I always loved wild, open country, from the time I was a kid. I spent much of my youth on a canoe or lost in some forest. It’s why I came West. In 1982, I heard about a new grassroots…
EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEINGS FROM BEYOND? For decades, I was convinced I’d found an alien landing site. More 20 years ago, I wrote this: ‘Alien visitations? The proof is here, on an isolated ridge in the northern part of Grand County.…
By the mid-1990s, Moab and Grand County citizens—especially voters—were worn out. So was I. Beginning in 1987, with Moab’s economy in tatters and its elected officials proposing a toxic waste incinerator at Cisco to boost property taxes, it was one…
The golden light of October cottonwoods in the canyons was as I remembered. The year was 2002, and I had returned to the Utah canyon country for a rendezvous with a crowd of friends. We had been rangers together during…
For more on Daniel Shellabarger (Suelo) today, almost 20 years after he penned this ‘Letter of the Month’ to The Zephyr, see the update at the end of his essay… From the May 1995 Zephyr This…is about prickly pear and…
Trying to sum up the past 25 years, you’d think the logical opening here would be, ‘I don’t know where to begin.’ The truth is, once you wade through this issue, you might ask yourself, ‘Does he know how to…
In the very first Zephyr, I wrote a long article about a road building proposal that would be debated for years. In late 1989, the lame duck Grand County Commissioners created a self-funded, autonomous special service road district, with the…
I’m not sure what else can be said about Edward Abbey after all these years. God knows I’ve said plenty and have often tried to speculate ‘What Cactus Ed would’ve done,” as we race through the second decade of the…
BEGINNINGS…1988-1996 Here’s how far we’ve come. Shortly after The Zephyr’s first issue appeared on newsstands, in mid-March 1989, I was at the old Main Street Broiler, eating one of Debbie Rappe’s wonderful cheeseburgers and overheard a spirited conversation at an…
This is the first issue of the Canyon Country Zephyr, a monthly publication of news, opinion, information, and entertainment for Grand County and southern Utah. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a “zephyr” is defined as “any warm, western breeze.” As it…