Under the sun without summer and in landscapes familiar to me, and still I wonder what the hell am I doing here. A couple of weeks ago, I went for a walk not far from the house I’m renting and…
Back to Fishing…by Damon Falke
Tag: solitude
The Open Road: SILENCE AND SOLITUDE… Words and Photos 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… I was going to write about “quiet.” It’s a subject close to…
THE (1995) GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN & My Act of Civil Disobedience at Arches National Park…by Jim Stiles
NOTE: While we put this issue together, the United States government was in partial shutdown mode. It lasted 35 days. Among the government agencies affected was the National Park Service and the many “units” in its system. Across the country…
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…
(From the Zephyr Archives) Losing Solitude: Outside Manners…by Martin Murie
One morning in a willow swamp I carried a camera close to a bull moose. I wanted a full-screen portrait. The moose, accustomed to trespassers, calmly went on browsing, his head low. Wanting him head-up. I made a sudden forward…
In a Winter Month…by Damon Falke
Lately I’ve been studying the barn and trees across the road from my house. I like watching trees move into winter, though this late in the year most of them are already there. No one uses the barn anymore. The…
THE EMERGENCY SOLITUDE KIT—ESTABLISH YOUR OWN EMPTY WILDERNESS IN 15 MINUTES…by Jim Stiles
There was a time in the not too distant past, when the vast tracts of public land in Southeast Utah seemed more than adequate to lose oneself in. If I wanted to climb out of the old truck and wander…
Take it or Leave it: ‘LIVE FROM ‘HADLEY RILLE’ and COMB WASH…by Jim Stiles
On a Saturday morning in late July, a skinny teenager who still examined his face closely each morning, praying for any sign of hair growth, left the Bright Angel Lodge at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim in his VW Squareback.…
The Zephyr Wilderness Plan, updated and revised…by Jim Stiles
Note: The original version of this story appeared in the June 1991 Zephyr. For decades, since the Wilderness Act was passed by Congress in 1964, citizens of this nation have waged war with each other over the need for wilderness…
Teddy Roosevelt and Carl Jung: Rendezvous Out in the Badlands…By Scott Thompson
“As far as technological culture is concerned, we lag miles behind America. But all that is frightfully costly and already carries the germ of the end in itself.” – Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung, 1909 On Valentine’s Day, 1884, when he…