Spring 2010

Cataract Canyon- Blissful Days on the Colorado

Cataract Canyon- Blissful Days on the Colorado

Cataract Canyon was one of the last places the white man explored in America. No small wonder, as it truly is in the middle of nowhere. Nowadays, you can four- wheel into the Doll House, about twelve hundred feet above the river and just upstream from the beginning of the river canyon. This usually takes […]

Solo Down the Middle Fork of the Salmon

Solo Down the Middle Fork of the Salmon

In 2009 I won the lottery. The ticket cost $6 and I won the right to pay $700 for a 5 day camping trip. The lottery was held by the Forest Service, and winners got a permit to float the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The Middle Fork winds for about 100 miles through […]

Canoeing the Little Grand Canyon

Canoeing the Little Grand Canyon

I hate water. More accurately, I hate to get wet. This is why I don’t know what I was thinking when the idea came up to canoe down the San Rafael River through Utah’s Little Grand Canyon. In general, I pursue water sports with about as much effort as I lick asphalt. Rafting in particular […]

Dr. Geoffrey Tabin- Giving Eyesight to the Blind

Dr. Geoffrey Tabin- Giving Eyesight to the Blind

“What do you think is the most fun we can have?” The words of Dr. Geoffrey Tabin as I sit waiting to begin my interview. He is conversing with one of his good friends about the possibility of skiing ten resorts in one day. “We’ll see what the avalanche danger is, but I think we […]

Paddling Utah's Small Streams

Paddling Utah’s Small Streams

Scott Peters, my friend and college roommate, held on to the wall with white fingertips straining against the slippery wet sandstone. My paddle was jammed under a boulder in the frothy foam just at the edge of the precipice, and we both looked over the edge into the dim chasm, misty with the spray of […]

Everett Ruess: An Open, Shut (and Open Again) Case

Everett Ruess: An Open, Shut (and Open Again) Case

Photos- Special Collections Department, J. Willard Marriott Library University of Utah No one knew for sure who the skeleton was or how long it had been there. The dirt-encrusted bones seemed to have been hastily buried in the rock crevice along Comb Ridge, a gnarled 120-mile-long uprise of ancient rock near the Utah/Arizona border. Colorful […]