Mapping the Way to Self-reliance

Gneiss, conveniently poking out of a slope above the Phoneline Trail where the canyon begins tightening into a parade of offset V's. There was a four-armed saguaro on the slope below, its appendages swirling outward like a spiral galaxy, and below that the whispered fugue of the creek's miniature rapids. I sat there again, and pondered what this canyon had meant in my life. I sensed the same benevolent embrace I had felt the night of the meteor shower. Aldo Leopold, the ecologist and writer, argued for seeing the land “as a community to which we belong,” after which we may “begin to use it with love and respect.” Belonging to the community of saguaros and great blue herons and mountain lions and yes, Homo sapiens, demands a sound mind and a fully functioning sense of responsibility. Anything less and we're on the way to destroying that community, along with ourselves. Even on that fuzzy winter day of 1995 I understood this. A canyon in the neighborhood-what a gift.

OUTBACK ARIZONA Mapping the Way to Self-reliance

The winter holidays at our house were festive with cookies, decorations and guests, but not too gifty. We'd wrap modest gifts for each other and enjoy the season's cheer. Sometime in my late teens, maps started arriving from Santa. Fascinated by unknown places, I was lured to see the other side of the mountain. I was amazed to learn that peaks and ridges I could see from home had names-names that I'd never heard. Maybe it was the echoing voice of Mr. Woodruff, geography teacher, or the effect of our family's cross-country summer vacations, or just some inherited wanderlust, but something inside wanted this young man to go west, and east and north and south. Like most teens, I wondered where I fit in. Pulling petals off flowers, I asked: Will I pass? Will I make the team? Does she love me? What's it all mean? I wasted a lot of energy worrying, moping and acting bored. I needed a map. My folks didn't presume to offer me a guidebook; they were too subtle for that. Instead they nodded and gave me keys to an old car. Maps in hand, my buddies and I started exploring.

With Gerry, a teammate on the track squad, we found great spots along the Black River to throw down our sleeping bags and catch trout. Kurt and I camped in an abandoned ranch house below Mount Fagan, though we never quite mastered the subtleties of getting biscuit batter to bake evenly. Somehow a group of us survived five days of tubing on a stretch of the upper Salt River during monsoon rains-we'd ride several muddy rapids and then walk back for another run. At night we slept in soggy sleeping bags beside the roaring water.

On a map of Cochise County, I stumbled upon the name Paramore Crater and drove down one Saturday. The hole's not nearly as impressive as some others in the state, but to this day I can picture the rancher leaning on the gatepost and chatting about horses and movies for an hour.

In Pine Canyon, a blacktailed rattler gave me due respect and slithered out of sight. At the confluence of Havasu Creek and the mighty Colorado, I once met river hero Ken Sleight. On another trip, pioneer rafter Georgie White winked and tossed Lothar and me a can of peaches. I delighted in sharing my maps with friends.

The skunks at a campsite below Barfoot Spring licked my carelessly unwashed supper dishes, but they didn't spray me-even though their tails brushed my head as I hunkered motionless inside my sleeping bag.

At Big Lake, an old-timer saw our futile casts and gave Dick and me one of his favorite lures. Carol and I hiked to Lemmon Creek and marveled at trout in the pools below massive boulders. Near Cibecue one day I caught a ride in Joe Black's logging truck-on a whim I asked him as he waited to load. He didn't know me from a tree stump, but said, “Sure.” After all that, I began to see that this gangly city kid might eventually fit in. The world was willing if I was.

With a topo map in my pocket, I could go at my pace, follow a trail or make my own way, flail the stream with a trout fly or crouch beside an anthill to see what the endless lines were bring-ing home. And I found I could endure sitting on unpadded rocks, sleeping on bare ground and carrying all I needed in something the size of a grocery bag. Wind felt good, things glowed at sunrise and the world didn't end at dusk. Sometimes I came home with a bruised knee or bloodied elbow, but that happened in town, too. Somehow my folks trusted me in the world and assumed that the world would teach me whatever I needed to know.

But if the great outdoors is a beautiful, patient teacher, it's also a demanding taskmaster. First I had to learn how to read a map and tell directions. Then, to reach someplace up the trail, I had to rely on my own two feet. Juvenile whining, wishing, cussing or charm couldn't make it one step shorter. When rain fell, I had to put up my shelter or get drenched. The skillet didn't wash itself, and the price of clumsiness was pain, so I learned to laugh at myself instead of cry. The gift of self-reliance must have been in that roll of maps, too, though I hadn't noticed it at the time. Maps got my nose out of a book, lured me out of my room and dragged me outside of myself, out where Earth's enormity, majesty and many kindnesses both humbled and strengthened me. Maps led me to see my state, Arizona, and the state helped raise me. Imagine. All that in a simple roll of maps.

This gangly city kid might eventually fit in. The world was willing if I was.