We Lost Ken Sleight at 97

For those us who forged our environmental passions by reading Ed Abbey, falling in love with our own red rock country, and embracing the visceral and uncompromising connection we have for Wilderness, Ken Sleight has always been an inspiration.

From the Salt Lake Tribune
October 3, 2026

Ken Sleight may be most well known for something that he probably never did: kneeling on the bridge in front of the Glen Canyon Dam, his hands clasped and eyes closed, praying to the Almighty to produce a “precision-type earthquake” that would free the Colorado River from its imprisonment in Lake Powell.

The Sleight-inspired character Seldom Seen Smith acted out the scene in “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” Edward Abbey’s 1975 cult classic of ecosabotage. But although the character was fictional, Sleight’s lifelong hatred of the dam was very real, as was his love of Glen Canyon, the area drowned by Lake Powell.

“It was Glen Canyon that changed my whole life,” Sleight told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2018. “It made an environmentalist out of me.”

Sleight died Friday, Spanish Valley Mortuary in Moab confirmed. He was 97.

“We just lost such a wonderful person,” John Weisheit, director of Living Rivers and friend and mentee of Sleight’s, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Saturday.

“We need more Ken Sleights, not less,” he added.

Please read the rest at the Salt Lake Tribune.