Deseret News | Recalling Ray: Top 10 adventures with a great reporter

Recalling Ray: Top 10 adventures with a great reporter

By Tom Smart
Deseret News

Published: Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008 1:57 p.m. MDT

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A news photographer has no better friend than an outdoors writer. I hit the gold mine with Deseret News outdoors editor Ray Grass, who retired last week after 47 years at the paper.

On his last week of "work," Ray and I rafted down the Colorado River through Cataract Canyon and into Lake Powell. It was a typical Ray assignment, one in which we were on the company payroll to do what everyone else paid big dollars for and traveled far to experience. Ray, as he always does, reminded me that we were working and could therefore have no fun.

Floating down the river in a life vest in a calm-water area looking up at the brilliant blue sky and red cliffs, I had a deja vu moment as I recalled floating down the same river 27 years ago with Ray.

My wife, Heidi, and I had just become parents. Ray brought a former Deseret News copy girl, Carol, a blond-haired beauty he had met while he was an 18-year-old copy boy and later talked into becoming his wife. That bit of finagling remains Ray's most significant accomplishment at the paper.

In the canyon where the timeline is measured in millions of years, the scenery seemed unchanged. Ray and I, however, are now grandparents and hats protect us from the sun's rays where hair used to do the job. Life just isn't going to be the same without Ray at the paper. I started thinking about what might make the "top 10" adventures that I've had with Ray in the last 37 years.

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1. Skiing: There are dozens of ski adventures with Ray, including cat skiing off Windy Ridge, skiing the Interconnect and powder skiing with Stein Eriksen at Deer Valley — before Deer Valley existed. My favorite ski assignment was at Alta following Alf Engen's tracks while hiking over the pass from the old Germania lift to get to the pristine powder on the Yellow Trail and Greeley Bowl. The 80-something, rotund Engen would look behind at us and yell, "We are regular mountain goats today" and then bounce gracefully through the untouched powder below. What a day, what a man, what a memory. On a side note, Ray has beaten me in every media day ski race we've been in. The old man rules.

2. Mountain Man National Rendezvous in the Uinta Mountains: Ray and I arrived with the promise that we would have a tepee to sleep in and authentic clothes to wear. What we didn't know was that they wouldn't allow modern-day clothing within two miles of camp. Ray and I stripped and hiked the two miles barefoot in a couple of leather hides someone let us wrap around our waists. It gave new meaning to the phrase "girding your loins." I also smile at remembering Ray needing to choose between his modesty and participating in the genuine sweat lodge.

3. Cataract Canyon: In fact, every southern Utah trip.