 access points. …

Currently there are five main access points at the monument.

The monument was designated by then President Clinton in 2000 because of the high concentration of Ancestral Puebloan ruins on the 164,000 acres northwest of Cortez.