Desert Solitaire

The book is a passionate, autobiographical defense of the American wilderness and a harsh critique of industrial tourism in national parks. Abbey recounts his time working as a seasonal park ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah. It serves as a foundational text for the modern radical environmental movement.

Abbey worked as a seasonal ranger at Arches during the summers of 1956 and 1957, long before the area was paved and designated a National Park. He used these isolated months to document the harsh beauty of the Colorado Plateau. The book wasn't published until 1968.

Yes, the book contains Abbey's famous, inflammatory essays advocating for the dismantling of the Glen Canyon Dam and the draining of Lake Powell. He argues that the dam destroyed a pristine, beautiful canyon ecosystem to provide water and power to sprawling cities. This sentiment coined the term "monkeywrenching" in environmental circles.

It is generally classified as non-fiction nature writing and autobiography, though Abbey admitted to compressing timelines and events for narrative effect. He combined his multiple seasons at Arches into a single, highly dramatized year. Despite these literary liberties, it is celebrated for its raw, truthful observations of the desert.