House Rock Valley

Falling beneath the cool shadow of the Kaibab Plateau’s East Monocline, the tawny desert of the House Rock Valley extends nearly 20 miles to the East, with the red ramparts of the Vermilion Cliffs to the North, and the sinuous cleft of Marble Canyon, where the Colorado River winds its way towards the Grand Canyon, to the South. Paleo-Indian hunters, archaic hunters and gatherers, ancient Puebloans, nomadic Paiutes, and Mormon pioneers all left traces of the past scattered across the landscape. These fragile and irreplaceable reminders of earlier inhabitants are still little understood and in need of study and protection. Through the present day, the grasslands, shrublands, springs and seeps of this brittle landscape provide a home for a large number of key species ranging from pronghorn antelope to the endangered chisel-toothed kangaroo rat.

In some places House Rock Valley remains relatively wild and untouched, while in others it has been badly damaged by livestock grazing that occurred in the early 20th century, when numbers exceeded 60,000 head of cattle. In these areas, invasive weeds, eroded washes, and grazing-tolerant plants have replaced resilient and naturally functioning systems Desert grasslands such as those found in the House Rock Valley are recognized as one of the most endangered ecosystems, and are greatly in need of increased protection and restoration. Indeed,  a large portion of the House Rock Valley has already been designated as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

Ecological restoration in degraded desert ecosystems is challenging due to the harsh and variable climatic conditions that occur, and restoration practitioners must acknowledge that historical land uses and changing climatic conditions may make it impossible to restore the composition and structure that predominated prior to the introduction of livestock.  Following our initial assessments of plant and soil conditions, water resource conditions, and mapping of invasive species, such as tamarisk, we are directing our initial restoration efforts towards arresting further degradation, in the form of soil erosion and the spread of non-native plants, and working strategically to reestablish a diverse native flora in the most amenable sites. There is a high degree of uncertainty associated with intensive reseeding efforts, thus restoration priorities in the House Rock Valley will focus, in the near term, on small-scale, experimental reintroductions of native plant species to the most degraded and vulnerable sites, and maintaining critical ecosystem types such as springs and seeps. From there, we intend to evaluate successes and failures, and work adaptively and systematically to expand the scope of this work over the coming years.