A dispute with a new property owner has prompted federal land managers to cut off road access to archaeological sites in Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients national monuments just across the Utah line in Colorado.
Cryptically citing “physical security issues,” the National Park Service “temporarily” closed Cutthroat Castle, one of Hovenweep’s six small units, back in August. That’s when the Bureau of Land Management closed its road crossing a 40-acre lot whose owner, according to Steve Nowlin, the sheriff of Colorado’s Montezuma County, is unhappy the public uses it to reach Anasazi ruins inside the two national monuments.