By Sarah Bills
No sign from the highway advertises its location, but people from all around the world seem to find it.
Roughly 40 miles west of St. George, where the Mohave Desert meets the Great Basin Desert a natural spring creates an oasis known as BYU?s Lytle Nature Preserve?a haven for bird watchers, researchers, students, scientists, boy scouts and others.
It?s a place so isolated that the caretakers would drive the 11 windy miles of rocky dirt road to the highway just to make sure it was still there. But, others who lived there referred to their hideaway as ?The Garden of Eden.?
Rolling hills of Joshua trees and other scrubby brush border the lonely road, which dips and turns until revealing an impressive panorama of red cliffs that frame the Beaver Dam Wash. The road snakes as it descends, gradually passing through cottonwood trees and other greenery.
Because of its unique location?bordering on three different ecosystems at one of the lowest elevations in Utah?the 462-acre preserve is home to birds and plants that can?t be found anywhere else in Utah.
The preserve also acts as a bargaining chip for BYU allowing students access to comparable properties owned by other universities, said Kenneth Packer, coordinator for BYU?s Lytle Nature Preserve.
The Beaver Dam drainage running through the preserve provides water throughout the year increasing the unique wildlife.
Without water, the preserve would become like the rest of the desert that surrounds it, Packer said.
?What brings wildlife in is the presence of water and the presence of a permanent food source,? Packer said. ?Water is life anywhere but it?s most important in the desert.?
Arrowheads and fire rings still found in the preserve today give evidence that water?and the plants and animals that follow it?have been calling people to the area for hundreds of years.
A pregnant polygamous wife found refuge here with her five young children over a century ago. A Las Vegas youth group mucked out debris here last Saturday. And next week a group of German scientists will arrive to continue studying how to improve crops worldwide.
In addition to the native plant life, the preserve sustains an orchard of pomegranates, persimmons, and other fruit as well as various study-plots. These orchards now draw the birds that ornithologists from around the world come to study.
But this same life-sustaining water has a give and take relationship.
Packer looks out from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat to survey the damage recent floods have caused and to identify where he can best use the Las Vegas youth group?s help cleaning up as his pick-up truck bounces along a two track road in the preserve.
?Floods drive the ecosystem,? he said. ?It?s going to be one of the best years for wildflowers.?
But this year floods have also washed away one thousand feet of irrigation pipes used to water the orchards and study plots in the preserve.
The old water rights law remains in force: if you don?t use the water, you lose it.
?We consider our water right extremely precious,? Packer said. ?In no way shape or form do we want to jeopardize those rights through nonuse.?
So, a massive cleanup effort to restore the irrigation system has begun.
Stanley Welsh, a BYU professor who has been bringing students to the area since 1961 explained that flooding is a normal occurrence in the area?that though difficult for those trying to maintain the preserve?it is beneficial to the preserve?s ecosystem.
Welsh and others including Clayton White, another BYU professor and long-time visitor to the area had a tough job convincing BYU to buy what was then considered ?a rundown old ranch.?
Once President Jeffrey R. Holland, a native of St. George, supported the decision, BYU purchased the ranch in 1986 setting up an endowment fund that would perpetuate and protect the land as a preserve for educational and research purposes.
Presently the endowment fund has raised roughly $260,000, but it needs to be in the millions in order to live off its interest and pay for the managers and the upkeep, Packer said. Flood damage has set the effort back causing an estimated $200,000 in damages.
?Somebody asked me ?Why Lytle Preserve?? My answer is why not,? Packer said. ?We are studying God?s creation . . . and in every one of these things you can find a testimony of our Heavenly Father.?
The preserve?s proximity to BYU allows student groups to travel there in a day, Packer said. And Southern Utah?s more moderate temperatures allow students to study wildlife outdoors even during the winter.
Students from surrounding universities, including Southern Utah University, Idaho State University, BYU-Idaho and others also visit the preserve, as do researchers from around the world.
Heriberto Madrigal who has lived at the Lytle nature preserve for 13 years as a caretaker said he feels privileged to host such a diverse group of visitors.
?We have people from all around the world: black people, white people, red people; whatever you want to call them,? he said.