Ray Wheeler

CP-LUHNA Author: The Colorado Plateau Region and The GRAND PLAN
CP-LUHNA Principal Photographer

929 Princeton Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
Telephone: (801) 355-6236

E-mail: ray.wheeler@hsc.utah.edu

Education:

Between college semesters and after earning a BA in English literature at the University of Missouri, Columbia (1974), Ray trained for a career as a freelance journalist by working as a busboy in Grand Canyon Village, a cab driver in Washington, D.C., a bicycle messenger in San Francisco, and a commercial river guide in California, Utah, Oregon, and Idaho.

Expertise:

Photojournalism and backcountry travel:

1975: Team member, EPA-funded expedition circumnavigating northern lake Michigan by open canoe to "document the quality of life" on the lake’s islands. (Project Documerica.)

1976-1977: Rephotography—two field seasons locating and matching the panoramas of William H. Holmes on the north rim of the Grand Canyon and in southern Utah

1983: Photodocumentary kayak expedition, riding the spring 1983 flood crest from Provo Lake down the Jordan River and up the eastern shoreline of the Great Salt Lake to record the affects of riverbank flooding and lakeshore dike-innundation.

1983-1990: Three to five months per year exploring, photographing, and mapping roadless areas on the Colorado Plateau.

1991: Three-month, 700-mile sea kayak voyage following the path of the Exxon Valdez oil spill from Prince William Sound across the open coast of the Gulf of Alaska and around the tip of the Kenai Penninsula to Homer.

1992-1994: Three-stage, 600-mile backpack across the core wildlands of the Colorado Plateau, from Westwater Canyon, Colorado, to Zion National Park, Utah.

1996-1997: Expedition sea kayaking, Isla de La Guardia, Mexico, and Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia.

Contributor to: American Heritage, Audubon, Defenders, High Country News, Sierra, Wilderness.

 

Reporter-at-large, Colorado Plateau Province:

Selected publications:

1983: "Whitewater Odyssey", Canyon Times, Vol 3, Issues 2-3.

1984: "The War over Wilderness", Utah Holiday,Vol XIII, No 8.

1985: " 5.7" High Country News, Vol. 27, No. 24.

1985: "Last Stand for the Colorado Plateau," High Country News, Vol. #17, Nos. 19-20.

1989: co-author, Reopening the Western Frontier. Island Press, 1989.

1990: "Two Weeks to Wander", Sierra, Vol 75, No 1.

1990: co-author, Wilderness at the Edge. The Utah Wilderness Coalition. Salt Lake City, Utah

1991: "Mapping the Wilderness", Cadence, October 1991.

1996: co-author and photo-editor, Who Would Drive a Stake into the Heart of this Incomparable Land?, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Salt Lake City, UT.

1997: A Modest Proposal to Protect for future Generations, Unaltered by Man, the Forests, Meadows, and Streams of Boulder Mountain. Colorado Plateau Institute, Salt Lake City, UT.

Conservation:

1985-1990: Design team, Utah Wilderness Coalition’s 5.1 million acre Utah BLM wilderness proposal.

1990-1994: Board Member, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

1995-1998: Cofounder and Steering Committee Chair, Wild Utah Forest Campaign

1998-1999: Cofounder and board member, Colorado Plateau Institute