Stopping Off for "One."

For my father's generation, stopping off for one was a time-honored tradition. I distinctly remember the evenings, usually on payday, when dad was late, dinner was late and mom was silently fuming. Of course in those days, the wife could say little more than, “You're late. Supper is ruined.” Dad would just shrug nonchalantly and say, “The boys wanted to stop off for one.” Or two or three.

Things were different in those days. Not only have gender relations changed dramatically, but it is inconceivable that, in this age of instantaneous and continuous communication, anyone could be hours late for dinner without explanation. Which kind of takes the fun out of it. “Honey, I'm stopping off at the tavern to relax and drink three beers with my buddies so hold off dinner,” just doesn't have the same satisfaction.

Yet, there is value in the tradition. Most days, the daily commute allows sufficient time to shed the day's travails, but some workdays require further decompression. Many times I have come home tense and surly—and have been called out for it. Rightly so. There is no need to punish your family for your own stress. Better to stop off for one, and get your shit together, before you create needless strife.

That's why I keep a fishing pole in my Jeep.

I am fortunate in that my daily 16 mile commute roughly follows the course of a small desert river. I'm sure most people who drive the road don't even think about it. But I do. Everyday. Whether it's going to work and psyching myself up or coming home and decompressing, I glance down there and think about the flowing water. Even though most days I never see it, the water flows over my mind like a soothing hand. A river, even our little brown shallow trickle, is magical. Usually just knowing it is there is enough.

But some days I need an extra dose.

The “At the beach,” text message to my wife is shorthand for my favorite access point and means that I'm stopping off for one. The river is not known for its fishing. But that's not really the point. It's the t'ai chi of the cast and reel, the flow of the water, that makes fishing so soothing and addicting.

And when the fish does bite, stopping off for one (or two or three) makes all the difference in the world.

                                         After work on the Verde, last spring.

Ramble On.

(RAM b'l): to roam about, to stroll idly.

I pull the Jeep into the little trailhead parking space and turn off the engine. There's no one around It's one of those out of the way forgotten trailheads far away from the tourists destinations of Sedona. Though an official forest service trail, this is a place that has never seen a travel writer or been blurb-ed in a hiker magazine. I get out of the Jeep and look around. It's typical high desert grassland—mixed juniper and mesquite, prickly pear and catclaw. A place only a rancher or a outlaw could love. My kind of place. I grab my trusty daybag and glance at my phone/watch: 1147 am. The rest of the day is mine.

And that’s the first rule of rambling. You need to clear your slate. It is impossible to amble, ramble, roam or wander if you have looming appointments. If you have to be back by a certain time, it kills the whole feeling of freedom and curiosity and irresponsibility that you need to ramble.

I start down the trail. As I am passingly familiar with the area, I do not carry a map, a compass, a gps or trail “guide.” This is the second rule of rambling. Don't overplan it. Pick a vague destination and stick to it until you change your mind. And by vague destination, hiking alone ,it's important to let someone know where you'll be—unless you want to end up like that guy from 127 Hours. But, once at the trail, I really don't think it's strictly necessary to stay on it.

I start up the trail. I know from past knowledge the trail makes it way up to the top of the Mogollon Rim. Like a lot of forest service trails in this area, it's a old cattle trail. The topography of the region was attractive to early cattle ranchers because of its varied climates. The winters make for a fine winter grazing inn the high desert and the high altitude pine forests just a few short miles away makes for ideal summer grazing. Of course there is the problem of a thousand foot escarpment called the “rim” in between them but the early ranchers were ingenious at pioneering routes and building trails through this rugged country. My favorite most strenuous, most scenic trails in this area are all high country cattle trails.

It is a beautiful winter day. The sky is a high altitude cobalt, the sun a warm, pleasant, and benign presence this early in the year. I guess the temp to be in the upper 50s--a perfect temperature for a strenuous hike. This trail goes up gently at first. But up it goes. I quickly fall into a fast easy pace and feel the delightful heat of clean exercise. There is a delicious zen to hiking alone through empty spaces. With no one to talk to, lead or follow, you simply walk. Your body shifts into a kind of overdrive while your mind shifts into neutral. Sometimes you mull creative problems, sometimes run scraps of silly songs through your head, but just as often you think about nothing except your footfalls on the path, your breathing, your immediate surroundings, the distant scenery. The Taoists call this wu-wi or “no doing.” You have no agenda, no purpose, no goals. You are living for the sake of living.

It is a kind of happiness that is pure and awesome. I find it hiking through the desert, floating down a river, fishing a mountain stream. Often I even find it at work. You are doing but not thinking. Living but not striving. And that is what rambling is all a bout. No have no expectations. No immediate wants or needs. People talk about out-of-body experiences, but this is the polar opposite. This is being fully a live in your body—but you've gotten yourself out of your own head. It's advice I often give to people who are overwhelmed by petty problems. “You need to get out of your own head.”

They usually don't understand. But they would, if they learned to ramble.

A little ways up the path my zen is momentarily shattered when the brush next to me explodes. A ripping, tearing, crashing snorting burst of startling noise. My heart skips before I realize it is a pack of javelina—wild peccaries--and they are running the opposite direction. Once I realize they are not attacking,they are an awesome sight. Their thick gray bodies streak through the thorns and cactus scattering in every direction. Danger passed as quickly as it appeared, I smile at the sight of such fierce and wild creatures. A privilege.

The little shot of the all-natural drug, adrenalin, helps me down the trail a little faster and a little happier. Soon the trail swings wide around a ranch property then rejoins a steep little canyon briefly before it starts the arduous switch-backing climb up the mountain. It's the canyon, though, that intrigues me. Slowly I fade off the main trail and find myself following a barbed wire fence that runs along the rim of the canyon. It's a pretty little canyon not very wide, but it's surprisingly deep. Sycamores line the bottom—a good sign of water--and looking up canyon, I can see it narrows and deepens appreciatively. My kind of place. Though I hate to leave the sunshine on the rim, the canyon calls to me and when the fence corners out into a makeshift gate—I automatically heave it aside and walk through it.

A trail descends into the canyon. Almost immediately I hear the magical sound of running water. Creeks are a miracle here in the desert and when you trip across one by accident, it's even more magical. Though it could be a seasonal flow fed by snow melt on top of the rim, this creek looks perennial to me. There are numerous sycamore trees lining the creek and the bottom of the canyon is thick and brush clogged. Luckily the trail stays a nice middle course between the creek and the canyon walls.

This is the kind of hiking I like. The route is seldom used—but it is a route-- perhaps pioneered by rancher, but now mostly kept alive by game. There are many deer prints on this trail and I duck and weave under limbs the deer can easily avoid. I lose the trail a few times but stop, backtrack, and find the path of least resistance every time. I feel like I'm being drawn into something. It's not an usual feeling in a canyon. One of the reasons I love them. There's always a sense of discovery as the canyon slowly reveals itself bend by bend. As the walls climb higher and the light grows softer, you often feel like you're returning to something ancient and holy.

I slowly weave my way in and out of the sunlight, through sandstone clefts and cottonwood limbs. The trails meanders in and out of the flood plain and in one particular flat area I start to find all kinds of broken pottery. Red, brown, orange and black on white. Someone had used this area as a camp—or a farm—1200 years ago. And left their beer bottles behind. I scout around for a while looking for interesting artifacts. It is always a singular feeling, picking up a stone tool or a piece of pottery made by stone age man. It is a direct connection to our primordial selves. On this day, however, I find nothing but pottery, which I examine and leave behind.

After a bit, the canyon temporarily widens out and there ahead me—just above the treetops is a prominent triangular point in the middle of the canyon. It catches my breath—because it is covered in man-made rubble. It looks, at a glance, like an Aztec temple—a huge pyramid towering above the trees. Of course it's a mostly natural butte that at one time housed a large pueblo on top. But still I can't help humming the theme from Indiana Jones as I bushwhack the final few yards to the hidden temple—er Sinagua ruin.

I scamper up the slope dodging slabs of building rock and chucks of pre-Columbian pottery. I get to the top and take a deep breath and admire the view. And what a view. Below me the creek completely wraps around the point in a narrow horseshoe curve. The sound of running water. The canyon transitions from red rock on the other side of the canyon to gray limestone on this side. A halk flies overhead. I sit on a perfect flat bench of a low surviving wall and enjoy a snack. Later I find some interesting and unique horizontal petroglyphs including some footprint petroglyphs that I find fascinating. I take off my shoes and compare the prints. I'm literally walking in history... Sometimes the metaphors are so obvious, they make even a former advertising copywriter cringe.

I am, for a moment, happy and at peace with the world. The world seems filled with beauty and wonders still to discover. I hadn't meant to find this place when I started my walk, but that is the art of the ramble. I could have just have easily found a rattlesnake bite. Or a sprained ankle. Or a swarm of Killer Bees. It still would've been okay because, to use a pop catch phrase popular today, “it is what it is.”

It's profound statement of wu-wei and personal enlightenment and a perfect description of a perfect ramble.

The Path of Most Resistance

"I'm going for a hike."

I raise my eyebrows in surprise and look at my son, Ari, just turned four a few days ago. The first blush of desert light radiates through his golden hair making him look like a small angel. This is a far different vision than the whining, crying little boy who had to be coaxed and coerced into the short backpack through the “bad, yucky cactus” yesterday. Having awakened in the heart of the Sonoran desert and Organ Pipe National Monument on a bright new day, however, he now seems to have revitalized his spirit of adventure.

"Oh, okay,' I tell him. "Can I come?"

"You can come, dad, but not mom."

 

 

Ah, male bonding. With no further adieu, he starts off. The desert is an open place and hiking here is a matter of picking a direction and walking. Open, but not empty. Here, we are privileged visitors in a spectacular stone garden filled with odd and wonderful plants. Huge awesome saguaro and multi-limbed organ pipes are the main features, but we have also grown to fear and enjoy the smaller, deadlier cholla, the aptly named prickly pear, and the sharp spears of agave. Clumps of more benign plant life-- the lovely palo verde tree, mesquite and other small clumps of shrubs and grasses-- also dot the stony floor for maximum artistic effect. Small, snaky washes weave their way through this peaceful setting making the desert only appear flat and level. Hike a mile or two into it and it becomes obvious it’s really a labyrinth of arroyos, sand hills, stony outcrops and gullies.

Walking then, I should correct, is a matter of pointing a rough direction and weaving forward through the spiny obstacle course like a drunk through a parking lot, to a destination that really has no meaning in such a wide-open place.

Ari weaves with the best of them. At first his turns seem aimless, but out of the chaos comes a pattern. With every turn he makes-- a conscious decision. At four-years-old, Ari is headed uphill. I follow along behind him and think how men are somehow the opposite of water. Following the path of least resistance, water always finds the truest course downhill. Men, however, like Sir Edmund Hillary pulled to the highest point of the world, have gravitated uphill, usually attempting the steepest, hardest, most direct route. A perverse, but undeniable trait of human nature. Well, make that male nature.

And Ari is no exception.

Here, we are surrounded by desert crags—- heaps of dark volcanic rock, steep loose talus, and lots of thorny obstacles. Ari’s swerves quickly bring him to a direct path up the slope of the nearest peak. Avoiding all subtlety, he takes the steepest, most direct route and soon comes to class four climbing. Hand over hand. For the first time I think it dawns in his toddler mind that he is climbing a mountain. He turns to me and grins.

"Come on, dad, its not so hard."

He climbs. I follow. Up through the Mormon tea that erupts miraculously through the basalt rock. Delicately around the prickly pear. To the left, to the right, I see gentler routes. But Ari goes straight up. Climbing with the fearlessness and confidence of innocence. "Come on dad, its not so hard," he repeats. And I watch him in utter amazement, that this child so young and new to the world should already possess these many skills. This much determination.

It shouldn't. Children are born with a certain toughness. A ready-to-do mentality. In many ways we hold them back. We spoil them mercilessly. We think of them as a helpless newborn, when in reality, once they are mobile, they are tough and terrific little creatures. Already Ari likes to help wash dishes, to vacuum the floor, to walk around behind me as I mow the lawn. Four years old and he's capable of so much. I look around at all the children I know, little packages of talent and potential, and what do we do with them? Park them in front of a television filled with idiotic video games and cartoon network trash and let them slide slowly into ruin.

I've been watching. Once you become a parent you start noticing children and start taking notes. In the past year I'd met preteen girls who could drive tractors, handle cows four times their size and play all-star quality softball. Next door we have a fourteen-year-old who dismantles and rebuilds engines in his spare time and drives the contraptions over to our house to give Ari a ride. We went kayaking with another teenage boy, quarterback of his football team, who bonded immediately with Ari and made sure he caught his first fish. I've also, however, met many, many kids who were unable to converse about anything other than television or video games. I've seen kids who are not yet out of junior high and are barely locomotive. I've heard teenagers whining like kindergarteners about a half hour chore. Kids who eat junk food from breakfast to midnight or whenever they decide to go to bed…

It's sad. I believe that all children want to be active. And I believe that all parents love their children. We want life to be pleasant for them. We want life to be pleasant for ourselves. We don't want to be bad guys. Mean parents. Uncool. Yesterday Ari was an unhappy little boy having to do "this stupid hike through all this mean cactus." And anybody who thinks it's easy to backpack with a four-year-old has never done it. But we do it because its something we love and want to share. And because the alternative is to let him retreat to his room or the TV because it's an easy way to avoid conflict. That's the path of least resistance. The downward trickle of water seeking the lowest plane.

The desert doesn't see much water. In Organ Pipe less than four inches a year. Life is rough here, but undeniably beautiful. It's a Zen garden where simplicity dominates. Where life adapts in strange and novel ways. The saguaro shrinks and swells as it holds the yearly downpour, soaks it up and stores it for the rest of the entire year. The tiny leaves on the ocotillo are designed to sip up the morning dew. The desert shrew utilizes water so efficiently that it actually passes urine that is moist air. Life is hard here and, because of that, each individual life form stands out in a unique and dynamic way.

In his own unique way, Ari climbs steadily towards the top. Our campsite far below is already a speck. I point out the view to Ari, who's interested for a moment, but then is back, scrambling towards the top of the mountain. My love for him is so intense. There are so many things I want to do for him. So many things I want to teach, explain, help him avoid. But right now, I realize my duty is get out of his way and watch him climb. There is one last rocky spot to the top. He picks the worst possible line, but the rock is hard and filled with fissures. I help him with his footing, point out the handholds and then, before we know it, he is on top. And I am beside him.

It is a glorious February Morning. From our view at the summit we can see miles in every direction. To the east is a rocky pass in the Ajo mountains—- a favorite route for smugglers. North of us is a bigger peak. To the west we can see for miles across the desert flats and plainly see the fan-shaped networks of washes that run away from us. And south lays the smoky haze of Mexico, the border just miles from where we stand. Ari is triumphant and joyous. He waves to his mother, a speck in camp below us. I shake my head in wonder. I know for a fact there are few four year olds who have summited, on their own power, a desert mountain.

 

I know for a fact there are very few who are given the opportunity.

--February 6, 2000 Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Edward Abbey Ruined My Life.

When I was a young man I was consumed with a blazing ambition to move to a big city, earn a fortune in the advertising biz, live the urban hipster life, then parlay my business contacts into a lucrative writing career and live a life as huge and as different as a rural, farm boy could possibly conceive.

Being promptly fired from, not one but, two small ad agencies within my first year might have deterred most people, but I was committed to The Dream. I tossed my Smith Corona typewriter and my few meager possessions into the Oldsmobile and headed towards the West Coast where I was positive the hipper agencies would “get” me and, if not, then I’d simply break into the screenwriting business and effectively leap ahead of the first part of The Plan.

On the way, I stopped to visit an older brother who had just started a business in Sedona, Arizona. 1984 was a boom year in Sedona, as people were just then discovering the sleepy little retirement village in the middle of nowhere. There were jobs aplenty and my brother convinced it me it was worth hanging out for a while and fattening up my meager cash reserves. Within two weeks, I was living in my brother’s shed and had five part-time jobs. Someday, I knew, the story was going to look good in my autobiography.

Anyway, entertainment (and women) were scarce in Sedona in those days and I passed my time by basically hiking and reading and drinking a lot of beer. The hiking was all new to me. Nobody ever hiked in the Midwest unless they ran out of gas. But there was something about the desert, the light, the sweat and the solitude that started to suck me in. On my days off I found myself venturing deeper and deeper into territory I knew nothing about and had never imagined existed. Not only was it scenic and beautiful, but there was something magical about the hiking itself. It was a workout with beautiful distraction. It was meditation with endorphins.



Between the physical labor and the hiking I was getting shape for the first time of my life…

At the same time, I attended a book sale at the tiny uptown Sedona library and picked up a paperback book entitled Desert Solitaire. I had never heard of it before or the author (an ugly looking fellow by the name of Edward Abbey) but it was 25 cents so I took it home to my shed.

“This is the most beautiful place on earth,” Abbey began and I was hooked.

Written about his one year as ranger at a, then, little known national park called Arches, Desert Solitaire was both poem and tirade, manifesto and musing. To Abbey the wilderness was not some mystic, idyllic happy place, but a place where wildness ruled and humans were but a visitor. He abhorred development, regulations and roads. Of national parks he wrote, “A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their way; let them take risks for godsake, let them get lost, sun-burnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive by avalanches—that is the right and privilege of every free American.” This was no David Thoreau or Walt Whitman. Here was a beer-drinking, cigar chomping, frontier rabble-rouser.

Abbey’s work was an exposition of an entire worldview that I could have never known existed—but had felt wordless inklings of on my own meager ventures into the backcountry. Suddenly it all made sense. It was, in point of fact, a life as huge and as different as a Midwestern farm boy such as myself could have ever conceived.

From the moment I closed that 25 cent paperback book, my urban hipster life was over before it ever began. Instead of continuing to the West Coast, I stayed in the Sedona area and kept hiking (and kept accepting promotions at the grocery store). Today I no longer live in my brother’s shed, but I’m still exploring. Abbey doomed me to forever haunt the trails and backcountry on my days off like some ghost of my former self. Doomed me to the unbreakable addiction of physical activity and solitude. Doomed me to a life of beautiful poverty.

Thank you. I think.


@photographs by Mark Hofmann