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Show APRIL 1996 INTO AN RIDING UNCERTAIN FUTURE By Christopher Smart here was a time not too long ago when you couldn't get cappuccino in Moab. It was a_hard-bitten town filled with miners and uranium prospectors and nononsense kinds of people, like Ed Abbey, back then. They bellied up to the bar on long, hot evenings and sat shoulder-to-shoulder at spots like Poplar Place and swapped stories of secret mining claims and romance, along with tales of back-stabbing and _ doublecrossing and information on someone who hadn’t been seen for a while and probably got drygulched by his partner who had just left town with the other guy’s wife. It was Abbey’s town then. He adopted it and wrote about it and the surrounding red rock country like no one ever had. And so, people assumed it was his, not knowing the history of the place. Not knowing of people like Charlie Steen, who struck it rich on uranium in the late ‘50s, built his dream house called “Mi Vida” on the hilltop overlooking town, and then took all his friends to Europe for a big party, before he went broke. Not everyone in Moab struck it rich, like Steen. For the most part, Moab has always been made up of hard-working people who manage to eke out a living in this small desert town, despite Still, Steen’s the odds life might against them. be cast as a metaphor for Moab: way up sometimes, way down others. Now is an up time in Moab - the unofficial mountain biking capital of the world. During spring break, you might think everyone in these parts — hordes of them — wears bright-col- ored spandex shorts and has nothing better to do than ride bicycles or play hacky-sack barefoot in the grocery store parking lot. And why not? On a day in April or May, Moab and the surrounding red rock desert of the Colorado Plateau is the most beautiful place on earth. Framed by the blue-blue sky, with the snow-capped La Salle Mountains as a backdrop, the red sandstone seems to come alive, the fresh smell of the desert simply intoxicating. Like the eons of time and the rain and wind that have melted the red Canyonlands National Park and running the Colorado River in big rafts. Mountain biking still hadn’t been invented, let alone discovered in Moab. Today, Groff's Rim Cyclery is successful beyond his dreams and is more an all-around sporting goods store with equipment for climbing and camping, as well as everything for biking. And, yes, there is an espresso Those first few years in the early ‘80s, mountain biking grew very slowly, Groff recalls. But then something remarkable happened. Rim had placed ads in several national bicycling magazines and the top mountain bike riders of the day and pened Moab. phenomenon rock, “We had all lost company,” our jobs at the Groff remembers. “But I didn’t want to leave Moab. Somehow, I talked my brother and father into opening up a bicycle shop.” t was a gamble, because bike = shops were not found in rural , America. “People laughed,” Groff _ recalls, knowing the \ always insignificant against the giant, timeless landscape. Who to be anywhere uncertain in for example. Monument says of the fire that riding on in 1985,” Groff consumed rebuild. It amazed me how well- known we had become.” Moab began appearing in all kinds of national publications with colorful on the market. photos of mountain bikers “My brother had the insight to gliding stuff of story books. It allows him to prosper in the place he loves and the town he just couldn't leave. “It’s my life, it’s what we live and survive on.” Continued on page 11 iles of and mountains of DENTISTRY Dr. Ronald T. Cohn 801-649-4343 1600 Snow Creek Suite Park Gy Drive A Utah 84060 801-649-4343 10 his fire. They had never been here but said they would come out and help us smiles and was slick fledgling business. “But I had people call us from Chicago the day after the PARK ct In PAGE bike For Bill Groff and his family, mountain biking and tourism is the appeared recounts with a chuckle. foothold in Moab, with visitors seeking National is The convince us to buy mountain bikes to sell at the shop. He said these are the wave of the future. I said, nah,” Groff 1983, Bill, his brother and his father all lost mining-related jobs within six months of each other, as companies like Atlas Minerals began to downsize dramatically or shut down completely. For all practical purposes, mining ceased to exist as an economy for Moab. But tourism already had a good Arches of bikes could possibly choose else? Bill Groff, future Moab. hap- word across red slick rock. Miners Discover Mountain Biking Tourism in general, mountain biking specifically, have brought back to Moab a boom that hasn’t been seen since Steen. and his contemporaries struck uranium. But tourism is a twoedged sword in Moab, bestowing riches on some and passing by others who, nevertheless, must cope with expensive impacts. Take Soon, following year, the first mountain me sandstone into arches and spires and canyons, here people’s worried concerns erode into little nothings, their sponsors “We burnt down stand out front. mining into spreading across the country about the care |
