Reporters go extra 9 miles for new book

Jerry and Donna Spangler have some good news and some uh-oh news.

The good news: They've finally finished Jerry's book on Utah's Nine Mile Canyon, a 14-year labor of love that details an archaeological and anthropological wonder Jerry calls "one of the most amazing places in America."

The uh-oh news: They've lost their excuse to go camping every weekend.

Like most books about history, there's a history about the book. The story behind this one began in 1989 when Jerry was, as he writes in the book's preface, "a young, eager-beaver graduate student seeking potential thesis topics." He chose Nine Mile Canyon, the inaptly named crevice that starts just outside Price and ends 50 miles later in the Green River below the Uintas. For an ardent archaeologist like Jerry, hiking into a canyon that arguably has more ancient rock art per square inch than anywhere in America was love at first site.

On the way to getting his master's degree in anthropology from Brigham Young University, with an emphasis in archaeology, he became as learned about the epic history surrounding the long-ago and not-so-long-ago inhabitants of Nine Mile Canyon as just about anyone who wasn't actually there.

But it wasn't until he met and married Donna three years ago that the book he constantly talked about writing became as real as the canyon it details.

The two met at the Deseret Morning News, where they are both reporters, and discovered all kinds of kindred similarities: They're both from Oregon, they're both journalists and they both like getting lost where there's a lot of dirt. They were married on top of a plateau outside Moab in a ceremony performed by late and legendary Deseret News columnist Gib Twyman, if that gives you a clue as to their nature.

Anyway, when Donna learned that Jerry had this other love in his life that went by the name of Nine Mile Canyon, the new Mrs. Spangler said, essentially, "Well, let's go check her out."

In the years since, she's encouraged Jerry to spend all the time he's wanted in Nine Mile Canyon, as long as she got to go, too.

And while he's at it, why not put all that information he's acquired down on paper?

After dozens and dozens of nights sleeping under the stars in central Utah (and sometimes under the roof at the National 9 Motel in Wellington when the temperature dropped below freezing), the result is "Horned Snakes and Axle Grease" by Jerry D. Spangler and Donna K. Spangler (190 pages, Uinta Publishing, $16.95, www.uintapublishing.com).