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The most remote part of any of Utah’s five national parks rewards the intrepid few who brave its wild and beautiful backcountry. Story and photographs by Noah David Wetzel
Inspired by a Greek ancestor, a Salt Lake couple builds a limestone home with architecture that puts a modern twist on the Parthenon.
This photo essay shows why the state’s moose make a big impression on Utahns who encounter the powerful creatures in the wild. By Rachel
Fixsen
The residents are long gone, but what they left behind at the sites of their failed communities tells a story of how they lived in days gone by.
From outdoorsy to indoorsy
WHEN A STATE has as much natural beauty as Utah does, it’s little wonder that people here tend to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Most Utahns live just minutes from scenic hiking trails and other outdoorsy activities, and many regularly take advantage of those opportunities.
Still, those familiar, easily reached local hikes sometimes aren’t enough to satisfy our hunger for the outdoors – sometimes we just want to go somewhere truly remote to get as far outdoors as we can get. Fortunately, Utah has plenty of options for those occasions, one of the foremost being the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, a convoluted tangle of canyons that lives up to its labyrinthine name.
The Maze District is the most remote part of the park, with its farthest sections lying more than eight hours’ drive from the nearest town, Green River – and much of that drive is at a snail’s pace on treacherous roads requiring high-clearance, fourwheel-drive vehicles. The district is so remote and hard to reach that out of the 780,000 people who visited Canyonlands last year, less than 10,000 made it to the Maze.
In this issue, we bring you writer and photographer Noah Wetzel’s story about his adventures exploring the Maze District. As his stunning photographs show, the district’s beauty makes the difficult journey to get there seem worthwhile.
But as much as Utahns love the outdoors, it remains a simple fact that most of us spend the vast majority of our time indoors. Such is modern civilization. While we all know how that spending time in the natural environment is a good thing, that doesn’t necessarily mean that spending time in the build environment is a bad thing. In fact, a beautiful building can be almost as inspiring as a beautiful landscape.
Utah’s best-known works of great architecture are mostly public buildings, whether it’s the soaring towers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Salt Lake Temple, the imposing grandeur of the State Capitol Building, or even the Art Deco ornamentations of Ogden High School. Less heralded but no less worthy of admiration are many private homes in the state, which often express the unique character of the people who built them.
In this issue, we also tell the story of the beautiful and unique Salt Lake City home of George and Cynthia Petrow. Cynthia’s grandfather was an immigrant from Greece who came west intending to go to California, but he never made it that far. On his trip there, he stopped in Utah and ended up staying here, partly because the rocks here reminded him of his homeland.
When the Petrows decided to build a new home in Salt Lake City, they drew inspiration from Cynthia’s Greek roots. Though the style is modern, it has elements evoking classical Greek architecture, including using limestone reminiscent of the Parthenon, and the location of the home on a mountainside overlooking the city recalls the Parthenon’s location high on the Acropolis, which overlooks Athens.
Whether you’re feeling outdoorsy or indoorsy, there’s always something fascinating to discover in Utah – and in Utah Life
MATT MASICH Editor editor@utahlifemag.com
July/August 2023
Volume 6, Number 4
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Down highways and byways
We are blessed to live so close to Snow Canyon in Ivins, waking up every morning and overlooking red rocks at sunrise and sunset. We subscribe to Utah Life, and we do not miss reading a single issue. We just finished one and are awaiting the next. The May/June 2023 issue gave us good information regarding Scenic Byway 12 (“12 Sights to See Along Scenic Byway 12”). We traveled through Bryce Canyon, Kodachrome Basin Park, stayed in Escalante, then Boulder and Anasazi State Park.
We love articles about Native Americans, and we will make few more trips to explore ruins, petroglyphs and learn more about history in Utah.
Denise and Dusan Sabol Ivins
Heartbreaking beauty abounds
I was especially interested in the article on Scenic Byway 12 in the May/June 2023 issue. After I convinced my wife that Utah was more than “just sand and rocks,” we traveled that road several times heading to various sites along the way. And Utah State Route 24 from Torrey through Hanksville to I-70 just extends the scenic vistas. As someone said, “these are places with scenery that is as close as you can get to heaven without a oneway ticket.”
The variety of interesting sites include petroglyphs and pictographs of the “ancient ones,” and historic sites such as old schoolhouses, churches and other interesting things from the past 150 years or so. Torrey is ideally located to stay in if you want to sleep indoors. We stayed in a cabin at Torrey in late April one year and awoke to snow on the ground. Two of our
sons have mountain biked several times in this area and camped in wilderness areas as well as established campgrounds.
Edward Abbey said, “There is beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.” That perfectly describes scenic byways 12 and 24.
Richard Conard Windsor, Colorado
Arch provides best moments
After visiting Arches National Park several times over 15 years, I decided to one day hike from the parking lot of Delicate Arch to the base of it, a gain of 800 feet, equal to climbing the stairs of the Empire State Building. But fighting cancer for 12 years gave me very low energy. When I arrived at the parking lot, I wanted to give up. I didn’t. It takes most people 45 minutes to climb. It took me almost three hours. I had to stop often, several times after just four or five steps.
Reaching Delicate Arch was the best moment of my life. I think about that feeling every day. I’ve vacationed in Utah every year for more than 20 years and can never get enough. Utah is the greatest show on earth!
Kelly Shaw Boynton Beach, Florida
Very special delivery
I always greet the arrival of a new Utah Life issue with a “Utah Life is here!” It’s one of the few magazines I don’t toss out after reading. I keep it around for future reference.
We went with some friends and had a great time on our little adventure to a place you featured. We also play “who’s the smartest?“ and “did you know?” trivia games using the questions you publish. Thanks Utah Life. Julie Kemp West Jordan
Of sand and slot canyons
I thoroughly enjoyed the May/June 2023 issue of Utah Life. The “Slot Canyons” and “12 Sights to See Along Scenic Byway 12” articles were nearly contemporaneous with some of my recent trips to southern Utah.
In April, I hiked the 7 miles roundtrip in deep sand to Peekaboo Slot Canyon in the Kanab area. Peekaboo isn’t a technical slot canyon (and I’m no canyoneer), but somehow hiking the route made spending time in the dim light of the twisted slot canyon a much more rewarding experience. If you aren’t up for hiking to Peekaboo, I suggest hiring a local tour company to drive you out there, since that deep sand is no joke.
Richard Conrad
And speaking of drives, the drive along Highway 12 is a route that any lover of road trips simply must take. In fact, I’m just back from a trip to the Capitol Reef National Park area at the end of June, when I took an impromptu day trip along Highway 12. Based on the recommendation of a local Forest Service employee, I detoured off Highway 12 to drive the Hells Backbone route from Boulder to Escalante around the edge of the Box-Death Hollow Wilderness Area.
I was able to finally stop in at Kiva Coffeehouse on the way back to camp. Each time I visit southern Utah, I appreciate more and more the local communities and people, the vast natural beauty and the opportunities for endless exploration that exist there. Keep up the great work with Utah Life.
Greg Fugate Denver, Colorado
Penny candy at Judd’s Store
I love Utah Life, but a very special article for me was in the May/June 2023 issue about Judd’s Store in St. George. Things have certainly changed for both the store and for me in my 98 years. When I was very young (and long before that), my father bought supplies at Judd’s for his sheep business on the Arizona Strip. Then many, many years later, as I was writing my father-in-law’s life history, he talked about the times when he delivered groceries for Mr. Judd after school, using a small, onehorse cart. His pay was 5 cents an hour.
I remember the joy of picking out and eating two or three pieces of penny candy – the gumdrop type and the little watermelon slices almost too cute to eat!
Luen Atkin Woodbury Flammer West Jordan
SEND YOUR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thank you for reading and writing! We enjoy hearing from our subscribers around Utah and the world and hope this issue of the magazine inspires you to grace us with your words.
Drop us a line today with your letter for the next issue of Utah Life. One lucky letter writer will be selected at random to win a free subscription renewal. This issue’s winner is Greg Fugate of Denver, Colorado. Congrats!
Send your “Letter to the Editor” to editor@utahlifemag.com or penning us a letter and mailing via post to the address at the front of this magazine.
THE BUZZ AROUND UTAH
Gourmet restaurant thrives in one of nation’s most remote locales
by TOM HESS
Standing in front of the Welcome to Boulder Town sign along the two-lane Utah Scenic Byway 12 in Garfield County, the great emptiness of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument surrounds you. There’s no obvious sign of an internationally renowned restaurant. Given the evidence of one’s eyes, the idea of a cutting-edge restaurant here seems like a stretch, if not a bit crazy.
Scenic Byway 12 is an All-American Road that runs in a semi-circle from Panguitch in the west to Torrey in the northeast. The road takes you through meadowlands at the foot of Boulder Mountain, which rises about Boulder Town. It is here that two women who met each other as cooks on the Colorado River as part of the Grand Canyon River community decided
to start a farm-to-table restaurant in 2000. Their restaurant, Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm, is in its 24th season, serving five nights a week. The menu is powered by their own 6-acre farm and local suppliers.
“We love feeding people and making them happy,” said co-founder Blake Spalding. She and her partner, Jennifer Castle, press on through every challenge hoping to reward the hungry crowds who’ve traveled so far with delicious combinations of what they call fanciful Four Corners food. The Grill is located on the grounds of the Boulder Mountain Lodge, adjacent to their bird sanctuary.
Visitors travel Scenic Byway 12 from all over the world. Guests arrive regularly from as far away as Italy and Israel. The Grill has been a semi-finalist for the James Beard Awards’ Outstanding Restaurants in the Nation category in 2022 and 2023.
One favorite is Spicy Cowgal Chipotle Meatloaf, made with local grass-fed beef, backbone sauce, lemony mashed potatoes, and an array of vegetables from the farm. Also on the menu: bison tenderloin and goat cheese fondue. Look for daily and seasonal changes to the menu.
Joining Spalding and Castle on the Hell’s Backbone culinary team is Utah native and renowned chef Tamara Stanger. She grew up foraging for food and preparing it near the ghost town of Mammoth. Now she’ll harvest from the Grill’s farm, forage around Boulder and prepare meals as executive chef alongside the founders. Reservations are strongly recommended. Go to hellsbackbonegrill.com. Also available online in the retail store are Spalding and Castle’s books, including This Immeasurable Place: Food and Farming from the Edge of the Wilderness.
Blake Spalding, left, and Jen Castle, middle, co-founded Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm in the mountains near Boulder; Executive Chef Tamara Stanger, right, loves foraging for wild ingredients. The Jenchiladas are a favorite dish.
Below photos Ace Kvale
Bryce Canyon National Park hits the century mark
by MATT MASICH
Bryce Canyon National Park is celebrating 100 years of federally protected status, which began on June 8, 1923, when President Warren G. Harding decalared it a national monument. This year also marks 100 years of “Bryce Moments,” the term describing the powerful instant when visitors lay eyes on the park’s wonders for the first time.
Those Bryce Moments happen suddenly – the slope of the plateau at Bryce Canyon prevents visitors approaching the Sunset Point overlook from actually seeing the canyon until the last possible moment. Only when they are practically at the rim does the full spectacle explode into view: an otherworldly expanse of tall, slender pinnacles known as hoodoos, some of which tower as much as 150 feet high, carved into fantastically hued red, orange and white sedimentary rock.
First-time visitors’ reactions vary sig-
nificantly: Some burst into tears, some laugh in incredulous wonder, and some are simply too awestruck for words. Witnessing people get overcome by their emotions during Bryce Moments is almost as powerful an experience as gazing at the canyon itself, Bryce Canyon National Park Spokesman Peter Densmore said.
“It is such a profound experience for many of our visitors,” Densmore said. “In this age of social media, more visitors have seen photos of Bryce before they see it in person, but it doesn’t seem to dimmish the power of that Bryce Moment at all.”
Bryce Canyon is actually not a canyon at all but a series of 12 amphitheaters, the geological description for bowl-shaped areas eroded by rain and melting snow – true canyons are eroded by rivers. The park’s distinctive rock features began to form between 35 to 55 million years ago.
The Paiute people who inhabited the region prior to white settlement believed the hoodoos were people that a trickster
The vivid red hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park first came to widespread attention when the area became a national monument exactly 100 years ago.
god had turned to stone. The Paiutes called the area “Anka-ku-was-a-wits,” which means “red painted faces.” Its modern name comes from Latter-day Saint pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, who settled near the main amphitheater in 1875.
Bryce Canyon remained little known or visited until 1916, when J.W. Humphrey first visited. Humphrey, a U.S. Forest Service ranger who had recently been stationed relatively nearby in Panguitch, was so amazed by what he saw that he made it his mission to publicize Bryce Canyon in hopes of earning it national park status. Bryce Canyon would earn that designation in 1928, just five years after becoming a national monument.
Just 20,000 people visited Bryce Canyon in 1929, its first full year as a national park. Today, the park averages more than 2 million visitors annually. Those who visit this year can take part in a host of special events commemorating the park’s centennial year.
The Utah Symphony and Utah Opera performed along the canyon rim at Ruby’s Inn on Aug. 10. On Aug. 24-28, the park hosts an All Employee Reunion for both former National Park Service and concession employees. The Plein Air Paint Out happens Sept. 18, when people can take workshops to learn to paint Bryce Canyon art, or simply watch professionals painting it outdoors.
The Bryce Canyon Heritage Days Festival, Sept. 28-30, celebrates Indigenous and pioneer history. An annular eclipse will draw as many as 10,000 people on Oct. 14, while a slew birdwatchers will come for the Christmas Bird Count on Dec. 16. Centennial events are open to the public; some require advance registration through the park or a partner organization. Visit brycecanyon.org for more information.
Joshua Hardin
The 55-by-20-foot Greater Zion mural, located in the alley behind St. George’s Main Street, took local muralist Susan Grove three months to complete. Grove is responsible for numerous murals in and around town, from museum backdrops to private homes.
Falls and phantoms won’t stop this St. George muralist
by JESSI BANG
St. George artist Susan Grove’s specialty isn’t painting pictures to hang on the wall – she paints pictures directly onto the wall itself. An accomplished muralist, Grove has painted walls in public spaces and private homes all across St. George.
Groves’ work can be found on each floor and nearly every room of the St. George Children’s Museum. At the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm, she pained a mural 150 feet wide by 20 feet tall, making visitors feel immersed in a landscape where dinosaurs reign supreme.
Painting works on such a large scale brings with it some occupational hazards. With 25 years of mural experience under her belt, Grove knows that tall projects
mean tall ladders – and occasional falls. Despite her scars, she’s not afraid. The prospect of falling frightens others more than it does her.
“It freaks people out to see me in some of these circumstances I find myself painting in,” Grove said. “Thirty feet in the air and all this craziness.”
The dinosaur mural might have been her most dangerous project. While working on it, Grove reached to apply a brushstroke, lost her balance and fell 15 feet when the ladder slid out from under her. She broke her elbow.
While painting another mural in a master bathroom of a private home, she fell and hit her head on a marble counter, requiring 14 stitches. Still, Grove remains undeterred.
“For some reason, those experiences
have never made me nervous or scared of heights,” she said.
On some projects, Grove sees or senses ghosts – and not because she fell on her head.
While painting murals at the St. George Childrens Museum, first erected as a college in the 1800s by Brigham Young, Grove says she heard a ghost playing music in an otherwise empty music room.
“All you do is run your hand through the air, and it senses the motion and plays the notes of where your hand is at,” Grove said.
But Grove endures through all the spills and chills it takes to create her murals –she simply loves watching people fall in love with the finished product.
For more information on Susan Grove, visit susangrove.com.
Joshua Hardin
Dinah the Dinosaur
Standing on her hind legs, with her long neck lifting her head more than 40 feet high, Dinah the Dinosaur welcomes visitors to downtown Vernal with a sign reading: “Vernal – Utah’s Dinosaur Land.” Made of fiberglass, with long eyelashes and Pepto Bismol-pink skin, Dinah has been a beloved fixture of Vernal since 1958.
Dinah originally held the sign of Dine-A-Ville Motel, whose owner, George Millecam, conceived of the pink brontosaurus as a way to draw tourists visiting nearby Dinosaur National Park. His wife, Helen, designed Dinah. The Millecams eventually sold the motel. When the buildings were demolished in 1999, Dinah was donated to the city and moved to her current location on East Main Street.
On West Main Street is another dinosaur that once lived at the motel, a green Tyrannosaurus rex that the city decorates for holidays: a Santa hat at Christmas, bunny ears at Easter, etc. While the bygone motel also had a Triceratops, Stegosaurs and Ankylosaurus, those creatures now reside in Dinosaur, Colorado.
After spending her first four decades holding a motel’s sign, Dinah the Dinosaur has enjoyed success in her second career welcoming visitors to Vernal.
Joshua Hardin
History desert in The Dig
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PIONEERS
Test your knowledge of the Days of ’47.
by LUCAS McFARLANE
Located 52 miles west of Delta Visit our website for more details.
DESERT BISTRO
After a long day of exploring Moab, we invite you to enjoy a relaxing and flavorful meal with us. Offering nightly game specials and fresh fish options. Let us enchant you with an exquisitelyprepared meal to keep you coming back every season for years to come.
1 On the same day in 1846 that Brigham Young began a land-based exodus to Utah, a charter full of Latter-day Saints departed New York aboard what ship with a Big Apple-themed name?
2
While trekking across Iowa in 1846, William Clayton wrote the lyrics to what song that would become the anthem of the pioneers, with an opening verse encouraging weary travelers to “with joy wend your way/Though hard to you this journey may appear”?
3
After stopping for the winter, the pioneers’ vanguard company resumed their trek toward Utah on April 5, 1847, along the course of what river, following it and its north branch for more than half of their 111-day journey?
4 The first group of Mormon Trail pioneers to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley included 143 men and three women: Harriet Wheeler Young, Clara Decker Young and the wife of one of the Twelve Apostles. What was her name?
5
Brigham Young’s arrival at the future site of Salt Lake City was followed five days later by a detachment of the U.S. Army’s Mormon Battalion that, due to illness, had split off from their comrades, who went on to capture the city of Tucson, Arizona, during what war?
Alamy
Utah Crossroads Chapter
MULTIPLE CHOICE
6
The Mormon Trail reached its western terminus in Salt Lake City after spanning 1,300 miles from its starting point in what city?
a. Elmira, Missouri
b. Chicago, Illinois
c. Nauvoo, Illinois
7 The Mormon Trail crossed parts of five present-day states. Which of the following is not one of those states?
a. Nebraska
b. Wyoming
c. Colorado
8 Two days after arriving in Salt Lake City, many of the pioneer leaders climbed the peak just north of the city and placed an American flag at the summit of the mountain, which they named after what “flag” synonym?
a. Standard
b. Ensign
c. Banner
9 While many Mormon Trail pioneers of the 1850s used handcarts to get their possessions to Utah, the pioneers of 1847 transported themselves and their belongings in covered wagons pulled by what animals?
a. Oxen
b. Horses
c. Goats
10 Pioneer Pete is the mascot for which Utah high school founded by pioneers in 1850?
a. Bingham High School
b. Lehi High School
c. Stansbury High School
No peeking, answers on page 50.
TRUE OR FALSE
11 The organized wagon train of Latter-day Saint pioneers ended with the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869.
12
Before reaching Utah with the vanguard company, the Kimball family removed their cherished piano from their wagon and buried it just east of the Rocky Mountains to reduce the vehicle’s weight, returning to retrieve the piano the following spring.
13
Pioneer Day, celebrated July 24, marks the day that Utah achieved statehood.
14 When the pioneers first settled in Utah, Salt Lake City was made a buffer zone for the ongoing conflict between Shoshone and Ute tribes.
15 Along with seeds and tools to help establish their new home in the Beehive State, the pioneers brought actual beehives with them on their trek.
Robert Harding / Alamy
TRIVIA
Off road and out of this world
Story and photographs by NOAH DAVID WETZEL
Willie Nelson scrambles through High Spur Canyon near the Maze District.
YING IN A small pool of rainwater, and potentially my own tears, the thought of locating my headlamp and sleeping pad was overwhelming. Exhausted from exploring the desert that day, I deliriously rifled through mounds of gear in the tightly packed vehicles.
I was in the heart of Canyonlands National Park, home to a network of canyons that tempted my friends and me into loading up our trucks and heading out into the desert for some adventurous off-roading. Now, one night into the trip, I was fatigued and more tired than I had ever been before, and we were paying for our obliviousness to the challenging terrain of the Maze District.
With towering sandstone pinnacles and sprinkled sagebrush that make one canyon indistinguishable from the next, the Maze District is the most remote part of any national park in the Lower 48. Only 2,000 visitors each year explore this secluded area while backpacking, canyoneering and biking.
Planning our trip, my friends and I had to acquire a permit three months in advance. Daily travel in the Maze would be slow and tedious. The roads – if you can even call them that – are rocky and winding, and they demand high clearance four-wheel-drive vehicles. Every bend in the road is a puzzle to solve, and experts recommend having a friend outside the vehicle to guide you around particularly tricky areas.
We lost cell reception after five hours’ travel from Salt Lake City and said goodbye to the ease of pavement by the time we reached the Hans Flat Ranger Station.
Welcoming us, the park ranger sternly called on our trip leader to bring her the overnight permit. “Me, I guess,” my friend Jake responded with a murmured chuckle.
Chris Volkmann drives his truck at a crawl on the rocky road through the Maze District. Willie Nelson sets up his tent at the Maze Overlook campsite.
In celebration of Utah Life’s 5-year anniversary we are republishing stories from our first year. This story originally appeared in the inaugural March/April 2018 issue.
The seven of us were confident about our off-roading trip until the park ranger started her spiel. This must be important, we thought to ourselves while gathering in front of the counter.
Make sure you have an emergency medical kit, she said. Drink no less than one gallon of water per person per day, and pack at least 10 extra gallons of fuel per vehicle with a spare tire and jack. Remember that vehicle towing has fees often exceeding $2,000, and only one tow company services this remote outback. My friends and I looked at each other nervously, suddenly feeling less enthusiastic about the trip ahead.
“Who does the 2006 Toyota Tundra belong to?” she asked.
“Mine,” Chris replied with pursed lips and a moment’s pause, undoubtedly questioning what his friends had gotten him into. The extended wheel base will be challenging but manageable, she reassured us. “Just ooze, slowly ooze, over the rocks,” she said, “and you should be fine.”
We had no idea how much oozing was ahead of us.
WE LOADED the trucks and got the group moving. The initial descent into the Maze, known as the Flint Trail, was carved into a sheer cliff, a place where you wouldn’t want to find your tires greased in clay. In any case, we couldn’t just turn around. Once we passed a certain point on the trail, we were committed.
Winding through corridors of juniper, painted with blooming wildflowers and cactuses, we thought about the ranger’s precautionary advice while reassuring Chris his vehicle would be fine.
“The next few miles will be challenging, and you will definitely scrape,” said another park ranger who was patrolling the area in a Jeep built for the terrain. Her casual facial expression should have inspired confidence as she continued in the opposite direction without further warning.
MAC CONOLLY rappels 83 feet down High Spur Canyon.
Ian Mason stares into the canyon’s illuminated interior. Facing Page: The view from the Standing Rock campsite shows the Maze District in its labyrinthine glory.
We made it through the infamous “Z-turn” with few issues other than a bent exhaust pipe and a few scraping screams from the undercarriage of the Tundra. Approaching the next problematic feature only a few hundred feet later, we carefully positioned rocks and rehearsed tire placements for nearly 20 minutes before our first attempt.
Twirling his hair in the unnerving boredom, Willie reminded Chris to “ooze” at every opportunity while he gently eased over the first ledge and onto our first ramp. Despite the contradicting guidance from two or three friends outside the vehicle, the first move had been executed perfectly; however, as the Tundra began to crawl up the second ledge, its frame slowly twisted and the front tires lost traction.
Walking around the vehicle in silence and utter dismay, we realized both ends of the Tundra were suspended between ledges.
The only thing that will get us out of this situation is a helicopter, I thought. We exchanged theories for dislodging the truck and eventually decided to build earth around the tires to gain traction, but the area around us was picked clean. Every nugget had been used build the ramp that got us into this pickle.
We quickly formed a seven-man fire line and extended our search perimeter, avoiding cactuses. Things weren’t looking good for us. If only we had a tow strap!
To our surprise, we discovered one member of our crew was withholding vital information. Jake soon wandered to his Jeep and came back with a strap. He connected it to the frame of the Tundra and pulled us out.
I’m still not sure if he had just forgotten about the strap or if he was enjoying watching us suffer in some sadistic pleasure.
Hours quickly vanished as Willie – resembling a tank commander with his body positioned in the sunroof – guided our safe passage over the unforgiving terrain.
After that misadventure, we were starting to get the hang of the Maze District, and we were finally able to appreciate the incredible beauty of the area. Underneath crisp blue skies, we traversed exposed canyon walls. We descended terraces of slick rock, shelves carved by small pools of water and cracks with weathered trees growing from them. We even saw cliffsides adorned with pictographs and petroglyphs.
As we navigated the meandering desert wash, we challenged ourselves once again by leaving our vehicles behind and squeezing our bodies through High Spur Canyon. Claustrophobic at times, the textured walls revealed slot canyons of spiraling sandstone.
Bridging our way above cloudy pools of cold water, we anxiously questioned when we would encounter a long rappel. Beams of warming light guided us through glowing corridors before reaching a spacious opening with massive boulders. As Jake, Ian and Mac double-checked the pre-existing anchors, the remaining members and I equipped ourselves with ski helmets then peered over the 80-foot drop in silence and reverence.
My thoughts couldn’t help but reference an awkward rappel down a tiny 10-foot wall earlier in the day, when I found myself upside down (due to the weight of my camera equipment) amidst the laughter of my friends. What if this happened way up here?
Leaning over the edge, Ian confidently reassured me as I inched my way down – upright, I may add – my comfort growing every foot closer to the ground. With encouragement from above and below, everyone successfully descended, regrouping with enthusiasm – thank goodness that was over.
IT WAS A RELAXED atmosphere around camp that night as we gazed at the La Sal Mountains. Surrounded by endless solitude on a high plateau, we stood underneath a singular spire of towering rock and felt as if the desert were ours.
The past week was magical, our friendship had strengthened, and in celebration Ian treated us to champagne at sunset. Lying shoulder to shoulder, we conserved heat and gazed at dozens of shooting stars, serenaded with relaxed sighs and the Milky Way.
We had barely shut our eyes before the first rays of morning light struck our tents, turning them into sweltering ovens. It was time to go home.
Rationing gas, and our gauges below empty, we all crested the Flint Trail as it began to snow. We had left just in time, since water and clay make for some pretty fierce driving conditions.
With more than 40 hours spent in the vehicles and no remaining music, I volunteered to drive for the first time. The wind outside the vehicle lulled Willie and Chris to sleep, the silence provoking my thoughts of a hot shower – and of returning to explore the desert once again with my friends.
AUTHOR Noah Wetzel is a professional photographer who winters in Sandy. He’s often found kneedeep in Utah’s famous powder, photographing skiers and boarders.
4x4
Exploring Utah’s desert land by 4x4 is mighty fun, but full of mighty risks … a long way from civilization. Here are a few tips from the pros to the greenhorns.
H-E-L-P: There are no strangers on a 4x4 trail. If you see someone in need, stop, give them a hand and stay with them until they’re safe. If you need to leave them, get name, license plate, vehicle make and model, and relay to authorities.
WHEN 4 x4, GO 2 x 2: You never know when you’ll get stuck, stranded or otherwise up a creek. Take a buddy in a second vehicle to bail each other out, and share the fun along the way. Grouping up is a safe way to stay out of trouble.
DON’T SKIMP ON SUPPLIES: Extra gas, oil, coolant, tow straps, shovel, jack, tools, emergency medical kit, clothing, CB or ham radio, food and water, water, water are essential.
KNOW YOUR RIDE: Does it have lockers, PTO, posi-traction or proportioning valve braking? The point is, understand what your vehicle can and cannot do.
Boulder Floral
Souther n Utah weddings and special e vents
THE ACROPOLIS
Inspired by the world wonder above Athens, a family of Greek ancestry created a modern limestone home overlooking the Salt Lake Valley.
by TOM HESS
George and Cynthia Strike Petrow’s home overlooks Salt Lake City, much as the Acropolis in Greece overlooks the city of Athens.
Joshua Tug Ferguson for the Wall Street Journal
OF UTAH
AS A 14-YEAR-OLD immigrant, Thomas Praggastis sailed from Greece to Ellis Island. Around the same time, young Elias Demetropoulos did, too. Each then headed west to California and each stopped, and stayed, in Utah because its rocks reminded them of their native land. Their families combined, and two generations later, their granddaughter and her husband built a home overlooking Salt Lake City inspired by the Acropolis, which overlooks the Greek capital of Athens.
That granddaughter, Cynthia Strike Petrow, grew up on Chandler Drive in Salt Lake City, in a home that her late mother, Anastasia “Lucy” Strike, had built. Not long after graduating from the University of Utah, Cynthia met her husband, George Petrow, a law student there.
When George retired from his law practice, he and Cynthia bought a lot next to Cynthia’s childhood home in Salt Lake City. They intended to build a new home on the lot so that the two homes together – the old and the new – would form a kind of mini-compound for extended family visits with 24 Greek relatives who love each other’s company around the holidays.
In settling above Salt Lake City, Cynthia and George had struck a bargain. George had wanted to live in Venice, California, and even bought a home there, but he agreed to stay instead in Salt Lake City when Cynthia allowed him to choose the new home’s architectural style. The couple stayed in Cynthia’s childhood home while work crews built the new one.
“It wasn’t my idea to live in her childhood home,” George said. “I rolled my eyes. She said, ‘Build whatever you want.’ ” What George wanted was for the home to be “a box.” Collaborating with the couple on the home’s design was local architecture firm Mooney + Sparano, which came up with a minimalist “floating box concept.” Built in 2020, the home is 5,500 square feet, with four bedrooms and five bathrooms, at a cost of $3.85 million – a box too big and too expensive to leave behind for Venice, George said. The new home became their primary residence.
The Mooney + Sparano partner who worked with the couple on the design,
The Petrows built their new home next door to the house where Cynthia grew up. Skylights let in abundant natural light. What had appeared to be a windowless wall turns out to be the garage door.
Anne Mooney, took the job because she grew up several blocks away, around the same time as Cynthia.
THE PETROWS’ NEW home is essentially a limestone box. Limestone was the material used to build the Parthenon, the ancient temple that has endured for millennia atop The Acropolis. At the front of the home are what the architect calls “fins,” vertical elements that Cynthia intended to be
reminiscent of the Parthenon’s columns.
The home appears to float. It rests upon a base that is recessed 1 foot and lifts the home 1 foot off the front lawn.
George’s next thought was to flood the new home with sunlight – windows through which to see the valley below, day and night.
Nate King, the project manager who is now Mooney + Sparano’s chief architect, said he responded to George’s love of limestone by hanging limestone cladding
Joshua Tug Ferguson for the Wall Street Journal
Joshua Tug Ferguson for the Wall Street Journal
Joshua Tug Ferguson for the Wall Street Journal
on a clip system, manufactured by a contractor in Texas, on the exterior, and limestone floor tile inside from European Tile in Salt Lake City.
“The exterior is low maintenance,” King said, “no need to replace or recoat.”
The front door, 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide, is made of torch-burnished copper, fabricated by Artistic Metal Works in West Bountiful. The door is Cynthia’s tribute to her grandfather, who operated a grocery store until his death in 1951 for the miners of Bingham Canyon Mine, which locals call the Kennecott Copper Mine – a mine so large it can be seen from space. The door serves an even greater memory, Cynthia said. “It is a tribute to the American immigrant dream.”
On the main level near the entrance is an elevator to the floor below. Straight ahead is a floor-to-ceiling window that provides a hint of the Wasatch Range.
Inside are blank walls everywhere, on which George can hang his photography collection. Among the works displayed is a time-lapse photograph of New York City’s Fifth Avenue, created by South Korean photographer Atta Kim over a 24-hour period, in which moving objects fade, with only a mist remaining. The intent of Kim’s photo: showing that people come and go, in contrast to limestone. Limestone endures. The photo is framed by the front window and can be seen through the fins/columns.
George spends much of his time in the upstairs office, toward the front of the home, where he sits in front of a computer doing “admin – finances, paying the plumber.” That’s where he and Cynthia sometimes watch TV together.
The main bedroom is down the hall. The living space – living room, dining room and kitchen – is on the other side.
A pocket door of opaque glass can be used to separate dinner guests from the kitchen when George, the retired attorney, washes the dishes. The Petrows call their home Oikos, a Greek word for house, household or family. In every family, in every household, someone must do the dishes.
Informal space – including a family room, a wine cellar, and three bedrooms, one each for the Petrows’ children – is downstairs, accessed by stairs and the elevator.
Joshua Tug Ferguson for the Wall Street Journal
An antique chandelier hangs over the dining room table.
The home’s bright interiors are adorned with a bold array of modern furniture.
The lower level includes a walkout basement that rests upon “very stable Lake Bonneville shoreline gravel,” King said, referring to the Late Pleistocene era paleolake that once covered most of Salt Lake City and beyond.
The new home’s back door faces east, and Cynthia’s childhood home’s back door faces west. A walkway connects the two. Stairs from the new home’s backyard pool – a rectangle that is 8 feet deep at the deep end and heated to 85-ish degrees – also lead to the older home, allowing the 24 Greeks visiting in summertime and at Christmastime to move easily between the two.
The Petrows could not be happier with their new home, with inspirations spanning continents, millennia and generations of family history.
Whit Richardson
Joshua Tug Ferguson for the Wall Street Journal
TThese salad recipes are hearty enough to entice even diehard meat eaters
recipes and photographs by DANELLE McCOLLUM
HE WORD “SALAD”, originated in ancient Rome. Its root is the Latin word ‘sal,’ meaning “salt,” referring to the simple seasoning the Romans favored. The past two millennia have seen salads evolve into far more complex and delicious forms, including some hearty variants that transcend as salad’s lightweight reputation. This trio of salads feature pasta, corn and beans to provide needed nourishment to fuel summer adventures.
Cucumber Tomato Salad
Just six ingredients – diced tomato and cucumber over pasta with olive oil, Greek seasoning and mayonnaise – make this a quick side dish for almost any meal.
Cook pasta according to package instructions. Rinse with cold water and drain. Add pasta to large mixing bowl and toss with olive oil and 1 teaspoon of Greek seasoning. Gently stir in tomato, cucumber, mayonnaise and remaining Greek seasoning and mix until combined. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate at least one hour before serving.
16 ounces rotini pasta
2 tsp olive oil
1 Tbsp Greek seasoning, divided
2 cups diced cucumber
2 cups diced tomato
1 cup mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
Warm Sweet Corn Salad
Corn kernels cooked in butter and brown sugar form the base of a warm salad that will redefine the taste of summer.
Carefully remove corn kernels from cob. In large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add corn kernels and brown sugar and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup water to skillet. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until most liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Transfer corn to large serving bowl and let cool for a few minutes. Toss basil, mixed greens and lemon juice into corn. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and serve immediately.
10-12 ears fresh corn, shucked 1/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup water
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups mixed greens
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1-2 Tbsp lemon juice
1-2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Italian Bean Salad
This protein-packed salad mixes beans with veggies, herbs and vinaigrette for a combination that will keep for days and keep you running.
Whisk together the ingredients for the vinaigrette and set aside. Blanch the green beans in boiling water until just tender, 3-4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl of ice water; drain.
Combine the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add green beans and toss to mix. Stir in vinaigrette and mix gently to coat. Refrigerate until serving.
VINAIGRETTE
1/4 cup purchased olive tapenade
3 Tbsp white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
SALAD
8 ounces fresh green beans, trimmed and halved
2 (15 oz.) cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup halved grape or cherr y tomatoes
1/2 cup diced mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup thinly sliced pepperoni
1/2 cup sliced pepperoncini
1 6.5 oz. jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained
2-3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
What’s in Your Recipe Box?
The editors are interested in featuring your favorite family recipes. Send your recipes (and memories inspired by your recipes) to editor@utahlifemag.com.
UTAH THROUGH OUR POETS
UTAH SUNSHINE BRIGHTENS spirits and lifts hearts and minds to a higher appreciation of the state’s beauty and character. Poets can’t help but sing Utah’s praises under the bright light of the heavens.
Sunrise along the Mighty Wasatch
L. J. Christensen, Bountiful
Logan embraces the splendor of the morning sun. Turquoise bathes the fertile valley - reflections of Bear Lake. Its fields rejoice aplenty as the days stretch long, While dairy cows absorb the warmth to churn out great cheeses. Dawn comes early to those who must capture the energy.
Ogden embraces the splendor of the morning sun. Ben Lomond first lays bare the golds that descend Upon the lake then valley like a tidal surge, One that soon highlights the sculptured front of Mt. Ogden. It is then that the colorful, historic town awakes.
Salt Lake City embraces the splendor of the morning sun. Perhaps the largest small-town city in America It still welcomes the radiance of the summer sun. Business and commerce may move its inhabitants, But the pull of adjacent wilderness feeds the soles.
Provo embraces the splendor of the morning sun. Timpanogos eventually allows the morning rays To spill upon Utah Lake then the college town, But only to lure those burdened by the day’s stresses To find respite in the green solitude of the back.
The mighty Wasatch glorifies the morning sun. From back to front a tapestry of colors is woven. It is this spectrum of colors that brighten the day. Winter’s black and white is but a distant memory. The splendor of summer’s morn gives a warm smile to all.
Sunrise
Melissa Crowther, Ogden
Most mornings are seemingly ordinary, But some are pure magic
In the way the light crests
The nearby Wasatch Mountains.
And I want to say,
“Slow down. You’re missing the arrival of a new day!”,
To all those people who Rush about in metal boxes.
What if everyone stilled and turned Towards the first rays dawning, Like some sort of ancient ritual, And with bowed heads
Give thanks for another day?
What if we acknowledged The elegance of that golden silk; Streaming down, weaving it’s way
To envelope all with life giving presence?
Oh, how a sunrise could change many hearts
Sunny rays cast their golden glow over the Wasatch Range, suffusing the mountain air with warmth. A mountain biker enjoys the sun while riding the Rim Trail in Moab.
Jeremy Piehler/Flickr
Whit Richardson
From Canyons to Souls
Garry Glidden, Saint George
In the realm of Utah, where nature’s hues collide, Change weaves its tapestry, a sacred tide. From mountain peaks to the desert’s barren land, Transformations dance, guided by the universe’s hand.
Within ancient canyons etched by time’s caress, Whispers of change possess a timeless finesse. Sculpted by forces fierce and wild, They shape and erode narratives compiled.
The human heart, a vessel of change, Seeks solace amidst life’s boundless range. We, too, evolve, like canyons worn and weathered, Embracing shifts as seasons are tethered.
As summer sun gives way to winter’s chill, Our souls endure a metamorphosis instilled. Within our essence, flickers of desire, To shed old skins, like quaking aspen’s fire.
Aspen Groves, a symphony of gold, Reflect on our journey, stories yet untold. Leaves ablaze, surrendering to the breeze, Reminding us that change is inherent, with ease.
Like the Great Salt Lake, ebbing and flowing, Human experiences forever growing. Through heartache and joy, triumphs and loss, We sail the tides, accepting change’s gloss.
Beneath the starlit sky, we find our way, In Utah’s vastness, embracing the sway. Nature’s tableau, an ever-shifting scene, Mirrors our souls in a constant routine.
The red rocks stand steadfast, witnessing time, Ancient echoes mingle with our rhyme. Through deserts and plateaus, the resilience we find, Adapting, evolving, like the canyon’s mind.
In Utah’s embrace, change is a constant guide, A testament to nature’s ceaseless stride. Within our souls, the echoes of her call, To embrace transformation, standing tall.
For a change, like Utah, is both fierce and grand, A kaleidoscope of colors, earth’s command. So let us journey with open hearts and minds, Embracing change as nature’s gift unwinds.
A brilliant sunflower flourishes in the light that rakes upon it from its namesake celestial orb, growing stronger the brighter the sun shines.
Sunshine Makes Summer Fun
Ellen R. Liebelt, South Jordan
Sunshine splashes happily Across a refreshing stream. Its rays beam warmly O’er lizard’s resting rock. It blocks the shadow From covering our play. Sunbeams spray brightly Along the dusty trail. It hails swimmers and Boaters skiing on the lake. Sunshine makes summer fun Worth so much more than cash.
WE INVITE YOU to submit poems inspired by Utah. The September/October 2023 theme is “Change”; the November/December 2023 theme is “Traditions.” Visit utahlifemag.com/poetry-submission to submit your poems, or email to poetry@utahlifemag.com.
Unsplash
Mighty Moose &
by RACHEL FIXSEN
A moose unleashes a mighty bellow amid the aspen forest of Willow Heights. james Zebrack
EIGHING UP TO
half a ton, standing as high as 6 feet tall at the shoulder, and with the largest antlers of any living mammal, moose make an impressive sight glimpsed in the wild. An encounter with a moose can be magical — but meet one too close, and it can be a menace.
Magical: seeing a family of moose frolic in a mountain lake from a safe distance. This is a treasured moment for photographer Clint Losee, who explores Utah’s backcountry with his camera and sometimes comes upon wildlife unexpectedly.
“Pretty much all of the moose I’ve encountered here in Utah have been by chance,” Losee said.
He was taking photos in the Wasatch Range when he heard a splash about 100 feet away: It was a young moose capering into the lake. Soon an adult moose and five more young ones joined – “all playing in the water, eating and just enjoying themselves,” Losee said.
Menace: almost crashing into a moose when coasting full-speed downhill on your road bike. Former Salt Lake City resident Kevin Sheridan had this experience in Emigration Canyon. He was speeding down the pavement, crouched over his handlebars to reduce his air drag; by the time he noticed a moose crossing the road ahead, he had only about 100 feet of stopping distance.
“I literally slammed on the brakes and almost hit this moose,” Sheridan said. He estimates he was less than 20 feet away by the time he was able to fully stop. He couldn’t resist adding a pun.
“Hitting it would have turned me into mousse!”
Magic: regularly seeing moose on your morning jog, like Park City resident Lisa Baird does.
Moose frequently visit her backyard. It’s fun to watch them nap or eat, Baird said, “unless it is a young aspen sapling that you are encouraging to grow in your yard. They can really decimate them without much effort.”
A mother moose and her calf enjoy the cool of the shade. A one-antlered moose in Big Cottonwood
pauses in front of the reflected aspen trees in a high elevation
Canyon
lake.
Meg Leaf (previous page), Clint Losee (this page)
A moose ambles across a mountain highway sporting massive antlers that can weigh as much as 30 pounds.
Deena Sveinsson
Rare moose triplets receive tender care from their mother.
Meg Leaf
For home landscaping, moose are a menace.
Moose are relatively new to the state of Utah, according to Kent Hersey, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources big game coordinator. They started migrating into the Uinta Mountains from Idaho and Wyoming in the early 1900s. There now are between 2,500 and 3,000 moose in the state, a population like that of neighboring states Colorado (3,000) and Wyoming (3,500).
Biologists noticed Utah moose populations declining in the late 2000s and began a study to find out why. They were surprised by the tiny culprit: ticks.
When conditions are favorable to ticks, hundreds or even thousands of them can climb onto a host moose in the fall, stay over winter in its coat and start feeding on its blood during the spring. The parasites diminish their hosts’ health so much that the moose often either die or can’t reproduce. Cold falls and colder, snowier winters seem to improve outcomes for moose.
Moose calves are weaned at six months but remain with their mothers for the whole first year of their lives.
Biologists occasionally get a taste of moose menace, too. During the study, Division of Wildlife Resources officials captured moose to measure health indicators, take samples and attach radio collars. Sometimes the animals were sedated; other times they were just blindfolded, and their feet were tied together. Once the protocols were complete, biologists would unbind the moose and turn it loose.
“Usually they just run away,” Hersey said. “But a couple times they came back at us. They were not happy.”
When it comes to fleeing a rampaging moose, he joked, “You try go faster than the other guy.”
Hersey also had a magical moment to share from his observations of moose this past spring, the season when moose calves are born. When moose are healthy and have plenty of resources, they’re more likely to have twins. Twin moose calves are rare in Utah. This year, Hersey saw something rarer: a mother moose with triplets.
Meg Leaf
4 Ghost Towns
by TOM HESS
The residents are long gone, but what they left behind at the sites of their failed communities tells a story of how they lived in days gone by.
Jim Shoemaker
BUILDING A NEW town from scratch is an act of optimism. Yet history shows us that, when it comes to a town’s survival, failure is always an option. While Utah currently has 253 cities, towns and metro townships, the state is also home to more than 140 ghost towns. When towns die, they tend to disappear completely, but Utah has a number of ghost towns where at least some of the buildings remain intact for present-day Utahns to explore. These are the stories of four of Utah’s most scenic ghost towns.
1 GRAFTON
As far as anyone knows, Butch Cassidy never visited the town of Grafton, but the movie version of Butch Cassidy most certainly did. Situated just across the Virgin River from the boundary of Zion National Park, Grafton is one of the best-preserved ghost towns in Utah – and one of the most famous, thanks to its use as a film location. Though only five buildings remain out of the 30 or more that once existed, the town’s adobe schoolhouse and other buildings are remarkably intact.
Grafton was founded in 1859, when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Brigham Young sent five families to farm the area for cotton. The farmers had a rough go of it: The river flooded often, and when it didn’t flood, its silt clogged hand-dug irrigation ditches. Tension with the Southern Paiute tribe during the Black Hawk War only made life more stressful; seeking safety in numbers, the townsfolk fled to nearby Rockville in 1866, marking the first time Grafton became a ghost town. Residents returned in 1868, when conflict with the Paiutes died down.
Grafton prospered in the 19th century. Its downfall was the construction of the Hurricane Canal in 1904 and the founding of the city of Hurricane two years later, which prompted local farmers to move closer to that source of plentiful water. Due to the dwindling population, the Church decommissioned its Grafton branch in 1921. By 1944, the last residents moved away.
Western movie producer Harry Sherman bought the site from a descendant of
Grafton’s adobe schoolhouse remains remarkably intact. Mount Kinesava in Zion National Park rises a short distance beyond the ghost town, which lies just across the Virgin River from the park’s boundary.
a Grafton co-founder to establish a movie location. Scenes for two historic movies were filmed in Grafton: In Old Arizona (1928), the first Western with sound and filmed outdoors, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), whose classic bicycle scene was filmed here.
The nonprofit Grafton Heritage Partnership Project, formed in 1997, preserves Grafton as a historic site. The partnership put new roofing, windows and doors on the old church, the Russell Home, the Louisa Foster home and John Wood home. The Partnership also bought 150 acres for farming operations, to evoke the settler families’ experience.
Follow the signs to Grafton along Utah State Route 9 through Rockville, which becomes Bridge Lane, named for a onelane iron bridge from 1924 that crosses the Virgin River. Beyond the river, the Grafton backroad continues roughly parallel with the river for another two miles.
Just before Grafton is Grafton Cemetery, which records the hardships of settler life: six babies under age 1, a 28-year-old who died of tuberculosis and a 9-year-old dragged to death by a horse. As with farm life of all ages, families carried on. Descendants of old Grafton families meet in town annually, briefly bringing the ghost town back to life.
Tom Till
The most iconic image of Old Iron Town is its beehive-shaped kiln, which used to convert local juniper wood into charcoal to power furnaces for iron production. The remnants of the red-brick furnace still stand tall nearly 150 years after it fired up for the last time.
2
OLD IRON TOWN
While Brigham Young wanted cotton from Grafton to help make Utah self-sufficient, his desire for iron led him to establish an Iron Mission in southwest Utah in 1850. Cedar City and Parowan were founded to produce iron, but the project fizzled out by 1858. Ten years later, the Union Iron Co. took another crack at iron production in the region, founding the town of Iron City 24 miles southwest of Cedar City in 1868.
The company built a furnace, two kilns, the ironworks and an ore grinder. The furnace produced iron from raw iron ore mined from Iron Mountain and burned charcoal produced from juniper and pinyon wood in the nearby forest.
Within a year of its founding, Iron City had a post office, schoolhouse, boarding house, general store and butcher shop.
By 1870, 19 households made Iron City home – but good times didn’t last long. East Coast iron producers lowered their prices, making Utah iron more expensive. The ironworks closed in 1876. A few residents remained into the 1880s.
A beehive-shaped kiln is the most intact structure that survives from Iron City, now known as Old Iron Town. The kiln requires constant repair. Loose mortar is reinforced every 10 years. The furnace is in shambles, as visitors had taken stones from it for their own fireplaces.
Old Iron Town State Park is an extension of Frontier Homestead Park, surrounded by the Dixie National Forest. The ruins can be seen on Iron Town Road, which intersects with Utah State Route 56. The kiln first ruin visitors encounter within the park. A trail leads behind it, past a settler’s home.
Tami (both)
The buildings of the town of Sego fell into various stages of decay and collapse after the town was abandoned in 1955.
Coal was discovered here in 1908, and for much of the first half of the 20th century, Sego’s coal mining operation did booming business. However, a pair of disastrous fires in 1949 and 1950 meant the beginning of the end.
3 SEGO
Cotton ghosted Grafton. Iron ghosted Old Iron City. Coal ghosted Sego, a town in the Book Cliffs that died in 1955.
A founder of neighboring Thompson Springs, a community currently on its way to being counted among Utah’s ghost towns, discovered anthracite coal in 1908 and bought up the site and founded a company town there to work the mine. The town was initially named Ballard, then Neslen, and finally Sego, after the sego lily, Utah’s state flower, which grows prolifically in the area.
Sego grew to become one of Grand County’s biggest towns, though its growth was hampered by the lack of a steady water supply. Still, coal production boomed there in the 1920s and ’30s. However, by 1947, the operation was no longer profitable, and the company that owned it shut down. The laid-off employees formed a company of their own, Utah Grand Coal Co., and kept up production, even managing to turn a profit in its first year, but fires in 1949 and 1950 destroyed their investment. Smoke still rises from coal fires burning in abandoned shafts. What remains in view in Sego – structures that haven’t been relocated to nearby Thompson Springs – include foundations and dugouts. The old boarding house and company store have collapsed.
To see the ruins, take Thompson exit 187 off Interstate 70, then go north on UT-94 N/Thompson Canyon Road until you reach the Sego rock art panel – a display of ancient petroglyphs – on the left. Take a right after the panel and pass the Sego Cemetery on the way to Sego.
Joshua Hardin (both(
Silver mining operations began in Silver Reef soon after its settlement in 1866 when silver was discovered in a sandstone ledge. The town’s last mine closed in 1891, and within a decade, Silver Reef was largely abandoned. Rusting equipment is all that remains of the town’s glory days.
4SILVER REEF
As its name suggests, Silver Reef lived and died by silver. A prospector found silver in 1866 near the townsite, but silver mining from within a nearby sandstone ledge didn’t start until eight years later.
In May 1879, a Silver Reef restaurant caught fire. Residents lined up for a bucket brigade, lifting water from Leeds Creek to the blaze and dampening blankets to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings. Even so, the Salt Lake Tribune spread panic by saying Silver Reef had been “Chicagoed,” referring to that city’s devastating fire earlier in the decade.
By 1880, Silver Reef had 37 mines and five stamp mills. Its payday supported nine stores, eight dry-goods stores, six saloons, five restaurants, two dance halls, two cemeteries, a newspaper, a brewery and a Wells Fargo office. In 1881, the mining company cut wages, and workers began whispering about a strike. Twenty-five miners were arrested, but Silver Reef’s jail was too small for them. When silver prices fell further, the miners didn’t
Utah State Historical Society (above), Fred Stearns (below)
The
talk strike, but they inadvertently flooded mine shafts with water. One blow after another, the last mine closed in 1891. Within a decade, most of the town’s buildings had been demolished or moved to Leeds.
Attempts to restart mining operations were made in 1898, 1909, 1916 and 1950, but none were successful. Many Silver Reef buildings were salvaged for their lumber and stone. One buyer found a cache of gold coins worth $10,000, naturally leading to the rapid demolition of other structures in desperate and destructive hopes that they would yield treasure.
Today, wooden sidewalks rot, adobe and stone walls crumble, and sage clogs the streets. The Silver Reef Museum occupies the 1877 Wells Fargo Building, with its original vault. Next door is the Equipment Yard, a collection of mining tools and devices. The Old Jail is original, having spent a century elsewhere before returning in 2017. The jail is closed except for special occasions.
Silver Reef appeared in the background of several Robert Redford films: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the 1979 film The Electric Horseman
1877 Wells Fargo Building, which still has its original vault, now serves as the home of the Silver Reef Museum. Next door is the Equipment Yard, which has a collection of mining tools.
Fred Stearns
MUSIC MOAB MUSIC FESTIVAL
AUG. 21-SEPT. 15 • MOAB
Music lovers most often see Steinway pianos in fancy concert halls, but at the Moab Music Festival, the prized instruments have been known to float on a boat along the Colorado River.
For the third year, the festival is putting a Steinway on an open-air boat for a concert on the water. Festival organizers are also disassembling a Steinway, securing its parts on a boat and sailing it to a grotto – a natural, spacious red-rock cave with perfect acoustics – where the piano is reassembled, balanced and tuned before musicians and guests arrive, also by boat.
The floating concert is Aug. 27. The Grotto concerts are Aug. 31, Sept. 7 and Sept. 11. Two music hikes – where musicians and guests navigate canyon trails before settling into a level space – are scheduled for Sept. 2 and 10. Other events take place in Moab. A new festival site is the Red
CULTURE. ADVENTURE. HISTORY.
by HEIDI KERR-SCHLAEFER
Earth venue, which offers stunning views for concertgoers.
Concerts on the water and in the grotto are the brainchild of Leslie Tomkins, who first fell in love with Utah on a trip to the state in the early 1990s. “I loved the idea of music as an expression of Utah’s physical beauty,” she said.
Tomkins co-founded and helped launch the festival in 1992. The next year, she met several locals who had already taken pianos into river canyons on the Colorado for private concerts. They sailed her to the grotto that the Moab Music Festival now uses.
“The grotto is what distinguishes us,” Tomkins said. “You can hear musicians elsewhere. But in this landscape, there’s a wonderous alchemy between music and rocks, unifying everyone there.” (435) 259-7003.
Beautiful red rock landscapes provide the venues for equally beautiful music at the Moab Music Festival.
WHERE TO EAT 98 CENTER
From the authentic broth and noodles of its pho to its Philly cheesesteak, 98 Center creates its Vietnamese fusion menu using ingredients from local farmers and artisans. Unique offerings include wagyu banh mi salad, kimchi deviled egg and yuzu limeade. 98 E. Center St. (435) 355-0098.
WHERE TO GO MOAB MADE
The store collaborated with local Moab artisan Holly Williams to create a stunningly beautiful Moab water bottle. The store walls showcase other local talent, such as a lifelong resident who captures the vivid colors of local canyons and arches, and a grown-up kid who sells photographic prints of the Legos he’s positioned to recreate famous Utah scenes and family vacations. 82 North Main St.. (435) 210-0650.
Richard Bowditch
HERITAGE
WESTERN LEGENDS HERITAGE AND MUSIC FESTIVAL
AUG. 24-26 • KANAB
This festival honoring the stars of Western movies filmed in and around Kanab is marking its 25th anniversary in 2023.
Kanab has been a silver screen staple for nearly a century, first appearing in the movies in 1924, when cowboy star Tom Mix filmed Deadwood Coach here. Cecile B DeMille soon followed up by filming Union Pacific. Other noteworthy production credits in the Kanab area include scenes from John Ford’s Drums Along the Mohawk, Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales and Disney’s John Carter.
This year, organizers highlight the three men who helped launch the cele-
bration of Kanab’s cinematic glory, a reputation that earned the town the nickname “Little Hollywood.” Among the honorees is festival co-founder Dennis Judd, who starred as an extra and served as a location scout in a number of Western movies. Judd also founded Denny’s Wigwam & Curio in Kanab.
True cowboys compete in Western Legends Rodeo events on Aug. 25: Bull Riding, Bare Back Broncs, Saddle Bronc, Barrel Racing, Junior Bulls, Peewee Steers, Mutton Busting and Team Roping at the Kaneplex Arena overlooking Jackson Flat Reservoir. (435) 644-3696.
WHERE TO EAT HOUSTON’S TRAIL’S END
The restaurant opened as Trail’s End in 1945, founded by Merle “Peaches” Beard and his wife Donna. The Houston Family carry on Merle’s tradition of homemade cooking. Grandpa Bob Houston still makes 10 gallons of his country gravy and DayLean bakes her rolls daily. 32 E. Center St. (435) 644-2488.
WHERE TO GO
CAMPFIRE S’MORES
AND STARS TOUR
The Adventure Tour Co. takes guests to an evening campfire in a private canyon at The Old Movie Fort, where 25 films and TV series have been filmed. Meet a herd of Texas longhorns, make s’mores with homemade marshmallows, and see the real stars of the show sparking in the night sky. 116 S. 100 East. (435) 899-1817.
parkcityhistory.org or call 435-649-7457 for more information
SEPTEMBER
Peach Days
Sept. 6-9
• Brigham City
The celebration of Utah’s peachy abundance began in 1904 as a single day. Now a weekend-long event, Peach Days includes the crowning of a Peach Queen, parade, car show, quilt show and beard competition. (435) 723-3931.
Timpanogos Storytelling Festival
Sept. 7-9 • Lehi
The annual festival began in 1989 when a friend of the Orem Public Library, who had presented story time for preschoolers, noticed a trend: Adults wanted story time too. The 2023 Timpanogos event features 12 speakers with fanciful tales from across the nation. Fan favorite Willy Claflin performs alongside his stuffed sidekick, Maynard Moose, who says he’s the last known teller of ancient Mother Moose Tales. (801) 426-8660.
Utah State Fair
Sept. 7-17 • Salt Lake City
Established in 1856, the State Fair has been a staple of Utah culture longer than Utah has been a state. Attractions include
arts and crafts showcases, animals on display, food vendors, an ice cream festival, concerts and an unforgettable cow sculpture molded from 800 pounds of butter. (801) 538-8400.
Salt Lake City Greek Festival
Sept. 8-10 • Salt Lake City
The largest Greek festival west of the Mississippi, this 47th annual event hosts Greek dance and music, as well as guided tours of the Holy Trinity Cathedral and Greek Cultural Museum. The festival also serves up Greek food found few other places – dishes such as stifatho (tomato-based beef stew), keftethes (beef and pork meatballs) and galaktoboureko (pastry). (801) 328-9681.
SLC
Veg Fest
Sept. 9 • Salt Lake City
Healthy vegan food has never been more fun. Attendees at this Library Square event taste all kinds of animal-free grub from local restaurants, bakeries and food trucks, shop merch from local vendors, relax with a cold brew in the beer garden, and enjoy live music, noon-8 p.m. There’s even a special kids’ area for the little ones. (385) 401-4301.
Pumpkin Days at Wheeler Farm
Sept. 22-Oct. 31 • Murray
Wheeler Farm is an urban oasis in the Salt Lake area, and its annual Pumpkin Days is the go-to event for picking out a pumpkin, cultivating some family-friendly Halloween spirit. Attendees traverse the hay maze, take a wagon ride and let the kids try wading through the corn pit. (385) 468-1755.
TRIVIA ANSWERS
Questions on p 12-13
1 Brooklyn
2 “Come, Come, Ye Saints”
3 Platte River
4 Ellen Sanders Kimball, wife of Heber C. Kimball
5 Mexican-American War
6 c. Nauvoo, Illinois
7 c. Colorado
8 b. Ensign
9 a. Oxen
10 b. Lehi High School
11 False. Not all pioneers could afford to take the railroad; wagon trains continued into the 20th century.
12 True
13 False, it is the day the pioneers arrived at Salt Lake.
14 True
15 True
Trivia Photographs
Page 14 Wagons cross the Salt Lake Valley. A statue honors Mormon Battalion soldiers. Page 15 A Latter-day Saint pioneer wagon can be found at Capitol Reef National Park.
THE THREE SISTERS GeologicWonders
by MATT MASICH photograph by DAN LEETH of Goblin Valley
IN A STATE full of otherworldly geology, the hoodoos of Goblin Valley State Park stand out as being particularly bizarre. Situated north of Hanksville at the edge of the San Rafael Swell, the park features thousands of mushroom-shaped hoodoos that, if you look at them in the right frame of mind, might seem like an army of goblins.
Among this legion of strange rock creatures inhabiting Goblin Valley, the Three Sisters are among the strangest –and tallest, standing considerably more vertically than their squat counterparts. The Three Sisters seem like older siblings keeping an eye on the smaller hoodoos. The Three Sisters Trail, one of the park’s four trails, leads right to them from the parking lot, taking just a bit more than a quarter mile round trip.
The main rock type at Goblin Valley is Entrada sandstone, which formed during the Jurassic period around 170 million years ago. At the time, this land was at the edge of an ancient sea, which deposited sand that eventually became sandstone. The land also eroded into the sea, depositing silt and clay, which respectively became siltstone and shale.
The sandstone, siltstone and shale formed alternating layers. Over millions of years, the softer siltstone and shale eroded more quickly than the sandstone above it, creating hoodoos.
story by KERRY SOPER illustrations by JOSH TALBOT
Utah’s Rainbow Trout Worth Their Weight in Gold
Expensive equipment and maritime mishaps make catching fish a money-draining proposition.
ITHINK IT’S now official: Caviar is no longer the most expensive freshwater delicacy in the world. It’s now one of Utah’s undersized rainbow trout – the kind that my middle-aged brothers and I typically catch on our fishing excursions. When you factor in all the expenses involved to harvest that scrawny salmonid (multiple fishing poles, lost work hours, waterlogged cellphones and expensive waders that make us look like oversized Oompa Loompas), my calculations put it at approximately $450 per ounce.
How do we create such an expensive product? It’s not easy; it requires an inflated belief in our abilities, conflicting ideas of where and when to go, and an advanced brand of beta-male ineptitude that took several generations of indoor labor to achieve. Here are three snapshots of our artisanally inept methods at work.
Five years ago, we went to the legendary Green River. Our first mistake was to go on the busiest Saturday afternoon of the year, when the river was covered by a flotilla of teenage rafters, all yelling, “Having any luck?!” while splashing past us like oar-wielding ninjas on Ritalin.
Our second error was bringing too many fishing rods, probably thinking “the more methods, the better.” Dumb idea: After our canoes bumped through the first set of mild rapids, the lures, lines and flies attached to all of those poles became incestuously entangled. We were forced to stop and spend a full hour, quietly fake-swearing, while deconstructing that flippin’ craft project from heck.
Things went downhill from there. Midafternoon I received a $200 ticket from an “undercover river cop” for temporarily
taking off my lifejacket while searching for an overpriced fly in my fishing vest.
Minutes later, my younger brother confronted one of the unforgiving laws of nature: If you eat a sketchy breakfast burrito in Price, Utah, at 8 a.m., you will inevitably experience gastrointestinal difficulties at approximately 1 p.m. When his bowels went to DEFCON 4, he lost all interest in fishing
and spent the remainder of the afternoon sweating profusely, whimpering quietly to himself and looking in vain for private places to get back in touch with nature.
Finally, near the end of the day, my elderly dad randomly hooked our only fish of the day. He was so shocked that he accidentally leapt to his feet, causing him and my brother to flip over backwards,
legs flailing, into swift water. After a chaotic rescue effort, we got my dad safely to shore. Sadly, we couldn’t say the same for our expensive gear – it was sacrificed, along with any lingering self-esteem, to the depths of the river.
On another outing, we tried to fish Strawberry Reservoir during the Spring “ice out,” when the fish are especially eager. Despite those optimum conditions, we somehow managed to avoid doing any actual angling.
The first obstacle was a vehicular breakdown in the canyon that ate up two hours. The second delay was discovering, after arriving at the reservoir, that we had forgotten to pack the paddles for our kayaks. My oversized younger brother, who was desperate to start fishing despite this minor detail, tried to propel himself with his hands. He only succeeded in almost capsizing twice while spinning ineffectually in the shallows. Admitting defeat, we set off back down the canyon.
When we got back to the lake, three hours later, the tiny plastic paddles we’d purchased at Walmart – designed for kid-sized, inflatable rafts – were helpless against the gale-force, late-afternoon winds that had kicked up.
As a last resort, we tried casting from the shore. This ended abruptly when my dad’s chunky lure, featuring a menacing treble hook, flipped around awkwardly and impaled itself securely in his right butt cheek. I’ll spare you the graphic details of the impromptu shoreside surgery that ensued as the sun went down. Lots of unfortunate things were said and seen that we can never take back.
On the way home, we stopped in Heber for consolation milkshakes. Even this went disastrously: While we were commiserating over melty ice cream, most of our gear – probably worth more than $600 – was stolen from the trailer. (That dang Heber Valley Malt Shop Mafia, I guess.)
Last summer, we went to Deer Creek Reservoir. With three kayaks, one canoe and multiple vehicles in the mix, our launch onto the lake was a chaotic affair. And because other fishermen were wait-
ing for their turn at the dock, we got a bit rushed and careless.
For starters, as my older brother and I tried to help my dad into his kayak, we accidentally bumped heads, Three Stooges-style. My brother staggered backward from this collision, exclaiming, “My phone!” It had slipped from his shirt pocket and was now tumbling 12 feet down to the murky bottom of the lake.
After a brief moment of shock, I went into delusional hero mode, knowing that most cellphones are water resistant but not waterproof. Stripping down to my underwear, I hesitated slightly, not knowing whether to dive in or go feet first, and ended splitting the difference with an awkward belly flop. The violence of my dad bod hitting the water made the situation twice as bad, creating a mini-tsunami that capsized my younger brother’s kayak and sent his cellphone tumbling into the lake as well.
I was determined to rescue both phones now, but on my first few efforts I couldn’t manage to swim more than a couple of feet downwards – my muscle/fat ratio gives me a natural buoyancy. I couldn’t give up, though, with so many people watching. After a half dozen more attempts and a lot of sputtering at the surface, I made a one last, desperate dive. It worked! Lungs bursting, I was able to breast-stroke to the bottom, snag a phone with each hand and return to the surface, victorious. I was expecting cheers, I guess, but all I got was scattered laughter. My older brother’s phone eventually recovered, by the way, but my younger brother’s device was never the same, featuring a warbly, under-water-sounding speaker and random texting glitches.
The rest of our time at Deer Creek was a bit anticlimactic. Neither my brothers nor my dad got a single bite. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop shivering inside my damp waders. This turned out to be a secret weapon, though, in the angling department: that persistent tremor must have given my line a bit of extra action or jig, because I caught the one fish of the day – a rainbow trout about the size (and cost) of a new cellphone.
