SO CLOSE...AND YET SO FAR AWAY...AND YET SO CLOSE

Five hundred feet is not a very great distance; I can walk that far in a couple of minutes. It is less than the length of two football fields. Straight away center in the old Yankee Stadium was just a few strides shy of five hundred feet.

But five hundred feet is all that separates Lake Powell from Glen Canyon. Five hundred feet...five hundred feet of water is all it took to obliterate one of the most beautiful places on the face of the earth. For millennium after millennium, the river flowed through this particular part of what we now call the Colorado Plateau, untouched and unmarred and unknown. No human had even bothered to give it a name until Major John Wesley Powell designated this unexpected and surprisingly serene and lovely stretch of river. Powell and his expedition had just come out of Cataract Canyon, had seen their wooden boats smashed and hammered by the power of the Colorado and were grateful and surprised to still be alive.

Now the river sighed and smoothed out its wrinkles and let them float dreamlike beneath the cathedral walls of a canyon they could not have imagined just a few days before. Powell named it Glen Canyon.

Less than a century later, just ninety-four years after Powell's journey through this lovely paradise, we would destroy it and then name the stagnant reservoir rising behind the concrete dam in Powell's memory. Could there be a greater blasphemy?

But I am making a mistake here---the same mistake that so many of my peers are guilty of. We all have a habit of using hyperbole when we describe the tragedy of Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam. We say things like, the canyon that once flowed here is gone forever. Or Humans will never know what a paradise we had at Glen Canyon.

Or...we have destroyed it.

Glen Canyon is not destroyed. It's all still there, under 27 million acre feet of water. What was it Abbey liked to say? "Glen Canyon still exists; it's just in liquid storage." And "the Colorado River is still there--it just flows under the reservoir." Something like that.

It is so easy to forget but it is so true. Staring at the flat expanse of dead water, we can convince ourselves that the world does not extend below the surface of the lake. That places like Hidden Passage and Dungeon Canyon and Cathedral in the Desert and the Crossing of the Fathers and Music Temple have simply ceased to exist.

But we're deceiving ourselves. Perhaps because it is easier to cope with the loss that way. Perhaps because it is too frustrating to think for very long that the difference between a polluted reservoir and a living canyon is a few hundred feet of water. But rest assured Glen Canyon is down there in the cold and inky blackness. All those magical and mystical places that I never saw but only heard of are treading water and waiting for salvation.

They are no doubt somewhat the worse for wear; it must get a little soggy down there after 35 years. But all these treasures require is to be dried out for awhile. And that is just what we intend to do.

One year ago, in this publication, our cover story asked the question: Should we drain Lake Powell? Our answer was a resounding YES. That view is shared by many others, most notably the Glen Canyon Institute, an organization created with one goal in mind; to correct a mistake, to right a wrong...to restore a masterpiece. The Institute believes that Glen Canyon can be resurrected and that it makes sense to drain the reservoir not only in our hearts, but in our most logical minds as well.

Building Glen Canyon Dam was a mistake. It was stupid in 1956 and it is just as stupid today. In the issue that follows, beginning on page 15, the Glen Canyon Institute convincingly makes its case for draining Lake Powell.

For me, the movement that is afoot and gaining momentum each day is exciting and hopeful (yeah...I said that). I see subtle changes in peoples' attitudes, even among supporters of the dam. Ten years ago, dam advocates would argue vociferously in defense of the Bureau of Reclamation and its gargantuan water projects. They would proudly point to the generation of electricity and all that recreation money that tourists spend at places like Lake Powell and then look at me as if to say, "How can you argue with that?"

Now many of those same Believers squirm a bit and say, "Ok...maybe it was a mistake. But it's there. There is nothing you can do about it. Tearing it down would be crazy."

Yeah...maybe we're crazy. I think that's what they said about Rosa Parks when she wouldn't give up her seat on the Birmingham bus to a white man. The idea---black people sitting while white folks had to stand! Why that's just crazy.

Crazy ideas are what change history and cause, albeit unwillingly at times, the slow advance of civilization.

I think they said Galileo was crazy when he proposed that the earth was not the center of the universe. I believe many of the people who still sing the praises of Glen Canyon Dam, still think the earth is at the center of the universe.

No surprise there.

One day Glen Canyon will flow again. Whether it occurs in my lifetime, or in my godson Charlie's lifetime, or whether the day of resurrection lies another millennium away, the day will come. Sooner or later, Glen Canyon will live again.

And remember...we only have five hundred feet to go.

OIE! THE VIEW FROM DOWN UNDER

So here's what I can't figure; I was about halfway across the Pacific Ocean headed back to Australia, and out of sheer boredom, decided to read the Emergency Procedures pamphlet that is provided each passenger. In bold block letters in the middle of page one, I read the following warning:

If you are sitting in an exit row and you cannot understand this card or cannot see well enough to follow these instructions, please tell a crew member.

Now what in the hell is that all about, I wondered. If you can't read the damn thing or if you're too blind to see the words, how can you possibly know enough to tell a crew member in the first place? It worried me.

Somehow we managed to reach land and after a series of flights that spanned parts of three days but which are still a blur and a confusion (that damn international date line), I landed in Perth in Western Australia on Christmas night.

This is not going to degenerate into a travelogue, I promise you. But closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I can still remember: the quiet streets of Perth, finally learning the meaning of Boxing Day, sailing on the Swan with Amanda Jane and her sister Rachel, meeting John Wringe at the bus station in Bunbury and my introduction to the entire Wringe family, my introduction to dung beetles, learning that Aussie cowboys say "oie!" instead of "Hee-awww," driving on the left side of the road for the first time, forgetting to drive on the left side for the first time, learning the difference between Swan Draft and Swan Gold (5.8% v. 3.2%---big difference), Jimmie Baker, the Nanutarra Roadhouse, 127 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, the raunchy show in Port Hedland and the guy with the shaved head who had the face of a human skull tattooed across the back of his own skull.

There was my friend Carrie, reading the lurid headlines of the West Australian ("Stains on Monica's Dress: Are they Bill's?") and saying, "So now what? Are you going to send your president into a little room with a plastic cup and a dirty magazine and tell him to have a tug?"

And watching the Super Bowl live on Monday morning and enduring the abuse and ridicule of my friends who think Americans are a bunch of wimps because our guys wear helmets. None of that sissy stuff in Aussie Rules Football. Or footy as they call it.

They also call dust devils---willie willies. Imagine the news reader on the ABC Radio: "A devastating series of willie willies struck Perth yesterday. Damage from the willie willies is not known at this time. Willie willies can strike without warning."

And trying to understand cricket, and watching kangaroos and wedgetail eagles and goannas and listening to the kookaburras and the ravens and the pied butcherbirds.

And then there is the always charming and lovely Amanda Jane Davey, who at this very moment is 10,000 miles away, reading this column and this sentence and at the mere mention of her name is shaking her head and saying, "Jim...are you mental? Get a grip and quit making a fool of yourself."

OK...OK!

So instead of going off on that tangent, I'll talk about cows and farmers and ranchers and men like my friend John Wringe. John and his family own a 2000 acre farm a couple hundred miles south of Perth. The Wringes have worked this land for a century through some extremely tough times. This year has been as tough as it gets.

Cattle prices are at an all time low. John's son James has developed a 30,000 plant tomato farm just down the road, but tomato prices are so pathetic that, despite continuous 18 hour work days, James already knows that he will be lucky to break even. The whole family pitches in; James' mother Jean spends ten hour days packing and sorting and then goes home at dusk to take care of the house and the family.

One day I said to Jean, "I don't know how you do it."

Jean shrugged and said simply, "What else can you do? The work just has to be done."

They could do something else. They could sell the farm that has been a part of their family for generations. They could get millions for it. But the land means too much to them. And so the Wringes, like so many other farmers and ranchers in Australia (and here in the U.S.), try to squeeze a living out of Castledene Farm. Their options? Sell out to developers. Go broke.

Maybe you think I'm getting caught up in the romance of ranching and my perceptions are being blurred. Well maybe. But John Wringe would probably get a chuckle out of that. We were herding cows one day from one paddock to another and John said, "How're you doing Jim?" I said "Great! I'm having a good time."

John nodded a bit wearily and replied, "Try doing it every day for about forty years, Jim. Then check back with me." He loves his farm but it's back-breaking work.

I came away from Castledene Farm more convinced than ever that environmentalists and ranchers and farmers must find some common ground. Farmers and ranchers need to be innovative and open to new and different ideas and techniques. Environmentalists need to be supportive of fair prices for cattle and wool and vegetables. The next time you go to the market and marvel at the low price of tomatoes or hamburger, think of the Wringes and so many other farmers like them.

THE ZEPHYR? ON THE INTERNET? WITH A (gasp!) E MAIL ADDRESS? Shocking but true.

I finally worked out a permanent arrangement with Moab's Carl Anderson to get the Zephyr on the Whirled Whine Whip, or whatever you call it. At press time, I still hadn't got the new and updated stuff to him, but it will be up there soon. It's: www.canyoncountryzephyr.com

And I have an E mail address. It's: zephyr@lasal.net

If I can figure out what buttons to push, I look forward to hearing from you, but it may be hopeless. ??