This is not a travel guide but an elegy.”īy the time Abbey wrote that, his beloved Glen Canyon was “going under fast,” gurgling beneath Lake Powell as the Glen Canyon Dam plugged the Colorado River’s flow. In the second place most of what I write about in this book is already gone or going under fast. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail, you’ll see something, maybe. “In the first place, you can’t see anything from a car you’ve got to get out of the … contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. “Do not jump in your automobile next June and rush out to the canyon country hoping to see some of that which I have attempted to evoke in these pages,” he famously wrote. Sometimes howlingly funny, it compresses the two postwar decades Abbey spent in Utah and Arizona into a single “season in the wilderness.” In spirit, though, his book resembles a 1960s nonfiction novel. After President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke carved 2 million acres out of Bears Ears and Grand-Staircase-Escalante national monuments, both in the heart of Abbey Country, “Desert Solitaire” remains more relevant today than ever.Īn account of Abbey’s time as a ranger in what is now Arches National Park, “Desert Solitaire” is both memoir and a passionate defense of our nation’s last unspoiled land. Yet it has remained in print for a half-century and created a devoted following. Into oblivion,” wrote a disheartened Abbey in his journal Feb. “Another book dropped down the bottomless well.

Edward Abbey’s book “Desert Solitaire,” which turns 50 this year, is his account of his time as a ranger in what is now Arches National Park.įifty years ago, Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” was published to decent reviews but little fanfare. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close MenuĮlizabeth Zach, The Washington PostWinter tourists photograph Delicate Arch, an iconic rock structure at Arches National Park in Utah.

Desert solitaire book