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Show 8 The Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday, February 10 I8 Heii Tak Moal Solitaire Returns to Desert "Gods, goddesses, By Margot Hornblnwer symbols mammaries buttocks all over the place, he says, sweeping his hand across the park's hnnron of weird shapes Abbes likes to be outrageous, in offhand a slow talking phnllic Washington Post Writer For myself, I'll take Moab, I 'tab. I don't mean the town Itself, of course but the country uhlch , surround it s the ranyonlands. The slick-rocdesert. The red dust and burnt cliffs and the lone all that sky which lies beyond the end of the roads Edward Desert SoAbbey in litaire," I'M MOAB Some 20 years have passed sinre Edward Ahhev, now famous novelist, epent two seasons here as the lone park ranger at Arches National Monument Now he lives in Oracle, Ari7 writing atop a U S Forest Service fire tower Rut on a recent weekend, he stopped by Moab in his mud spattered pickup, a hand of beer tabs around his cowboy hat, looking for a poker game Word had spread k way That Taylor, publisher of the weekly Moah Times environmentalists and miners over whether color Utah's scenic should be de country eloMd He sjvoke of un c anny happenings in re a $250,000 cent years drilling rig driven over a cliff, bulldozers started up and left to run dead, construction signs stolen Industrial Sabotage "The method of operation was right out of The poetic, cantankerous smack arrived reof freaks who cently, fleeing the fast life Others are refugees from the East, sick of pollution and hierarchy, longing for the wide open spaces of the West Bruce Hucko, a the Slirkrock County Council, a local environmental group I need a place to get away from the litter," he said I have a keen eye for litter, I found it up in the Henry Mountains last week and it made me mad It's a See Page 22, Column t ARISTOCRAT PRECIOUS METAL ire- 500 w. 1300 so. s.l.c. UdiLVJiM.'frMjl Valentine Gifts For Friends & Lovers face Abbey's craggy breaks into a broad grin. "Good, he says. How flattering I admit I'd be delighted if somegody blew up the Glen Canyon Dam I'd do it myself if I had the materials " And what about sand in crankcases and a drilling rig pushed off a mountain Incidents that figure in his book? "I did a little field research," he confesses. Headlines The news in the is of the new species of dinosaur named Iguanodon ottin-geafter Lin Ottinger, the local tour guide who found its bones near 163 Some headHwy in 1975 Monkey Wrench Gang, a novel in which a character not unlike Edward Abbey helps blow up the giant Glen Canyon dam Today in Moah, Pete kindly Parry, n t the en d a n t of Arches, bends the rules of bureaucracy a little to sell a visitor a $6 showing the dam exploding to free the penned-u- p Colorado River. The drawn by an Arches ranger, is popular around here Abbey is wearing one, too. A visit with Abbey w'here else begins at .Arches The Park is named for its awesome sandstone formations improbable contortions that rise suddenly from the flat desert, suggest- Times-Independe- ri lines Black Widow Bites on the Increase," "Utahns Oppose Salt II, Fluoride and Federal Pine Regulations;" Nuts Hard to Find, AcLocal cording to BLM, Rotanan Reported on Trip " In this town of 10 000, some 201) miles from Salt Lake City , there are Mormons. cleancut and ativ e, descendants of the first settlers There are cattlemen graze stock over millions of acres of desert. During the uranium boom of the 1950s, miners, prospe- fortres- cathedrals, Element But in the last decade a new element has appeared the laid back youths who come to run the river in the summer and colled umemplny- New household (starling) Hucko, 26, helped form claims Theyd put sand in gear boxes Cut down highway signs. Over $200,000 damage was done to one construction campany Abbey had a lawyer look at the hook so it could not be used as evidence. Hearing this retold. book about his life as a ing k WE BUY FLATWARE Black equipment, grey-bearde- super! ross the par teacher on the Navajo Reservation, moved to southern Utah last year after taking a raft trip I'd spent 10 days on the river," he said 1 was talking to liards It was real slowsville It seemed right to stay " Wrench Monkey boomtown Abbey is here Someone had spied him stopped at a traffic light , someone else at the supermarket People were talking about it at Poplar Place, the beer joint for longhairs, and at Woody's, the beer joint for shorthairs (which Abbey prefers). Legend of Sorts For this twinkle-eye- d man is a a guru legend of sorts to free spirits who move here to mellow out. a dangerous crank to upstanding citizens. He put southern Utah on the map, first in 1968 with a Desert Solitaire, The For years tensions have built between abs tenuous Mormons and rough living miners, be tween government men and four wheelers who race in jeep safaris ac- ment in the winter; to waitress or work construe tion. or serve as seasonal rangers, but mainly to enjoy the area's 313 days of sunshine a year, to backpack through the mountains, to drink the freedom of the wilderness Some have escaped from California, like the Gang. Taylor said "That book has been responsible for a million dollars worth of industrial sabotage " Calvin Black, an outspoken county commissioner who lives south of Moab, is the model for Bishop Love, an unsympathetic character in the novel Abbey and his environmentalist friends "would sit and watch the construction crews and then go in and sabotage quickly through this dusty little uranium with (hatted Independent, over lunch about the de i ade long war between . ranger, and then Sam week and cattlemen ould do without He calls this town " Mojdb thp mo' you're here, the mo' they jab you miners ( ses. dinosaurs It is an American Stonehenge, red, brown, and, in the lavender. evening, leads the way, scrambling 200 feet up a pink sandstone cliff, his black boots carefully picking toeholds m the sheer wall At the top, an Abbey con-ser- v entrance through the rock leads to a huge inner chamber open to the sky. a secret cavern which harhors a cottonwood tree in a dry pond Wren's Song Crouching in the curve of the chamber wall. Abbey delivers a shrill rendition of the canyon wren's song. It echoes briefly. Abbey points out the squawberry, the wild buckwheat, the cliff rose and ctors geologists poured in Many stajed to nin their rigs, others to work in the Atlas Corp Uranium mill There are federal bureaucrats; Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Men like Management John Coleman, who prepared environmental imwhich pact statement WANTED PEOPLE TO TRAIN FOR EXCITING WORLD OF TRAVEL (SSjk CLASSES CUSSES BEGINNING . SOON BEGINNING SOON 3 ONLY 16 WEEKS CALL NOW 521-283- 0 Bryman Western International Travel Division Sail laka City. Utah 84111 445 South 300 East r DENTURE CLINIC OF UTAH Affordable 266-347- Dentures 470 . . . DENTURES BY 0 3900 So. DENTISTS IN OFFICE 'Where Quality Fits Comfortably 4ktiMi!hlii-- W ( CCMFO-DEN- T . . . FITTED BY LIC. . . . LABORATORY E. J j. & Fashion Place 262 5731 S hop nTOC Monday through Friday 1 0 till P, Saturday 1 0 till 6; K'S Sunday noon tiff 5 |