Lee’s Ferry “Near MARBLE CANYON, 73.9 m., is Marble Canyon Lodge (spring water, hotel and cottages). Echo Cliffs and Kaibito Plateau, in the Navajo Reservation, are visible to the east. “Left from Marble Canyon filling station on a narrow side…
Until the 1990s, access to the Delicate Arch Trailhead, the Overlook and Wolfe Ranch was via an unpaved gravel road.Superintendent Pete Parry resisted efforts to improve the road, hoping to leave at least one part of Arches in a primitive…
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On the first day of 1892, my great-great grandmother, Mary Conrad Montfort, opened a thin leather-bound journal and turned to its first page. Dipping her pen into a small bottle of black ink she paused; then she began to write:…
This is, by all measures, a frightening time for American journalism. The press has a legitimate reason to fear a Trump presidency. Trump has expressed disdain for reporters, has called them “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” He…
THE PROCLAMATION: On December 28, 2016, President Obama, by proclamation, designated 1.35 million acres of federally owned land in southeast Utah as “Bears Ears National Monument.” The President stated that he had taken this action, “to protect some of our…
Paul Vlachos is a New Yorker who understands The West. And he is a New Yorker who understands New York. Wherever Paul goes, he finds signs of life… My team of dedicated professionals was looking through my photos, trying to…
As the Bears Ears debate heated up last summer, monument proponents revealed sentiments that went far beyond support for a presidential proclamation. Again and again, the argument included a near unanimous loathing for the Rural West, especially the many small…
INTRODUCTION by JIM STILES Bill Benge was the best friend I’ve ever had. He came to Moab in the early 1970s and at 27, became the youngest elected county attorney in Utah history. He was a familiar face to all…
Usually, even in the dead of winter, I like to rise early, stoke the fire in the woodstove, get some coffee going and gaze out the kitchen window at my beloved Moab Valley. Winters here are usually tolerable, at least…
THANKS to Tom McCourt & the Tibbetts Family. For years, I have been watching Moab move farther and farther away from its roots, to the point where it seems few people even know the history of the place anymore. Some…
From The Zephyr archives, in 2004 Irene Thill shared her memories of Moab of half a century ago and into the Uranium Boom. A year later, she ‘wrapped things up’ with this last installment. Irene died in 2008—I wonder what…
This is the story—a sort of historical sketch—of one of my most adventurous friends. Though she would join me on many trips—about 40 of them—from 1962 to 1979, I had never heard of Edna Fridley when Harry Aleson met me…
Was the future revealing itself to us 45 years ago? Consider this passage from the 45 year old film, Network, about who REALLY had and has and always will have the Power in America and around the planet.Written by Paddy…
HOPE VALLEY Barely a month after V-E Day–the end of war in Europe–Herb Ringer took his mother and father took a drive into the Sierra Nevadas from their home in Reno. They found a quiet place called Hope Valley.…
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NOTE: The following article was written for the December 2016/January 2017 issue of The Zephyr, but was posted early, via our Blog page, in order to reach as many readers as possible. Now that we’ve posted it here on our…
Note: I wrote this article four years ago, in the days before the 2012 election. It strikes me as particularly sad to re-read it now, remembering how important a role the topics of wealth and inequality played in that election.…