Gold Butte land bill too limiting There was a time when the great thing about living in Southern Nevada was its wide-open spaces, most of it on public land. One could travel in just about any direction and find someplace new and interesting to visit or someplace new and inviting to hunt. Living in the growing city was made tolerable because you always could get away from the crowds by taking a drive into the desert on one of many roads that miners, ranchers and wandering explorers left behind long ago. But that's no longer the case. With the Bureau of Land Management's no off-pavement travel closure surrounding the Las Vegas Valley for miles in every direction, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to the east, the Sloan Canyon Conservation Area to the south, the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area to the west and the Desert Wildlife Refuge and Nellis Bombing Range to the north, Southern Nevadans have been hemmed in like cattle with political fences on all sides. Some days I feel like a calf with his head stuck between strands of barbed wire looking for somewhere else to be. Now, with the help of U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, things could get worse. On Friday, Berkley introduced H.R. 1732, a piece of legislation that if passed would create the Gold Butte Conservation Area: more than 565 square miles of rules, regulations and travel closures. Included in the legislation is language that would create another 13 new wilderness areas totaling more than 220,300 acres. More than 91,000 acres of that wilderness would fall within the Lake Mead NRA, where public access to the lake's shoreline already significantly is limited to anyone who does not own a boat....