BLM Stepping Up Warnings At The Wave

August 08, 2013

Federal land managers are stepping up warnings to reduce the death toll at a hiking destination on the Utah-Arizona border. 

It’s an area that caters to experienced hikers. The Wave not only requires hiking skills, but survival and navigation skills as well.

Three hikers who had lottery permits to hike The Wave, including a Mesa woman, succumbed to the brutal summer heat and disorienting open country in the month of July.

Now, the Bureau of Land Management has announced it's putting a greater emphasis on the dangers for hikers.

The agency plans to post a new trailhead sign, step up warnings on a BLM website, share a safety video with the Kanab Visitor Center and translate safety brochures for foreign visitors.

The BLM limits hiking at The Wave to 20 hikers a day. The three-mile hike starts in Utah before reaching the richly patterned swirl of sandstone formation in Arizona.