Arizona's Wilderness Rangers

the town now and then. But when the dust has settled on the dance floor, he's ready to go back to the Superstitions. They're home and always have been.

"In 1913 my grandfather came to this country as foreman for the Clements Cattle Company out of Florence. They had three ranches on the eastern end of the Superstitions. My grandad bought out two of the ranches. My dad was Born and schooled on our ranch. So three generations of Martins have lived in the Superstitions. I learned to ride about the same time I learned to walk. I grew up in those mountains... working cattle, riding fence, hunting, and camping out . . . so I know the Super stitions pretty well."

He majored in agriculture at Arizona State University, worked in fire sup pression for the Forest Service for a couple of years, and managed the recreational facilities at Saguaro Lake, 35 miles northeast of Phoenix, until a position opened up in the Superstitions. "In wilderness management you get more attached to an area than you do to a job," he says. "I'd rather work out in the mountains than take a desk job at a higher pay grade."

His background in ranching helped qualify him for the Wilderness Ranger position, a job in which it is necessary to be in top physical condition to endure long hours hiking or riding. He has to have a good working knowledge of horses and mules and be able to act quickly and efficiently in emergencies in remote areas. Also, he must be able to relate to the public and be prepared to answer questions regarding his specific area. Above all, he must know every canyon, ridge, water hole, and trail in the wilderness.

With wilderness use in the Super stitions increasing every year, George must have help from volunteers to clear brush and remove rocks and debris from the miles of trails. Volunteer crews also destroy rock fire-rings left by campers and haul out trash. "The object of wilderness management," says George, "is to preserve the solitude and naturalness of an area. Evidence of human use has to be minimized. When we are working we use green, blue, or brown backpacks that will blend into the surroundings. We keep our Forest Service radios turned low or leave them behind."

Maintenance jobs must be done with hand tools. "That means no chain saws, jackhammers, helicopters, or vehicles," he says. Prospectors often leave behind heavy tools, equipment, and camping gear instead of carrying them out. "Once we had to remove an abandoned car," says George. "That took some thought. I finally rode in on a mule, dissected the car with a cutting torch, and got Sierra Club members to help me pack it out."

With the permission of the Forest Supervisor, motorized vehicles, equipment, and mechanical transport may be used in emergencies, such as fighting fires or saving lives. To evacuate victims of crimes, accidents, or illness, George can decide whether to call a state agency helicopter or pack the person out on horseback. "If there's any doubt about the seriousness of the situation, I don't take chances - I call the helicopter," he says. Because he knows the country, he also is usually asked to fly on search and rescue operations with the Sheriff's Department.

"Problems are increasing here because of the number of visitors," George says. "There are three horse and two backpacking outfitters now. We have invasions by motorcycles, sand buggies, four wheelers, bikes and even hang gliders. The two main trail heads handle about 30,000 people in the six-month peak season. Most of them are here because of the proximity to Phoenix. Some of them have read the legends of the Lost Dutchman Mine and want to prospect for gold. If we could get people to spread out, use the other trails on the east end more, it would help reduce the impact. There are a lot of good alternatives for hiking and trail riding near here Four Peaks and the Goldfield Mountains, for instance. We have so many people now, we might have to go to a permit system in the future."

During the slack summer months, George tries to catch up with his paper work in the Mesa District Office. Whenever he can, he speaks to groups of adults as well as school children about the uses and abuses of wilderness. "People don't understand the use of wilderness," he says. "They think it is an area that's locked up. Wilderness is for people. And it's not only for the macho super-fit. We have a lot of hiking groups over 50 years of age. Enjoying the wilderness is mainly knowing what you can do."

Northwest of the Superstitions, in central Arizona, the Mazatzal Mountains rise bluntly from the desert basin. "Mazatzal" is an Indian word meaning"empty space between." The Mazatzal Wilderness is 30 miles long and up to 15 miles wide, framed on the west by the Verde River and on the east by the Tonto Basin. Containing 205,202 acres, the Mazatzal is the second largest Forest Service Wilderness in the Arizona and New Mexico area. In the north and west are gentle hills of juniper, piñon and cypress. Bartlett Reservoir, in the south, is 2600 feet high, surrounded by dry desert shrub and arid grasslands. Rocky Hills cut by hundreds of spring-fed drainages. The deep canyons and sheer escarpments of the central and eastern mountains are nearly inaccessible. Mazatzal Peak is 7904 feet high, saddled by thick stands of ponderosa pine and small pockets of Douglas fir. Somewhere in the Mazatzals, hikers can find good weather all year. Nearly 200 miles of trails web this land of broad extremes. There are no guides, no outfitters, only the Mazatzals.

second largest Forest Service Wilder ness in the Arizona and New Mexico area. In the north and west are gentle hills of juniper, piñon and cypress. Bart lett Reservoir, in the south, is 2600 feet high, surrounded by dry desert shrub and arid grasslands. Rocky Hills cut by hundreds of spring-fed drainages. The deep canyons and sheer escarpments of the central and eastern mountains are nearly inaccessible. Mazatzal Peak is 7904 feet high, saddled by thick stands of ponderosa pine and small pockets of Douglas fir. Somewhere in the Mazat zals, hikers can find good weather all year. Nearly 200 miles of trails web this land of broad extremes. There are no guides, no outfitters, only the Mazatzals.

Old fire scars are still visible and mining companies left a few open pits, but essentially the Mazatzals have been lightly touched by man. The Sinagua culture, with Hohokam and Salado influences, inhabited the mountains from about A.D. 700 to 1300. For over 300 years, until the 19th century, the Apaches dominated all the mountains of the Southwest, using them for hunting grounds, ceremonial grounds, and strongholds from which to attack their enemies.

Craig Epstein is the Wilderness Ranger for the Payson District of the Tonto National Forest and is responsible for the northeast section of the Mazatzals. Born and raised in rural Wisconsin, he always liked camping. "I was oriented more toward nature and animals than toward organized sports," he says. Tall, lanky, shy, with thick blond hair, he looks like the mountain man he is.

After moving to Scottsdale with his family in 1963, Craig and his older brother spent three winters in the Mazatzals, hunting and trapping what they needed for food and clothing, learning about the country firsthand. They made their own articles from fur and leather, set traps, and taught themselves the art of handling pack mules. Later, he worked on ranches and at sawmills as well as on fire crews. Craig's first season with the Forest Service was spent in Idaho planting trees. He has no formal college education. In 1977 he was hired as Wilderness Ranger for the Cave Creek District of the Tonto because of his knowledge of the Mazatzals. When a position opened up in the more rugged eastern portion, he took it.

The best part of his job, which is much like George Martin's, is just living the Mazatzals. A self-sufficient bachelor, Craig lives in a cabin he built on an old homestead, which he owns near Payson. He has his own string of mules, which he contracts to the Forest Service for search and rescue missions or to pack in range, watershed, wildlife people, and archeologists who are making studies of the area.

Large organized groups create his biggest problems. "Most outdoor groups are teaching survival skills that are no longer relevant," he says. "The leaders of these groups need to be educated on wilderness ethics leaving the country as much as possible the way they found it. That means no big fire pits, no trenching around tents, no cutting down trees to build lean-tos, no burying of garbage which wild animals will dig up."

Like Martin, Craig would be eligible for promotion to other positions. But he'd rather stay working in the Mazatzals. He says simply of his job, "it's something I like to do."

In 1976, the Forest Service began an inventory of roadless, undeveloped lands within the federal domain to determine what could be added to the Wilderness Preservation System. Teams consisting of Forest Service specialists were chosen to do the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation, known as RARE II. An earlier inventory had been made in 1972, which was called RARE I. RARE II consisted of a careful study of vegetation, physiography, fish and wildlife, climate, water resources, timber, range, minerals and energy, recreation potential, and social and economic factors. A proposed addition to the Arizona Wilderness System was 163,751 acres of the Blue Range in Apache National Forest.

South of Springerville, the Blue, as natives call it, is a part of the Mogollon Rim, the gigantic fault line that separates the high plateau of northern Arizona from the desert basin below. From the chipped edge of the Rim, drainages fall away steeply, cutting deep canyons. High piney ridges, and points of erosion-resistant rock form the range of peaceful, smoky mountains called the Blue. Settled along the bottom of the range is the Blue River, shallow, clear, and friendly. Homesteader-ranchers came here in the 1880s, and their descendents stayed on. Following the course of the Blue are cabins, small farms, orchards, and a graded road connecting neighbor to neighbor.

In the fall of 1977, Don Hoffman began a RARE II inventory of the Blue for the Alpine and Clifton Ranger districts. He walked over 200 miles, taking pictures, mapping trails, and making notes about trail conditions, plant and animal life, man-made developments, and archeological and historic sites. He also began a visitor-use report to see how many people used the Blue. After completing the inventory, he decided to stay.

Don and his wife Jane, both from Connecticut, are now pioneering in a cabin on property purchased on a tributary of the Blue. Don built a barn and corrals for his mules and hopes to start a new cabin this year. They have a garden and raise goats, chickens, and mules. Don, with a master's degree in forestry from Northern Arizona University, is a Recreation and Land Assistant, acting as Wilderness Ranger for the Blue Range Primitive Area, which has no Wilderness Ranger position.

Jane is naturally pretty with dark brown hair and a quiet manner. She stays home with their new son. A weaver, she enjoys her peace and solitude as much as Don does his. When he is on the trails for three or four days, she does weaving, bakes bread, sews, quilts, and tends the animals and garden.

A young man with long sandy hair and thoughtful blue eyes, Don is articulate about his job and the wilderness. He loves the Blue as it is and says, "We came here because the country was undeveloped, not to 'improve' it or 'civilize' it." He is deeply committed to the objectives of wilderness management. As he sees it, "National Forests have always been managed according to the principles of multiple use: range, timber, watershed, wildlife, and recreation. Wilderness is the sixth multiple use. It's a use unto itself."

Since they have lived on the Blue, Don has admittedly changed his point of view, from a highly idealistic "wilderness must be preserved at all costs," to a more realistic one, a balance between the feelings of hunters and ranchers who use the area, and his own ideas.

He believes that his primary job is providing a service to the people who use the wilderness. Resource protection and education of the public about the wilderness ethic are his goals.

"Most Americans were raised with the pioneer concept of 'conquering the wilderness' with an axe and long rifle.

The idea of fighting or conquering is destructive. It defeats our purpose, which is to preserve. With wilderness shrinking and the population increasing, we need to save something for the future.

"Recreation can be compatible with wilderness,"says Hoffman."In the past, it was common for every camp to cut down live trees and construct lean-tos and other camp furniture. More of today's recreationists, though, are going into the wilderness just to be part of it, not to alter it. That," he says professionally, "is low-impact use."

High usage in the Blue occurs from April through October. When he is not on the trails, or in the office doing paper work, he gives talks and slide shows on "the wilderness ethic" to schools and civic groups, working, in total, nine months out of each year. The rest of the time he spends with Jane working on their property and just living on the Blue.

George Martin, Craig Epstein, and Don Hoffman three uncommon young men of very different backgrounds, education, and experience counterparts of the men who molded the character of the American West the rancher, the mountain man, and the homesteader. Alike only in their love of the land and a common commitment to the wilderness and its eternal values.

WILDERNESS ETHICS A Short Course in Good Manners

by John Annerino "The richest values of wilderness lie not in the days of Daniel Boone, nor even in the present, but rather in the future."

Gone are the days when a man could pitch camp with little regard for his environment or those who followed in his footsteps. Our once vast planet has become a global village, and this fact is no more evident than in our nation's Wildernesses. Once limitless and truly primeval, our wild lands are getting crowded. "In 1975, by the best estimate, Americans spent some forty-two million days hiking in the nation's wild and semi-wild places a sixteen-fold increase since 1945." Unfortunately, we are part of the problem, and unless we exercise more self-restraint, these primeval gems will soon be inundated by an avalanche of noise, litter, and footprints.

But nobody wants to flee the harness of civilization only to have their wilderness experience restricted by government regulations, not you, not me, not the "free spirits." Though that's exactly what has happened to Wildernesses adjacent to large cities and will happen to more remote Wildernesses if we don't change some of our bad habits and start living in harmony with nature. Fortunately, numerous texts, conservation groups, and outdoor schools have established guidelines for us to use in order to keep our wilderness areas from taking on the appearance of suburban alleys. The U.S. Forest Service's "Backcountry Ethics" is the most succinct of these guides.

Setting Camp

Avoid camping in meadows; you'll trample grass.

Pick a campsite where you won't need to clear away vegetation or level a tent site.

Use an existing campsite, if available. Camp 300 feet from streams or springs. State law prohibits camping within 1/4 mile of an only available water source (for wildlife and livestock).

Do not cut trees, limbs, or brush to make camp improvements. Carry aluminum tent poles.

Breaking Camp

Before leaving camp, naturalize the area. Replace rocks and wood used; scatter needles, leaves, and twigs on the campsite.

Scout the area to be sure you've left nothing behind. Everything you packed into your camp should be packed out. Try to make it appear as if no one had been there.

Campfires

Use gas stoves when possible, to conserve dwindling supplies of firewood.

If you need to build a fire, use an existing campfire site.

If you need to clear a new fire site, keep it small and select a safe spot. Make your campfire away from rock ledges that would be blackened by smoke; away from meadows where it would destroy grass and leave a scar; away from dense brush, trees, and duff where it would be a fire hazard.

Clear a circle of all burnable materials. Dig a shallow pit for the fire. Keep the sod intact.

Put your fire cold out before leaving, by mixing coals with dirt and water. Feel it with your hand. If it's cold out, cover the ashes in the pit with dirt, replace the sod, and naturalize the disturbed area.

Pack it in Pack it out Bring trash bags to carry out all trash that cannot be completely burned.

Aluminum foil and aluminum-lined packages won't burn up in your fire. Compact them and put them in your trash bag.

Cigarette butts, pull-tabs, and gum wrappers are litter, too. They can spoil a campsite.

Don't Bury Trash!

Animals dig it up. Try to pack out trash left by others. Your good example may catch on.

Do Not Wash in Streams or Springs

Wash yourself, your dishes, and your clothes in a container.

Food scraps, toothpaste, even bioPour wash water on the ground away from streams and springs.

Bury Human Waste

When nature calls, select a suitable spot at least 100 feet from open water, campsites, and trails. Dig a hole 4 to 6 inches deep. Try to keep the sod intact.

After use, fill in the hole completely, burying waste and paper; then tramp in the sod.

Improper disposal of human waste can spoil and pollute the backcountry. Fortunately, the top layer of soil is alive with bacteria that decompose human waste.

Don't Short Cut Trails

Trails are designed and maintained to prevent erosion.

Cutting across switchbacks and trampling meadows can create a confusing maze of unsightly trails.

Remember too that federal law prohibits disturbing historic and prehistoric sites. Do not dig in sites or remove objects.

Today the Wilderness Challenge is no longer being able to survive in the wilderness, but rather the ability of wilderness to survive the onslaught of Man.

Maple trees and spring wildflowers in Marshall Gulch, Pusch Ridge Wilderness. With just a little help from its friends, pure wilderness like this will remain pure.