Take it or Leave it: WHY CROWDS, CHAOS, & THE DEATH OF SOLITUDE DON’T MATTER IN THE ‘NEW WEST’…by Jim Stiles
I have recently learned to remotely keep track of traffic flows at Arches National Park and the Moab area via web cameras at the park entrance and along US 191 as the tourists flow in and out. I’m a Luddite…
Sowing Clover: Pockets of Hope…by Tonya Morton
When one speaks of hope in the middle of America, one tends to refer to it existing in “pockets.” The small population of family farms are pockets of hope. The few towns that have held onto their local hospitals, albeit…
When a Guppy Swallows a Whale: The Anatomy of the Bluff Incorporation…by Stacy Young
Bluff Goes Big The most attention-grabbing fact of the incorporation is its size: 38 square miles, which is more than 60 times the size of Bluff’s present developed footprint. The scale of the new boundary is fairly hard to contextualize,…
Take it or Leave it: My Debt to Turtles…by Jim Stiles
Tonya and I were headed home from Dodge, sticking to the back roads and enjoying the warmth of a Spring afternoon. The windows were down, the temperature was perfect and the breeze still comfortable when I suddenly braked the car…
Designate it, publicize it and they will come … and destroy it: Of untouchable rhetoric and the fight against overcrowded tourism at home and abroad (Well, not so much at home)…by Bill Keshlear
PART I: A latter-day David and Goliath saga The home of the Pyramid Lake (Nev.) Paiutes is pristine and spectacular. The lake is quiet, commercially primitive, other-worldly. It constantly changes color from shades of blue or gray depending upon the…
BRAVE NEW WEST (The Comic Strip): EPISODE #2, SPRINGTIME IN MOAB-LAND!!!…by Jim Stiles
Click HERE to Read BRAVE NEW WEST (THE COMIC STRIP) #1 Jim Stiles is Founder and Co-Publisher of the Canyon Country Zephyr. To comment, scroll to the bottom of the page. Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links are…
VLACHOS’ VIEWS: DONUTS, PART II…Photos and Captions by Paul Vlachos
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… Let me first say that I was encouraged to do this. I…
BYGONES & OBSOLETE STORIES: Pool Halls and Diners…By Clark Phelps
I began my Salt Lake City life the very week of my 16th birthday. My parents never really embraced homeownership and were anxious to leave our rural Midvale and the three bedroom home they had raised 4 children in. My…
Trouble on the San Juan River…By Harvey Leake
1915 got off to a troublesome start for the residents of southern San Juan County, Utah. The turmoil had started the previous year, on March 27, 1914, when a Mexican sheepherder, Juan Chacon, was murdered out on the range in…
Elsewhere…by Damon Falke
but it’s not the wound that matters, it’s the soul, the soul that must be heard not the wound -Anne Michaels a last fish There was another creek on the other side of the mountain where I…
(From June 1994) MOAB’S PORK BELLY HOUSING BOOM…by Jim Stiles
2018 PROLOGUE: My worries about housing prices in Moab and my community’s future, back in 1994, seem almost quaint when placed in today’s context. But this was the beginning of the change, the transformation–the transmogrification— that put Moab on a…
The Disaster at Cane Creek: An Excerpt…by Kymberly Mele
Kymberly Mele recently published Disaster at Cane Creek, a book about the tragic 1963 potash mine explosion near Moab, Utah. A narrative nonfiction, the book details the dramatic events that took place at the new Texas Gulf Sulphur potash mine…
A History of Dewey, Utah… By Herm Hoops
The bridge is gone, the station is gone. The people are gone, and what is left is concrete, asphalt, concrete and sameness! Not much is left of Dewey, Utah is along the Colorado River near the Dewey Bridge. Originally named…
SPRINGTIME IN MOAB!
We’ve talked about the crowds in Moab and at Arches National Park recently. But where is the “empirical evidence?” Thanks to the web cameras along US 191 (courtesy of UDOT) and a web camera at the Arches NP entrance station,…
Herb Ringer’s American West: HERB RINGER REMEMBERS CAMERON, ARIZONA —from the 1940s & 50s
“The first time I stopped at Cameron was when I had my 1946 Ford. It was going to be a long drive, from the South Rim all the way to Kanab. And so my father suggested we stop. We noticed…
BEFORE & AFTER: PAVING THE DELICATE ARCH ROAD AT ARCHES NP…1993
In 1993, Arches National Park started paving the Delicate Arch Road. The section from the main park road to Wolfe Ranch and the trailhead was paved that spring; the viewpoint road faced the asphalt a year later. While I worked…
A Full Year of Backbone Supporters! Please Join!
The Zephyr Backbone is what keeps us alive! Click here to Join! Click Here to Join the Zephyr Backbone! Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links are hot!
The April/May Issue of the Zephyr!
Take it or Leave it: TWENTY-NINE YEARS & COUNTING—How The Zephyr Got from There to Here…by Jim Stiles
I have been publishing The Zephyr for 29 years; this isn’t one of those landmark anniversaries, like the fast-approaching Big 30, but everything seems so volatile lately, so uncertain, and more than anything—so nasty–that I thought maybe I’d do a…
Sowing Clover: A Report from Farm Country…by Tonya Audyn Morton
I’ve spent most of my life on the edges of farm country. As a kid, in South Dakota, I knew the cadence of farm-speak, cribbed from the little 4H and FFA members who ruled the elementary school show-and-tell presentations, overheard…