Category Archives: Glen Canyon

Bringing a long-lost artifact back to the Hopi

Katie Lee Posted on by

Iconic Western author Katie Lee journeys with a tribe’s spiritual talisman. Katie Lee Essay Sept. 5, 2015 It all began on a mild September day in 1968 when I stopped to visit my old friend Slim Williams, then living in his house trailer at Fry Canyon, Utah. He’d never owned a telephone in all the years I’d known him. I’d show up and we’d go hiking or jeeping, looking for old trails, hunting up mine roads, or just relaxing in the trailer. Slim was a man-of-all-trades who had come west from Missouri, probably in his twenties—a miner, assayer, boatman, hunter, … Continue reading →

Afterword from Glen Canyon Betrayed

Katie Lee Posted on by

Forty Years Later “…we must preserve it—not for the beauty, biology or God and country, but so we can always know the place we dream of being, the place we cannot belong. The place for our yearning.”                  Chuck Bowden, author Inferno How many times in forty years have I heard these words, “Wouldn’t you rather have Glen Canyon safe under water where nobody could get to it?” and thought… Maybe so. Only one of a ton of them would appreciate the fluted canyons, amphitheatres, temples, cathedrasl, cataracts, potholes, ruins and granaries; much less, where they were, or treasure the magic … Continue reading →

Hidden Passage Sunk

Katie Lee Posted on by

How long does it take to launch a sixteen foot fibreglass boat with a thirty-five horse motor–twenty minutes maybe?   And when launching it over a grave?  No longer. I pull up to the dock where three fishermen are gassing up, themselves already gassed to the eyeballs. Thank god my old friend Bill, from the river days, thought new to this “marina business”, is here to assist however he can.  As we launch and load the gear for my first death-watch trip on what Russell Martin calls The Foul Little Fjord, one of the anglers steps into the middle of our … Continue reading →

News – Water in the West – Part 9: Why We Love Water

Katie Lee Posted on by

The audio clip above is from a multi-part series created by KDNK Community Radio and Aspen Public Radio. Both organizations have teamed up to bring listeners this in-depth series looking at the threats to the region’s water. Reporters from the two stations examined how population growth, climate change, the loss of agricultural land, developments and the energy industry all put strains on Colorado’s limited resource. The demands on water that impact states like Arizona and California are moving upstream and are just decades away in Colorado. Steve Skinner created this river montage. The entire series may be found by clicking … Continue reading →

GLEN CANYON – THE PLACE WE KNEW –

Katie Lee Posted on by

“Lucky you,” is what the young’uns say to us old farts who knew Glen Canyon before it was sloshed off the maps under Powell Reservoir. After which act of vandalism we were not lucky at all—except for what it gave us to remember for the rest of our lives. That exception is what keeps us on track to help you see and feel some of the same magic we knew. The Colorado River there, locked in the embrace of over one hundred side canyons, drew a cluster of people who sought the beautiful, peaceful, untamed and lonely. Of those it … Continue reading →