7 Public Lands Living in the American West throughout my life has had a profound influence on me. There is something life-affirming about the landscapes, the sheer expanse of it all. My home state of Utah is lavished with some of the most stunning vistas on the planet within a vast geographical footprint of 84,900 square miles—the eleventh largest of the fifty United States. Most of those lands are owned and administered by the federal government. For us in the West, the lands both symbolize America and define Utah. They are home. My mother’s family, the Okerlunds, grazed sheep and cattle on the Parker Mountain range southeast of Loa in Wayne County long before grazing permits were required from federal and state land management agencies. One small section had special significance—a grove of aspen trees surrounding a one-room cabin where we stayed when we were checking the
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