We launched our packrafts onto the Escalante River with a simple goal: to experience and film 65 miles of Utah’s most untouched and magnificent backcountry. For five days, we drifted through towering red rock labyrinths, severed from the outside world. But what we brought back was a time capsule of a landscape on the brink of erasure.
Following President Trump’s July 2026 executive order that slashed Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears to less than 10% of their original size, the canyons we paddled have become the epicenter of a bitter legal battle between conservation and industrial extraction. Led by a coalition of Native American tribes and environmental groups, the fight will ultimately decide the survival of the Antiquities Act and the future of America’s public lands.
Upcoming Festival Screenings
Chagrin Documentary Film Festival: Friday, October 9, 2026 at 11:00am at Methodist Church, 20 S. Franklin St., Chagrin Falls, Ohio
Chagrin Documentary Film Festival: Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 2:00pm in Triangle Park, Chagrin Falls, Ohio
I wanted to pull audiences down the Escalante River with us so they could feel exactly what’s at stake in the ongoing battle over US public lands. The film is an honest tribute to the Escalante, but it’s also a wake-up call, asking us to decide what we truly value and what we're willing to do to protect it.
From the Field
Press Coverage
Mining Claims Staked on Land That Trump Cut From Monuments
Prospectors are eyeing mineral deposits within the former boundaries of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah.
Trump Sharply Cuts the Size of Two National Monuments in Utah
Native American tribes and environmental groups are expected to challenge the move to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments.
A majority of Utahns opposed shrinking Bears Ears National Monument before President Donald Trump drastically slashed its size
Researchers with Utah State University surveyed state residents in 2023, 2024 and 2025, finding 61% of Utahns either supported or strongly supported preserving Bears Ears as a national monument in 2024 and 2025, with just 19% opposed or strongly opposed.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Signal a New Strategy to Dismantle Public Lands, Experts Say
The New Strategy for Dismantling Public Lands: Keep the Public in the Dark
Trump Allows for Coal Mining in Former Utah Monument Land
The Trump administration has finalized plans to allow logging in parts of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, and coal mining and other minerals development in areas carved out of the monuments.
Hank Leukart
Hank Leukart is a filmmaker passionate about sharing compelling, immersive stories, especially well-versed in launching film projects combining travel to unusual locales with socially-conscious issues like environmental conservation, human rights, and education. He’s worked as a producer on many iconic documentary television shows, including World’s Toughest Race (Amazon Prime); The Amazing Race, Big Brother, and The American Baking Competition (CBS); and Expedition Impossible (ABC). His first feature documentary, “The Mars Academy” — about NASA scientists helping underserved kids explore Mars with a real spacecraft — premiered at the Borrego Springs Film Festival. His second feature, "The John Muir," premiered at the Breckenridge Film Festival. His short films “Bears Ears” and “Rattlesnake to Westwater" won awards at the Lookout Wild, Maine Outdoor, and Waterwalker Film Festivals.