Scott Thybony Commentaries

Flagstaff astrogeologist Eugene Shoemaker played a key role in the early days of lunar exploration as a world-renowned expert on impact craters. But he also had a passion for rivers. Commentator Scott Thybony once took a trip with Shoemaker to Island in the Sky, a mesa within Canyonlands National Park. That’s where Shoemaker told him about swimming Lava Falls Rapid in the Grand Canyon on a trip to retrace John Wesley Powell’s exploration of the Colorado River.  In Scott’s latest Canyon Commentary, he connects next week’s 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing with this year’s 150th anniversary of Powell’s historic river trip through the life and work of Eugene Shoemaker.

Commentator Scott Thybony isn't normally interested in legengs about buried treausre in the Southwestern desert. But even he is susceptible to a good story. In his latest Canyon Commentary, Scott shares the wild tale of a search for Aztec gold along the Arizona Strip in the 1920's. It was such a frezy, the entire town of Kanab, Utah shut down for two years during the quest to find Montezuma's treasure.

The West is a rugged place filled with outlaws, tall tales and rocky terrain. The same description could also apply to Western love stories. Writer Scott Thybony has been musing lately about tough love stories on the Colorado Plateau. He shares a few with us in his latest Canyon Commentary. 

Smokejumpers have one of the most extreme jobs in wildland firefighting, parachuting into fires in remote areas. It takes a special kind of person to hurl themself out of a plane and into the path of a forest fire; a person like Bobby Montoya. The longtime smokejumper - now retired - told KNAU's Scott Thybony, missing the job feels like a he's lost part of his body. Montoya is the focus of this month's Canyon Commentary.