(From the June/July Zephyr) On Patrol with Edward Abbey… By Tom Wylie

An excerpt:

The golden light of October cottonwoods in the canyons was as I remembered. The year was 2002, and I had returned to the Utah canyon country for a rendezvous with a crowd of friends. We had been rangers together during the 1970s and 1980s, employees of the National Park Service or the Bureau of Land Management. Our gathering place was Sand Island, not far west of the town of Bluff.

We told stories under the trees, on the trail, and around the campfire. On one of those days, I was talking to Lynell Shalk, a former ranger with the Bureau of Land Management. I said, “This is the most beautiful place on earth, the center of the world.”

She said, “You know, don’t you, that you just spoke the first line from Desert Solitaire?”

“What?”

“This is the most beautiful place on earth.”

Click the image to read more of Tom’s story:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2014/06/02/on-patrol-with-edward-abbey-by-tom-wylie/