Guardian of the red rock - Innovators

Sunset, Sept, 2002 by Hamot Manley

AUTHOR-TURNED ADVOCATE TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS CHAMPIONS RED ROCK COUNTRY. Sitting beneath a juniper, notepad balanced on her knee, she gazes at the rawhide-red cliffs near he home outside Moab Utah. Having written 10 books, including the 1991 bestseller Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, Tempest Williams ranks among the nation's preeminent nature writers Most often her creative wellspring is this land.

"The red rock reminds us of who we are and what we're connected to--something much older and wiser than ourselves," she savs scanning the buttes. "They're a reservoir for our spirit."

But there's a different reservoir--one deep underground harboring of and natural gas--that's bringing Tempest Williams acclaim as the foremost advocate for protecting Utah wildlands. Last spring, she tracked the federal government's activities in Dome Plateau near Arches National Park, and watched as thumper trucks--50,000-pound behemoths that hammer the ground in search of oil--pump meled the slickrock. Outraged she wrote a blistering editorial to the New York Times, supporting legislation for wilderness protection of sensitive red rock lands. Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups filed an appeal with the U.S. Department of the interior to halt the exploration. Within days, the trucks were ordered to stop.

"Terry absolutely had an impact," says Heidl McIntosh of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "Right now, she's carrying the mantle of Western stewardship." Such an accolade puts her Iofty alliance with the likes of John Muir, Ansel Adams, and Edward Abbey. She has spoken before Congress and presidents and sat on international panels; yet still finds time to teach local high school students. "There's nothing ivory Tower about her," notes Johanna Wald, director of the land program for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Despite the example set by some of the august company above, activism isn't normally the stock in trade of scribes. But that doesn't stop Tempest Williams from jotting away in her notebook. "Bearing witness," she explains," is its own form of advocacy."

RELATED ARTICLE: How to see red

Here are five ways to experience red rock country and to learn what's at risk.

* Take the moderately strenuous, 3-mile round-trip walk out to Delicate Arch, in Arches National Park. "It's a pilgrimage everyone should make," says Tempest Williams. (435) 719-2299 or www.nps.govlarch.

* Visit the Nature Conservancy's Scott M. Matheson Wetlands Preserve, a rare 890-acre desert wetland at a bend in the Colorado River in fall it's alive with migratory birds and butterflies. Open dawn to dusk daily; free. From downtown Moab take Kane Creek Blvd. 3/4 mile; go left when road forks and continue 1/2 mile. (435) 259-4629.

* Read Tempest Williams's latest book, Red. Passion and Patience in the Desert (Pantheon, New York, 2001 $23; 800/733-3000).

* Fly over the region with Eco-Flight (970/429-1110) or explore it by land and river with Canyonlands Field institute (www.canyonlandsfieldinst.org)

* Check out efforts to protect Utah wildlands, presented by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance at www.suwa.org.