Outdoors

Monument Valley Trails is ranked at the top of the list among the ultimate road trips in America

San Juan County residents live in one of the most glorious locations in the country (many would say in the world). That strong and maybe slightly biased opinion was backed up by some fact – or at least objective opinion – when GPS fleet management and vehicle tracking company Geotab ranked the 50...

Warren Alford “Al” Barton

July 9, 1938 ~ May 1, 2019 On Wednesday, May 1, 2019, Warren Alford “Al” Barton, passed away at age 80 in his home in Central Valley, UT from complications due to acute myeloid leukemia. Al was born July 9, 1938 in Moab, the eighth child of Lloyd Lional and Willamelia Frost Barton. He was the first...

“New to the Edge” exhibit opens at Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum

A new exhibit features two pottery vessels found by two groups of San Juan County residents. The Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum is inaugurating the “New to the Edge” exhibit with artifacts that are new or recent additions to the museum’s collections. On Easter 2014, Steve and Donna Jensen...

Battling the Blue or Purple Mustard weed

Blue or Purple Mustard is a weed that seems to be growing on every piece of property in San Juan County. San Juan County Weed Supervisor Monty Perkins says there are several things that can be done to help control the weed. This weed is a winter annual that sprouts in the fall and flowers in the...

New wildlife crossings and fencing between Blanding and Monticello

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) will add three new wildlife passages under US-191 south of Monticello and fill in a wildlife fencing gap this summer. When completed, the wildlife fencing will fill the gap, extending the fence from just south of Monticello to south of Devils Canyon on...

Snowpack benefits Colorado River operations

The plentiful snowpack of the past winter will benefit the Colorado River Basin through increased runoff to crucial reservoirs, according to a Bureau of Reclamation study released on April 15. With the improved hydrology, Lake Powell’s operation for water year 2019 will shift to a balancing release...

New Kenny Ross bio out

Canyon Country Explorations & River Lore: The Remarkable Resilient Life of Kenny Ross, is a well-researched tale about the life and experiences of a not well known character on the Colorado Plateau. Author Gene M. Stevenson brings Kenny Ross to the surface as a major influence on modern and...

Junipers

When I was a teenager, my family moved into my great-grandparents’ farmhouse in north central Kansas. The two ancient red cedars which flanked the front porch seemed dark and foreboding, and every time the wind howled through their branches, I shuddered. Years later, after we moved to San Juan...

Snowpack approaching 200 percent of normal

Will the snowpack be 200 percent of normal? Many things are known as the wet and wild winter of 2019 draws to a close. However, one question remains: Will the mountain snowpack be more than double the normal levels? On March 19, the six feet of snow at the Camp Jackson Sno-tel station contained 23...

Epic snowstorm shuts down schools, businesses, roads, and may have brought an end to a drought

The strongest snowstorm in several winters took aim at San Juan County in the past week, resulting in closed schools and businesses, closed highways, copious amounts of snow, and what may be the end of a drought. Snow began falling on Wednesday evening, didn’t stop until Friday afternoon, and...