{"id":104169,"date":"2016-04-20T16:04:16","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T22:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/canyons-of-ancients-welcomes-new-ranger\/"},"modified":"2016-04-20T16:04:16","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T22:04:16","slug":"canyons-of-ancients-welcomes-new-ranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/canyons-of-ancients-welcomes-new-ranger\/","title":{"rendered":"Canyons of Ancients welcomes new ranger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chuck
Chuck Lassiter is the new supervisory park ranger for Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For 10 years, Chuck Lassiter has worked for public lands \u201cfrom the Blue Ridge Mountains to Zion National Park,\u201d but recently landed his dream job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very special area,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to be here and have been eyeing this job for quite some time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lassiter specializes in recreation management and education, and has a vision for the future of CANM and its Anasazi Heritage Center museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my priorities is to start a ranger program that will offer educational programs and tours of archaeological sites, but also of the flora and fauna of the monument,\u201d he said. \u201cRanger programs are what visitors have come to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

They will begin in June and be based out of the Anasazi Heritage Center near Dolores.<\/p>\n

Lassiter is also charged with solving two pressing problems on the monument: improving the parking situation at the Sand Canyon Trailhead and working with the county to repair and maintain County Road 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving forward on a solution for these two issues have my full attention,\u201d he said. \u201cI am persistent, and know these are a big concern for the county and community.\u201d<\/p>\n

To alleviate crowding at Sand Canyon, the monument purchased the adjacent Lamb House property to expand the parking lot. However, officials realized that more planning and mitigation is needed to avoid sensitive cultural sites, Lassiter said.<\/p>\n

What will be done with the historic Lamb House is undecided, he said, and requires additional study and funding. Ideas for the building range from a visitor information center to a field research station for archaeologists.<\/p>\n

County Road 10 crosses the monument and is a designated tourist route to multiple ruin sites, including nearby Hovenweep National Monument.<\/p>\n

But the paved road is deteriorating badly and repairing the road is a challenge because of federal requirements to protect ruins sites near the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some cases, the road crosses through ruins,\u201d Lassiter said. \u201cWe are moving forward in partnership with the county to create a plan that preserves sensitive sites while allowing the road to be worked on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lassiter will also look into improving access to the monument to ease pressure at the popular Sand Canyon trail network.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is some opportunity for accessing other parts of the monument,\u201d he said. \u201cMy philosophy is multiple use. It is the public\u2019s land.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that expanding the education and interpretation programs is key for the archeology rich monument that is seeing more and more visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe model is still an outdoor museum, and being able to see archaeological sites up close makes this monument unique,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to balance recreation, conservation, and education and teach proper etiquette around cultural sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lassiter is the new supervisory park ranger for Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.Sam Green\/The Journal For 10 years, Chuck Lassiter has worked for public lands \u201cfrom the Blue Ridge Mountains to Zion National Park,\u201d but recently landed his dream job. \u201cIt\u2019s a very special area,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to be here and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[44,122],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-dolores","tag-monument-and-heritage-site"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104169"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}