cover image Stone House Lands: The San Rafael Reef

Stone House Lands: The San Rafael Reef

Joseph M. Bauman. University of Utah Press, $14.95 (225pp) ISBN 978-0-87480-275-7

The San Raphael Reef stretches 56 miles across the desert of southern Utah. Its multi-colored canyons and moon-like rock formations, sprinkled with juniper and pinon trees, give it a barren, haunting beauty. Bauman, an environmental reporter for Salt Lake City's Deseretstet News, appears to have dug up every scrap of information about the reef for this tribute to his favorite hiking area and as a plea to make the land a national park. He surveys the area's history from the early Tertiorystet epoch through pre-Columbian civilizations to the more recent exploits of Butch Cassidy, and finally to modern ecological threats, including uranium and petroleum claims, Interstate 70 and stray motorcycles. While Bauman's research and enthusiasm are commendable, his writing is less so (""The riptide of exploitation runs deep, and it's faster than the protectionists can swim''). (October)