BY CHRISTOPHER KETCHAM
When Carolyn Shelton began working at southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 2001, she expected to leave it in better shape for the next generation. Fifteen years later, in spring 2016, her old friend Mary O’Brien, a local biologist, invited her over for dinner to celebrate her upcoming retirement. Shelton’s eyes welled with tears at the thought of leaving. She had risen in the ranks — she was an assistant manager, the third most powerful person at the monument — but had not accomplished what she’d wanted, had not protected the land as she’d intended. “Mary, I tried,” she told her friend. “I tried and I failed...”