Southern Utah

APPLE VALLEY -- The tiny town of Apple Valley in southern Utah is set to vote on dissolving its government.

"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself."

-- Soren Kierkegaard

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my considerable fear of heights, and how my friend and neighbor -- canyoneering ninja Shane Holst -- was attempting to help me master that fear. His brilliant plan, in a nutshell, involved taking me to Southern Utah over Memorial Day weekend, attaching me to a rope, and pushing me off the side of the first dizzyingly deep canyon we came to. (Imagine Shane's remedy if I'd told him I have a fear of bees; I'd be writing this covered in large, red welts right now.)

And just in case anyone is interested in the final score, here's how Shane's patented Acrophobia Intervention Plan shakes out:

Saal -- 3

Southern Utah canyons -- 0

That's right, people. I came, I saw, I kicked some red rock.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring better pollution controls at two of Utah's oldest coal-fired power plants to reduce haze that the agency says has cut views by half across national parks and wilderness areas.

ST. GEORGE — Authorities in southern Utah say they found three people shot to death Thursday inside a house in the town of Central in what appears to be a murder-suicide.

SALT LAKE CITY — The sole survivor of a crash that killed an adult and four teens in rural northwest Arizona was "doing better" at a Utah hospital, a family member said.

ST. GEORGE -- Somewhere beneath the waters of the Virgin River -- perhaps even of Lake Mead more than 100 miles downstream -- lie the remains of two Boy Scouts killed 50 years ago in a flash flood that swept through the Zion National Park Narrows.

A skull fragment recovered from the river five years ago and believed to be from one of the flood victims is evidence of the passage of time since the deadly incident. Even now, the memory of that day in September 1961 doesn't rest easily for one of the survivors of the ill-fated trek undertaken by a wilderness expedition group called Socotwa.