‘Old Moab’ vs. ‘New Moab’ Ed Abbey, Chilled Red Wine & When to Clap at the Symphony. In 1952, when Charlie Steen discovered uranium and turned Moab from a sleepy little village to the most famous Boom Town in America,…
Lately, I’m preoccupied with the thought of snow. It has been near sixty degrees the past few days here in Kansas, and what little snow we accumulated in a fleeting New Year’s storm melted weeks ago. It could be any…
“It ain’t wilderness unless there’s a critter out there that can kill you and eat you.” – Doug Peacock At 9:30 p.m. on June 12, 2000, our Alaska Airlines jet lifted off in the black, rainy gloom of Seattle, Washington,…
‘THE BIGGEST PUBLIC LAND GRAB’ The ‘Green Energy Boom’ & Mainstream Environmentalism Sometimes the endless open spaces of the West impress me most when I can’t see them at all. One night when I was a ranger at the…
On January 11th, 1908 Theodore Roosevelt used the powers granted the President by the Antiquities act to create Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona Territory (Arizona did not become a state until 1914). Using these words, and the stroke of…
Lately I’ve been posting a lot of herb’s images on the Zephyr facebook page. Readers seem especially fond of Herb’s 1950 Ford Woody. I’ve put together a collection of that wonderful car, at various locations around the West from 1950…
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… Hollis, Queens, New York City. What might be called “micro-advertising” I took…
Glenwood Springs, Colorado After quickly pausing one last time to gaze at the sheer maroon-red cliffs and forested ridges high above, Jim Bone stepped onto the train. Worried that Jim might change his mind, the train made a clanking…
NOTE: The Zephyr recently received a DVD of a 1949 documentary film by Ray Garner. The film is silent; Mr. Garner exhibited this film to audiences around the country and provided ‘live’ narration. The film is now in the public…
In October , The Zephyr re-posted an interview with longtime Moabite MAXINE NEWELL, from the summer of 1995. Here is Part 2… After World War II, Maxine married Hub Newell. They lived in Green River for awhile where Hub, an…
Edna Fridley was a good friend of the canyon country of southeast Utah for more than 30 years. Every year she returned to the slickrock from her home, back east, to wander and explore what was then one of the…
A July day in Horse Canyon, northern Nevada. Cheatgrass was abundant, especially along the cattle trail. Barbed “florets” snagged my sneakers and socks and worked into the fabrics and stabbed. Dozens of them, and they were hard to dislodge. Lacking…
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT Jim Stiles “He who learns must suffer” My Sorrowful History of Winter Camping & the Pursuit of Warmth SOWING CLOVER Tonya Audyn Stiles ‘The Last Undecided Voter’ THE WILDER WEST The Art & Wit…
The election ended weeks ago, and I must be the only voter in America who could still call herself “undecided.” I may not look it. To judge by the voting patterns of most of my family and friends, the…
Every March I’d drive west from the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado, up to the massive Island in the Sky in Canyonlands National Park. Driving up there on Utah 313 I felt like a fly climbing a whale’s back. Standing…
Edna Fridley was a good friend of the canyon country of southeast Utah for more than 30 years. Every year she returned to the slickrock from her home, back east, to wander and explore what was then one of the…
You touch the great lonely land,only to plant upon it some uglinessabout which, never dreaming of the graceof apology or contrition,you then proceed to brag witha cynicism of your own.…and I should owe you my grudgefor every disfigurement and every…
A Last Look at the “Pre-Elevated Bikeway RIVER ROAD” (State Route 128)Construction on the $9 million Moab Hub & Elevated River Bikeway began last month.Here are some photographs we shot of those first two miles as work began. Note the…
In the late 80s and early 90s, I was taking a lot of pictures of Moab’s ‘survivors.’ the ones who decided to tough out the hard times and make a new life. Here is Part 5 of my collection of…
Yesterday I happened to be looking through the open back doorway of the cabin. A housefly’s flight came to an abrupt stop and there came the barn spider on its invisible line. Reaching the fly, the spider wrapped it…
Winters in the West 1940’s Reno, Nevada. The snowy Nevada desert. Mt Rose Summit Herb’s father tosses his hat at Mt Rose Summit. To read the PDF version of this article, click here. Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links…