As Abbey and I sat on my raft down at Lee’s Ferry years ago, drinking beer late at night, we "prayed" together for a precision earthquake under the Glen Canyon Dam. However, that prayer, yet to be answered, begat another of Ed’s salvos -- the beginning of his classic creation, The Monkey Wrench Gang. Together, we made no pretense and absolutely felt no remorse, as to where we stood and to what had to be done. The dam had to go.

As if in answer to our prayer, a few years after that, heavy rains came and the waters rose to ever-higher levels. With such weight behind it, shuddering violently, the dam itself nearly headed downstream. Persons asked me what I thought about it, "It’’s just great!" I exclaimed. "Pray for more rain!"

Years have passed, and now the reservoir is dropping, dropping, dropping. I now say, "It’s just great! Pray for more drought!"

I remember back a few years ago, after the reservoir had risen, I had conducted a return trip to Glen Canyon. My good friend Ellen Meloy joined our group to witness first hand the reservoir’s devastation and destruction to the canyon. She relates her experiences and feelings of this trip in her insightful book, Raven’s Exile.

We were musing one evening on that trip as to the proper disposition of the dam –– such musings as Abbey and I had done years before and many river parties have done ever since. Ellen suggests a playful imaginative one:

"I suggest a run to Vegas for explosives. I imagine a bunch of people with terminal diseases, flinging themselves off the dam’s lip with dynamite strapped to their backs, their shoes on fire. The stories of how to "do" the dam are, like the sheer catharsis they serve, epic and legendary."

And the cathartic agent I suggested was a jackhammer brigade, while awaiting the precision earthquake.

And this last October, a reporter and photographer from a major newspaper joined my son Mark and me to again examine the effects of the lowering reservoir. It was a sort of deja vu trip as the one that Ellen had taken with me.

Dark clouds hung overhead as we motored up the canyon in a small private motorboat through the choppy dark reservoir waters. We camped opposite the Hole-in-the-Rock, the famous Mormon pioneer crossing.

Next morning, after breakfast, we headed to the Escalante Canyon and its tributaries. I pointed out the demise of my horse and mule trail that led down into the Escalante Canyon. Much of the cliff face had sloughed off into the reservoir, and the huge sandbank had collapsed. My old base camp continued buried.

We motored up Clear Creek to the enchanting and heavenly Cathedral-in-the-Desert. The receding reservoir had exposed about half of this great grotto. To get an in-depth, picture of the scene, our reporter friend stripped a part of her clothing off and jumped in, and the photographer followed with his camera in hand. Mark and I tended the boat.

In Davis Gulch we hiked up the canyon and beyond the Everett Ruess Natural Window. Near here, Ruess had inscribed his "Nemo 1934." His inscriptions were gone and so were the ancient Indian writings and ruins. Huge sand banks evidenced the former level of the reservoir, and now they too began to give way and sculpt themselves, signaling a return to the natural order of things. Some of the way, we happily walked the natural grade –– the natural canyon bottom. Small cottonwood trees and other native plants had begun sprouting and growing again. The "great restoration." had begun.

In Fifty Mile Canyon, we met a huge sand and debris plug in the canyon bottom, no doubt the site of the grand Gregory Natural Bridge, still buried. Surely, it will only take a few floods to move the debris barrier downstream to expose the opening of that magnificent edifice.

The next day we boated up Forbidding and Bridge Canyons. We hiked the mile to Rainbow Bridge. The canyon beneath Rainbow had returned to a more natural state and the slickrock bottom where I used to recline, meditate, and gaze up at the great arch was again naturally exposed. And I looked down on the dripping spring from whence many times in the past we had refilled our canteens I looked for a Redbud tree there, as before, but none yet grew. I did not hear the beautiful song of the canyon wren, as before. There has been further desecration of the Monument: paved trails, an ugly shade structure, and multiple signs. No longer do visitors meet the canyon on its own terms.

I returned back home with many mixed feelings –– feelings of some pessimism but yet much optimism as what can be done.

Just after my return, Ellen Meloy brought a number of students from Whitman College to Pack Creek Ranch. In persuasive, eloquent, and logical form, Ellen explained the issues as to restoring the Glen Canyon and a free-flowing Colorado River. The kids, most attentive, eagerly participated in the lively discussion.

However, fate always seem to intervene.

Ellen died suddenly at her home in Bluff, with her river-ranger husband Mark at her side, a few days later. Never, since Abbey’’s death, has such affected me. Her passing is a great loss. She gave so much of herself to her family, to her friends, to the cause of the rivers, to Glen Canyon, and to the environmental movement. Her voice has been heard across the country, her wonderful books gaining wide readership and prestigious awards. Her influence and voice will continue to be felt far into the future.

I only wish that Ellen and Ed, and David Brower and others too, could have witnessed a final restoration of Glen Canyon for which they so valiantly fought. Their fight will yet surely be rewarded, and our lingering sorrow for them and our canyons will only then be alleviated. Let us fight even harder.