Lamar Guymon is in his element.
Even after driving more than 10 hours over teeth-rattling roads through the San Rafael Swell, the sheriff of Emery County still has energy to support a running meditation on this rugged outdoor museum of rock with jaw-dropping views of massive uplifts, slot canyons, sandstone formations and desert streams that drain toward the Green and Colorado rivers.
"There's a dinosaur dig right up in there," Guymon says as he pilots his four-wheel-drive truck over the Green River Cutoff, a rough track of some 60 miles linking U.S. 6 and Castle Dale, the county seat. Seconds later, he's pointing out an old bridge constructed entirely of rock. Next he's captivated by the evening light playing over the Book Cliffs, one of the longest escarpments in the world.
"There's some weird-looking stuff over there. When the sun shines, it kind of has a pink tint on it," Guymon says. "It's getting to be a beautiful sunset."
Like the county he guards, Guymon defies most stereotypes. A vegetarian serving a mostly meat-eating constituency, Guymon often makes his rounds on any one of 12 bicycles he stores in various corners of the county. He got into law enforcement after a judge told him to sober up or go to jail. Although he's a Democrat, Guymon has been re-elected eight times by voters who usually prefer their politicians to be Republicans.
On the other hand, Guymon is a frontier lawman cut from the same cloth as Matt Dillon and Wyatt Earp. Once, he arrested 11 Colombians who landed a Douglas DC-7 carrying 25 tons of marijuana on a remote airstrip at McKay Flat near the south end of the swell. He talked to a Mafia hitman who said he shot two bank tellers to death because they moved too slowly. Among his friends is Aron Ralston, the Colorado hiker who sawed off his arm in Blue John Canyon to save his life two years ago. Ralston showed his gratitude for the county's rescue effort by giving motivational speeches at high schools in Castle Dale and Green River.
Until a few years ago, when the county began to upgrade its 1,500-mile network of desert roads, few people knew much about the swell. Today, a Google search yields thousands of references to the lonesome dome of sedimentary rock measuring 50 miles long by 30 miles wide, which explains why Guymon and his deputies are called to extricate hikers, bikers, river-runners and other adventure travelers a least once a week during the summer.
Lying entirely inside Emery County, the swell has left a mark on many people who live near it. A few, repelled by its stark scenery, never venture inside. Others, such as Ravola Whittle, a 75-year-old widow who works part time at the Museum of the San Rafael, can't be without it. When the weather permits, Whittle dons a backpack and, with her daughter, Karalee Cook, goes looking for rocks to add to her collection. Along the way, they sing a rockhound-parody of the World War I song "The Caissons Go Rolling Along."
"I say, if I die, just dig a hole and bury me out here. Don't take me back to town," Whittle says.
Whittle's attraction to the swell borders on the mystical. She and her husband moved to Emery County from West Jordan six years ago to get away from the Wasatch Front "rat race." If she could rewind her life and begin anew, Whittle would study geology. But at the time she was in a hurry to graduate, marry and get on with life.
"I love the quiet calm, the dark starry nights," Whittle says. "I love the country because there is so much beauty to see. In the winter, it's straw-colored. But in the spring the valley turns green. There are acres and acres of alfalfa, which is such a beautiful green."
When her husband was living, the two would fish for dinner at Ferron Reservoir in a glacial valley west of their home in Ferron. She still savors the memories.
"There's nothing nicer than to cook a fresh trout and toss a nice salad and make hot scones to top it off, and then to relax in the evening and watch the deer and elk come out. We each had a pair of binoculars to watch as they grazed in the meadow," she says.
Tracy Jeffs is steeped in Emery County. Standing on a bluff, he looks over the homestead that has been in his family since the 19th century. On the property is a tiny log cabin built in 1880. It served as a home until Jeffs' great-grandfather could build a brick house for his wife and children. Beyond the property is the swell.
"To me, it's a living history. The love that I have for the land goes back to the people of the land, not particularly the red rocks or the deep washes. It's the people that I'm attached to and that I know they were attached to this land and that they made their living off of it," Jeffs says.
Jeffs is known around Castle Dale for staging dutch oven lunches at his garage. A few years ago, he entertained former Gov. Mike Leavitt and his staff, who ate at long tables surrounded by cars, engine hoists and floor jacks. He and friend Kenn Koford cook for the Emery High School basketball team on the day of every home game. It's a tradition Jeffs started almost 15 years ago. Last month, before the game with Moab's Grand County High School, the team ate a meal of roast beef, cooked carrots and Spanish rice.
"I love it. I just love to mix. There's no place in town to eat. We like to cook, Kenn and I. Other people like to hunt and fish. We like to cook," Jeffs said.
Jeffs also uses the lunches to build relationships between people who don't always see eye to eye. While he sometimes plays down his ardor for the swell, Jeffs is a committed conservationist and good friends with the sheriff. "When you appreciate the land for what it is, you've got to be an environmentalist," he said.
Jeffs' feelings led him to take a role in an effort four years ago to create a 620,000-acre national monument in the swell. Despite Leavitt's fury at President Clinton for declaring 1.9 million acres of southern Utah's redrock country as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, the governor called on President Bush to use his authority to protect the swell.
The monument proposal was the result of 10 years of work by the Emery County Public Lands Council, a citizens council appointed by county commissioners that included Jeffs. The proposal was rejected by local voters, upsetting Jeffs, who said the outcome ruined any chance for residents to determine how the swell will be managed in the future.
"We didn't know how to spell wilderness [when the council was created]. We just had strong feelings for the land," Jeffs said. "I still can't see why the proposal was voted down. It was a bitter pill to swallow."
The vote resulted in more of the same: Bureau of Land Management officials will continue making decisions about road closures and other hot-button issues without local guidance.
"Are we better off? Not for one minute, because the feds are running your business. That's the law," Jeffs said.
To see the swell from atop the bluff, Jeffs must look past the Hunter Power Plant, whose three stacks tower 30 stories above Castle Dale, pouring steam into the arid-clear sky. The sight arouses mixed feelings. While he wishes it weren't there, the plant is a big property-tax payer in the county, and its 200 employees are paid well. Many get their cars fixed at Jeffs' garage.
That aside, Jeffs is happy where he is, walking the same ground his ancestors pioneered, coaxing a living from the same soil, leaning into the same wind his grandfathers faced. He pities wanderers who never call a place home.
"The Navajos, they teach their children no matter how hard the wind blows, it's still their land. They teach their kids to go out in the wind so there's no more fear and hate there. I know my grandpa hated the wind. I know his grandpa hated the wind. But we're living here, and we're going to accept that wind," he said.
The next day, a winter storm pounding the Wasatch Front has pushed fierce winds into the county, picking up sand off the desert floor, whirling it into the air and cutting visibility in two. At Goblin Valley State Park, the wind keeps visitors close to their cars. Sheriff Guymon is in his police truck when his cell phone rings. It's Jeffs, calling from Castle Dale, 50 miles away.
For several minutes, Guymon listens to what sounds like a one-sided conversation. When it's over, he folds his phone and puts it away with a smile. Outside, the airborne sand has blurred the outlines of nearby buttes and mesas to a pastel wash.
"That was Tracy Jeffs," the sheriff said. "This is the wind he says he was talking about."
pbeebe@sltrib.com
This is the 24th in a series profiling Utah's 29 counties. Next: Utah County, March 26.
