Walks of Life: your Journey back to nature

By Doug Wheat

Walks of Life empowers the reader with the tools and inspiration to take the leap back to nature. It reaches out to everyone who might not be wholly civilized, to those whose dispositions include some cast of the romantic and adventurous, who might consider trading the sweet air of forest and desert for that of the city, the melodies of birds for sounds of traffic, the campfire for a computer screen, the stars for a ceiling. It is for those who wish to experience mountains as art, canyons as music, deserts as poetry—not worthless real estate. It has everything needed for those aspiring to go beyond the day hike stage and put together their own adventures instead of purchasing them. Walks of Life is crafted to inspire a thirst for the wild and motivation to walk in its wonder. It is full of humor, stories of exploration, and practical instruction, while every page rings in a celebration of natural history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684568857

Book preview

cover.jpg

Walks of Life

Your Journey Back to Nature

Doug Wheat

Copyright © 2019 Doug Wheat

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2019

Photos by author unless otherwise noted.

ISBN 978-1-68456-883-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68456-885-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Author's Introduction

Part I - Over the Big Divide

Chapter 1 - To the Land of Natural History

Science Festival

Prehistoric Walking

Bones of the Trailblazers

The Big Divide

Romance of the Wilderness

Chapter 2 - Wandering Far and Wide

Chapter 3 - Happy Campers

Chapter 4 - Lost, but Not Too Lost

The Crazy Swede

Navigating the Earth

The Forms of Cynthia

Chapter 5

Under Four Inches of Snow

Century of the Environment

Part II - The Western Cordillera

Table of Maps, Charts, and Illustrations

Chapter 6 - United Kingdoms

The Prevailing Westerlies

Life Zones

The Aviators

Flowers, Carpets, and Shrubs

A Geologic Odyssey

Foundations of the Western Cordillera

Procession of the Seasons in the Western Cordillera

Chapter 7 - The Magnificent Seven

The Colorado Plateau

Sierra Nevada

Basin and Range

Cascade Range

Pacific Coast Ranges

Columbia Plateau

The Rocky Mountains

Part III - Doing Mountains

Chapter 8 - Maps!

Bringing the Landscape to Life with USGS Maps

Orienting a Map

Language of Topography

Reading the Land

Dark Canyon

Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness

Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

Death Valley Wilderness

BLM Briefing

Chapter 9 - A Limited Stock of Necessities

Provision Kits

Boots, Blisters, and the Agony of Defeet

Specialty Items for Consideration

Chapter 10 - Cuisine McBackpack

Breakfast Ideas

Lunch Ideas

Supper Ideas

Dessert Ideas.

General Suggestions

Chapter 11 - The Pleasures of Camp Craft

Campsite Considerations

The Call of the Campfire

The Bivouac

Modifications for Winter Snow Camping

Modifications for the Desert

Chapter 12 - Other Portals to Wilderness

Hauling Ass in the Wild

River Trails

Coastline Sea Kayaking Trails

Part IV - Back to Nature

A Story Inspired by Natural Events

Mighty Hydrogen and the Universal Fundamental Forces

The Stars Are Born

Great Transformations

Intergalactic → Interstellar → Interplanetary Space

Accretion Happens

Life Begins

Photosynthesis Saves the Day

Ancient Events Revealed in the Grand Canyon

One Billion Years Ago

The Medusa, the Sponge, and the Worm

The Cambrian Explosion

Back to the Future

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

To Clarice

never a day on the trail without you

Author’s Introduction

Where did the pages that end with the back cover come from? I walked into the high school classroom for first time in ’68. In those days, teachers were not forced to follow a script as they are today. They developed their own curricula based on their own experience and education. We were always looking for the most interesting knowledge from the most interesting people and sources to offer our students. Teachers in those days were creators, not followers. The administration’s task was to help and facilitate the teacher-based curriculum. We built new courses, like Geology of the Pikes Peak Region, Ecology of the Pikes Peak Region, Geology of the Rocks and Minerals, Ecosystems of the West, and others. Where did we go to learn about all these things? The field, where nature is instructor. That was what education was all about through the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, when the wilderness was offered everywhere it could be found in the Pikes Peak Region during the school year, then across the Southern Rockies and the Colorado Plateau in summer, on the trail in the winter woods, and deep in wilderness canyons on river expeditions. It was no problem because the kids loved it, parents encouraged it, and the school administration tolerated it. It seemed like a good thing to get the kids out on the trail and into the land of natural science, what we called the University of the Universe. I discovered that the wild enhances student interest in science, and vice versa, an appreciation of science enhances any wilderness experience.

Part 1, "Over the Big Divide," asks, Why go wild? Why devote a part of your life to nature’s calling? It is about love and happiness found when we look with new eyes, when we feel awe, when we begin a transformation in our relationship with the universe.

Part 2, "The Western Cordillera," embraces the Western Cordillera, home of most of our wilderness. It is a land holding an unsurpassed number of individual mountain ranges, thousands of glacial lakes, two massive plateaus harboring the grandest canyons, the stark and compelling beauty of the desert, and the biggest, oldest, and tallest trees in the world. Rest in the shade of a saguaro cactus. Hike for days in the tundra. Part 2 investigates each of the seven kingdoms of the Western Cordillera, its terrain, exploration, geologic history, ecology, and most importantly, the wealth of wilderness within it. Use part 2 to find a wilderness that might suit you, and check it out thoroughly. Read and analyze useful maps that will help to spring into action.

Part 3, "Doing Mountains," offers a practical step-by-step approach to your journey back to nature from maps to equipment to cuisine. Part 3 makes preparation easy, quick, and efficient, and execution successful.

Part 4, "Back to Nature, a story inspired by natural events," ties together all those fraying and decaying threads from biology, chemistry, physics and earth science classes into a coherent tale about the pageant of the universe that gives meaning to a wilderness adventure. It is our own story, and the story of every star, every planet, every mountain, tree, animal and bacterium. Natural history is understandable by everyone, the whole story, without exhaustive detail or complex math and mathematical formulas. And the story is wildly interesting, with remarkable twists and turns, great transformations, endlessly amazing.

Our planet and its inhabitants under the sun command the attention of the wilderness hiker, offering clues about how the universe is put together and how it works. An interest in natural science along with love of wilderness, here is a combination that grows and grows through life, raising the outdoors person to greater shining summits in joy and health to the end.

The fate of wilderness? It hangs in the balance. Many are clamoring at the gates to let their machines in. Debates rage in local, state, and federal governments to allow natural resource extraction in wilderness. Even today, devastating cattle grazing rips the heart out of many wilderness areas, and motorized boats are permitted in our country’s greatest wilderness corridor, the Grand Canyon. It may be just a matter of time before wheeled vehicles are allowed in for various improvements, such as tree thinning. Those that love the wilderness may be in the minority right now. Hopefully, as more of us understand its value, and some take the initiative to go on in and find inspiration, a groundswell of support will build during the coming decades. It looks as though this will be the century of technology. Well, technology aficionados, watch out. This may also be the century of the environment.

Part I

Over the Big Divide

Chapter 1

To the Land of Natural History

It seems to me that we all look at nature too much and live with her too little.

—Oscar Wilde

Every child loves to play outdoors, even on cold and rainy days. Think back to those times of magical discovery with holes to dig, dirt to eat, mud to get muddy in, water rills to dam, trees to climb, and ladybugs to enjoy. We observed caterpillars transform into butterflies and tadpoles grow legs. We exhaled with a big blow on a dandelion seed head, watching the gossamers take flight. We learned about predators and prey by dropping a fly into a spiderweb, contemplating the sight of tiny ants attacking much larger insects, or watching house cats stalking mice and songbirds. Fireflies, hummingbirds, daddy longlegs were celebrations of nature’s novelty. We watched a millipede and wondered how an animal could possibly have a thousand legs. And when that branched twig in the hand started walking, we thrilled at seeing a walking stick, or that large green leaf turned out to be a leaf bug; these were once-in-a-lifetime discoveries! We got up close and personal with the physical laws in the enjoyment of gravity and friction on the playground slide, centrifugal force on the merry-go-round, and the G-force and weightlessness on the swing. We fed the ducks at the pond, but the zoo was our favorite family excursion. We played follow-the-leader on our own Tom Sawyer’s Island in the backyard, local park, or vacant lot. The world was our playground. We were children of the universe, close to, and in love with, the earth.

As the years pass, however, a latent behavioral change emerges. Nature, much on the mind of the child, begins to fade, beguiled, perhaps, by a genetically triggered urge to establish rank and position in the pack. We and our wolf cousins—both intelligent, predatory, social mammals—follow similar paths. For example, adolescence is a critical period for both species. Social sorting kicks into high gear as the young wolves fight for dominance and acceptance, hierarchy, and the ultimate reward of the pack’s future alpha male and alpha female. Human adolescence, likewise, involves searching for alphas, a quest for acceptance, a time of wholesale changes from the instruction and appreciation of nature to the instruction and appreciation of peers. Before long, the wonder years become a distant memory.

After a period of unintentional neglect while attending to other important things, come back. Back to nature in America’s abundant backcountry, guided by sun and stars through isolated canyons, over volcanic landscapes, on storied mountaintops. Reactivate your animal spirits in the land of natural history—mountain tundra, living desert, forest primeval. Bring back the weather and rain in lovely places, lonesome places, places seldom seen. It’s never too late to satisfy a hunger for the wild that lies deep and hidden in the human heart. But there’s little time to lose. Start now by engaging our foundational means of transport, the pursuit that defines our species—bipedal locomotion, two-limb walking. Not for necessity, such as to and from a parking lot or through a mall, but for an entirely different purpose: happiness, health, and well-being. Not on flat floors, stairs, concrete sidewalks, or treadmills. Instead, engaging the earth on a dirt and rock trail across streams and over mountain passes, through meadows where the animals come, in glacier gorges, past wildflower or cactus gardens, wearing the eyes of a child, living today as before in a playground of wonder and imagination where the ordinary becomes extraordinary again.

Who can doubt that any creature of the earth is most intensely alive when expressing the gifts bestowed on it by evolution? For example, think back to when you last observed an eagle or hawk soaring and gliding, gracefully circling within and climbing the thermal updrafts on wings honed over thousands of generations. Picture that pack of wolves alternately loping and running in tactical concert mile upon mile across rugged terrain, every individual focused, pursuing, and then engaging their prey. Consider the king salmon swimming upriver from the sea, or the mountain sheep bounding over rocky crags. And what about us? Our frames are tooled, and brains wired, for bipedal locomotion. Hiking is the pleasure of doing that which we have been equipped by nature to do.

The forests, mountains, canyons, and deserts wait silently to receive their guests. So, chart a course. Assemble the means sufficient for contentment: comfortable footwear, a lightweight pack containing a poncho, a sweet sleeping bag on a soft air mattress, cooking items and food, toiletries and first-aid items (details ahead in Part 3). Then exchange the stale atmosphere of the city (where Mother Nature is concealed and her voice muffled) for the refreshment of wildness with its striking impressions upon the senses, scenes that create new connections and associations far from the busy influence of the hum of civilization, at the same time dissipating feelings of anxiety with a touch of romance that enlivens each day. Turn from cyberspace to open space where race, religion, political class, and social class differences do not exist—a place that celebrates the moment and the distant past at the same time. Take leave of the herd to touch eternity in the land of natural history.

Is it good for humans to swarm in cities, remaining there year after year until their instincts become so lopsided that their natural environment goes unnoticed and unappreciated, as if behind a curtain? Is it healthy for people to be so caught up in the hustle of civilization that the universe is neglected? It is so easy and natural, in times of sanity, to open the curtain, to reach out for the simple mode, enjoying a golden dawn with no closet full of wardrobe choices, no fighting traffic, no standing in line for a latte, no place to spend money. Then, with an exhilarating sense of emancipation, a challenging hike in welcome substitution for a day at the office, followed by a campfire instead of an evening on the couch watching TV. A journey back to nature is not breaking with civilization. It is distancing civilization for a while, a practice that does not degrade but complements the vibrant urban lifestyle. The heart within the humble hiker loves the wild and society alike, Rocky Bajada.

Venture out of the cultural safe zone, seeking the independent feeling of a competent pedestrian in the natural geography, alone or with a lover, family, or friends. Alone, finding pleasure in nature’s companionship and needing no other, like Thoreau at Walden Pond, practicing the quiet and unpretending lifestyle that solitude encourages. Or celebrating goal-oriented teamwork in a setting that brings a family together and makes social media a distant memory. Or strengthening the lovers’ union (Mother Nature’s specialty).

The days preceding our adventure are spent in anticipation, and the days that follow, in reflection. Between, we encourage rather than suspend the invigorating exertions of the body. Not only are the muscles awakened, but hiking in the natural world advances the exertions of the mind also. Eyes and ears are set free to enjoy sights and sounds that come straight out of the ages. A wilderness trail nurtures a kind of meditative state that makes our brains happy and inspires the tenor of our reflections to turn away from negative or unpleasant currents of thought.

This new light within us touches the light of the world for unexpected impressions against which no vista of civilization can compare. The light is a lubricant for the machinery of ideas and creativity turning inside the head of the hiker.

All this has been the same with humankind for the last one hundred thousand years. Over the advances and declines of several ice ages, our ancestors enjoyed little relief from the difficult business of survival, except for foot travel. While so engaged, the ice age travelers—with whom we share the same genes—fell into stride on dirt trails through deep woods and across wide tundra, wrapped against the cold in sumptuous animal furs, in periods of conversation and periods of contemplation, noting the ways nature has set her table. All this we continue to enjoy on our excursions in the wild, except for the sumptuous furs. The same warm and soothing light awakened their imaginations as it does ours. We are the inheritors of the heroic tradition of the ice age walkers, as well as those that walked on rainforest and savanna trails. All were keenly aware of the unfolding scenes and challenges along the way, elevating them, as it does us, to the full tide of adventure.

However, we are currently mostly mumpish motorers motoring merrily through America’s scenery, enjoying an ultimate in-car experience where a foot trail departing the road might seem uninviting compared to rolling along in air-conditioned comfort. But there they are, the frequently seen signs, each saying the same thing: TRAILHEAD. These signs are invitations to go somewhere, and to do it on one’s own two feet, somewhere special. So put on the brakes. Leave the dead windshield bugs behind. Seize the opportunity. Not only will your spirit soar, but every bone, muscle, and sinew wants to get moving and will compensate you many times over for the privilege.

Admittedly, a hike may be arduous at the beginning. A rocky uphill trail requires concentration and determination. In those first steps, the heart pounds, the muscles and joints ache, and you may wish to be back behind the wheel. However, it will not take long—about a half hour is all—to feel differently. Stiff legs give way to trail legs. A bolder admission of fresh air expands the lungs to their full capacity. One’s perspective changes (not surprisingly at a velocity thirty times slower than the highway), and the mind enters that exciting and fanciful realm where one is transformed from a foe of the trail into a friend. Settle into the pleasure of bipedal locomotion, which, like an old car on a cold morning, just needs some time to warm up.

Establish a solid footing, a steady rhythm, a persistent pace. While forging up steep trails, slow down. Bring the clean air—warm and dry or misty and cold—deep into the grateful lungs. Forget cares. Rest often. Take time to embrace and smell the pine. (There’s no shame in it.) An hour in the magical arena of wilderness might move the spirit into a mildly hypnotic state, soothed by the background rhythm of one’s own breathing and footsteps, touched by windsong and water song. Whether under an easy sun or plodding along in the rain, around every corner, on the summit of every pass, humble contentment colors each new scene, and we feel thankful for the blessing of being physically able to enjoy this gift of bipedal locomotion.

A measured expenditure of energy over multiple days resolves into an affordable health-care plan with excellent benefits offered without premiums, co-pays, or deductibles. As the trail leads onward and upward, the heart finds its prodigious rhythm. The surging, healing blood infuses new life into the joints and muscles and pulses through areas where pain may be hindering the traveler. Every segment of the digestive tube is given the oomph it needs for efficient functioning. The bones are thrilled. The muscles are inspired. The liver rejoices.

On long and steep ascents of mountain trails, it may be rough going. But Mother Nature, the Angel of Love, with much regard for her children, wants you to have success, and she will stoke a strong fire of deep respiration and send increased quantities of oxygen to the muscle cells. Internal biochemical reactions accelerate, producing hormonal endorphins that induce a dreamlike state. And when the exhaustion of a long and arduous climb imposes the thought that you just can’t make it, success will be yours in the end because she always makes sure you have something left in the tank.

Be amazed by the rejuvenating value of a night under the stars giving way to dawn’s light and the voices of early birds. Rise a bit muscle sore, but renewed and ready for progress, grateful for another day surrounded by, and immersed in, the beauty of natural history. Exalt in a growing endurance. The first few days might tell the tale of a tired hiker with a variety of pains. As the days go by, each one spent harvesting the fruits of exercise, find yourself enjoying the shifting slopes. After a couple of weeks, be amazed when a long, hard climb confidently yields before the energy of your exertions.

Execute strategies to engage terrain and weather, strategies for wildlife identification, and strategies to accomplish a solid hike. While so engaged, be continually mindful of our status as guests in an unspoiled sanctuary, keeping in mind the moral imperative to leave no trace—not a trace that we were ever there (other than footprints that are gone in the next rain).

Find a good campsite—though a less-than-ideal place to camp will do just as well—a place with real value because it was earned, and pitched in minutes with modern superlight but comfortable accommodations. A vigorous day of hiking stimulates a hearty appetite. With the aid of an ultralight titanium cooking pot, your four-ounce freeze-dried stew is more than quadrupled in weight by reconstituting it with water from a nearby creek, and made piping hot over a tiny blowtorch stove. Then, filling your Sierra Cup to the brim, you do homage to the steaming cuisine as a hungry mouse does to a slice of cheese. Fed and warm beside a happy campfire, the crimson glow of evening light splashing over surrounding mountains…kings never had it so good.

Science Festival

Inspiration can be found in combinations of poetry and music, art and religion, architecture and technology. In wilderness, inspiration lies in the architecture of geology, in the contrast of woodland and meadow, tranquility and storm, black jagged bedrock against colorful wildflowers, the tints of morning and evening, the mingled harmonies of cascading streams in the concert hall of a glacial cirque—exquisitely, splendidly lovely—compelling the eye and mind, drawing one still deeper into nature’s enchantments in visions of even wilder and more wonderful scenes.

For whom is Yosemite, Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon romantic and beautiful? For everyone! Love of natural beauty is universal, hardwired into our DNA, evoking excitement and emotion. But we can go beyond the exhilaration that natural scenery arouses in all of us to something even wilder and more wonderful.

The friends with whom we have bonded, we are always glad to see. We salute them by name and listen to their stories. We are at home in their homes. We enjoy their personalities. We are grateful for them and appreciate and respect them. Similarly, we bond with nature by getting to know her stories and her moods, her flora and fauna, which we likewise salute by name, glad to see them, grateful for them, appreciative and respectful of them, at home on our benign visits into their homeland.

The environmental sciences—biology, ecology, earth science, weather science, astronomy—studied in school perhaps decades ago and mostly forgotten, are reawakened in surroundings that are nothing less than a science festival! Be it forest, tundra, canyon, or desert, the scientific curriculum is so vast and varied that everyone discovers and learns different things—different weather, different animals and plants, different terrain and geology. There is only one thing that is the same for everyone in every forest, canyon, or desert: the layout of the night sky.

The night sky reminds us that we are living in a science laboratory. Brave discoveries made in this laboratory do not require complex mathematics or formulas understood only by PhDs. They are offered by the truest teacher—the atmosphere declaring itself in the wind, gravity declaring itself in the creek and river, the sun declaring itself in the green forest, the bull elk declaring itself on a ridge, the rattlesnake silent unless we get too close and then, in his own inimitable way, declaring, Don’t tread on me!

The night sky reminds us that Mother Nature is not in a hurry. A million years is a day to her. She builds mountains and tears them down. She opens oceans and closes them up. She brings forth life and then puts all her organisms to death, every last one. Over the ages of geologic time, she periodically destroys the flora and fauna worldwide in mass extinctions and, after each, brings forth to fill the void thriving new forms in abundance. Including humankind. Lucky for us, the huge meteor that slammed into Earth, wreaking havoc on the biosphere and wiping out the dinosaurs, didn’t miss.

Everywhere we see beauty springing from destruction. Flowers and berries cover hillsides exposed to the sun because devastating wildfires cleared the forest canopy. The warm carcass of an old buck deer is a provider of life to young wolf pups. Aspens are at their most colorful just before turning deathlike for the winter. After the ancients of the forest crash, a delicious carpet of flowers, mosses, and seedling trees grow out of the decaying trunks. And here we jouney back to nature, walking in comfort and contentment, close to the universal elemental forces, the cycles of life, the great mysteries.

We see the ways things are bound to each other. Every bird, wildflower garden, and desert scene bids us to not only appreciate its beauty but also discover something about it. We come to the wild parts of the earth for personal challenge, sport, health benefits, or beauty, or all of the above. We also come to learn because learning is the greatest adventure of all—the pleasure of discovery, of finding things out. Our discoveries may seem like small ones, but each is written somewhere on the ledger of the universe, and each strengthens the bond of bountiful love that can never be broken.

The land of natural history is out there for the taking by all. It should not be the exclusive terrain of professional scientists. In the outdoor lab, a hiker, who is also an amateur geologist-ecologist-astronomer, might discover things passed over or incorrectly interpreted by those with high academic degrees. This situation occurred when Dr. Joshua Dwight Whitney, esteemed California State geologist (after whom Mount Whitney was named), was enlightened by a wandering hiker named John Muir, who disputed Whitney’s theory of crustal collapse as the explanation for the origin of Yosemite Valley. Muir, like most hikers, was a mostly self-taught observer of the environment. In so doing, he became what we might call an adventure-scientist. Numerous Sierra hikes revealed to his curious eye geography the origin of which was not yet known. He became convinced that moving glaciers carved the topography of the High Sierra and the deep chasm of Yosemite. He sketched and traced old glacial paths. And when he climbed to their high craggy birthplaces, he made another discovery—the glaciers, though much reduced in size, were still alive! (Still are.)

Breakthrough discoveries like the glacier theories of John Muir may be rare, but every hiker experiences unexpected natural events, some absent from the scientific literature. Anyone can be, like Muir, an amateur adventure-scientist. The first crucial step is the first crucial step of all scientific pursuit: observation. That portion of one’s attention not taken up with stepping-stones, trekking pole placement, or avoiding Gila monsters is actively observing. The animals and birds may not be apparent unless we look for them with the keen and penetrating eye of active observation. Observing is listening, touching, tasting, feeling the air and water, and smelling the ponderosa and the wild sage. Our curiosity is rewarded by discovery, and discovery begins with observation, looking for wonders. And we find them, not all the time, but every once in a while. Each discovery reinforces the notion of how interesting the natural world is.

The adventure-scientist observes geology, weather and water in all their forms, and how the air is used differently by different birds and also by bats, insects, and various kinds of aerial seeds. Observing rock, which reveals its origin as molten (igneous), deposited by gravity (sedimentary), or heat/pressure formed (metamorphic). We see the mountains as the marble for creation’s Michelangelo sculptor, erosion. We observe spires that were once buttes, buttes that were once mesas, mesas that were once plateaus; or glacially whittled domes and horns and Matterhorn-type peaks of bare granite towering over rich green forests; and canyons unseen until standing on their very edges where the rivers far below look like little creeks. The eye might desire to rest on such scenes, enthralled by what it sees, or it might focus closer, curious to peer still deeper for the clues that the earth might reveal of its own history and the history of the universe as well.

The adventure-scientist relishes a healthy ecosystem, indulges in the songs and habits of birds, and builds a catalog organism by organism, habitat by habitat, through the eco-content of her travels. Observation is also seeking the why of things, because every observed effect has a cause. With this in mind, she sits next to a beaver pond, quietly observing a beaver cutting, trimming, and swimming aspen branches to its dam or lodge. Or she might notice a Douglas squirrel buzz-sawing through a pinecone then leaping ten feet to the next tree, or mountain goats feeding quietly and contentedly in the heights of craggy mountains. She makes connections between a notable species and the other members of its family, and how families interact in the community. She observes rounded cobbles on a mountaintop and appreciates that this place was once a valley where an ancient river flowed. She knows the hermit thrush by its ethereal music, which not only inspires but also educates her the things about this inconspicuous bird’s preferred habitat and season. Experiential learning evokes many of the emotions close to her heart, unlike those of a classroom. And so she comes to the mountains, seat of learning in the University of the Universe, classroom of the practicing adventure-scientist, where the song of the canyon wren, bear cubs climbing to the top of a tall tree on their mother’s insistence, the vivid colors hidden in white light when it interacts with water are lessons from the ultimate teacher. What does the rainbow teach us? What do lightning and thunder teach, or a shooting star? What is the name of that flower, that rock? On a hiking trail, knowledge is acquired without much difficulty in each passing mile, and in each passing mile is improved. The University of the Universe offers the kind of education we always wanted, combined with huge health benefits included at no extra charge.

Along the way, flora and fauna beg for recognition, and here is where technology can pay off. Getting to know our plant and animal friends, and saluting them by name, has become much easier and less time-consuming in recent years. The equivalent of six pounds of books—bird guides, wildflower guides, tree guides, geology guides, star finders, etc.—can be loaded as applications into one six-ounce smartphone (and if out for more than a couple of days, a three-ounce battery charger) for quick identification of our discoveries. The lightweight mobile device becomes a platform to identify, learn about, classify, and interact with wildlife.

Technology facilitates and streamlines our education. We can take the keys to the riches of nature with us inside our mobile devices. The riches of the forest and desert can be found in Audubon Birds or Bird Pro, for example. When we spot a bird and use the bird app for determining the species, it is possible to confirm our identification. Play some of the recorded calls and songs of your suspect species that are loaded on the application. Perhaps the bird will come over, and if it does, we know that we have nailed its identification, and enjoy the satisfaction of a scientific discovery and a new friend. A lightweight Bluetooth speaker offers greater volume to catch the attention of the birds. Mother Nature plays plenty of tricks on us (as we shall soon see), so perhaps it’s OK to fool her slightly on occasion, especially for the sake of scientific discovery.

In addition to wildlife study, the mobile device aids the backpacker in other ways. It serves as a watch, magnifying glass, flashlight, repository of music for evenings in the tent and of preferred reading materials for layovers on stormy days. GPS apps that track you—recording your route with a line on a tiny map, giving you distance, slopes, average speed, and a nifty elevation profile—are amusing, but they deplete the battery quickly. Prolong battery life by keeping the phone in Airplane Mode. Confirm elevation using a GPS-based altimeter app. Measure daily hiking distance using an app that senses and adds up your footsteps. A knot-tying app can be invaluable. Get a compass app that gives both true and magnetic north. You might need a calculator for converting meters to feet if your map’s contour lines are marked in meters. The camera keeps a visual record of your adventure to return to later and grin. Unidentified tree, flower, and plant photos are saved for later identification. One of the bedrock laws of backpacking, the several-uses-for-each-item law, is honored by the smartphone to the nth degree. Most of all, a collection of nature apps packs the device with invaluable information for the adventure-scientist.

The smartphone can also be a repository of maps for finding your location, planning your route, and looking at your position in relation to the surrounding countryside, but in this application, the tiny screen falls far short of a trusty old tool—the large format paper topographic map. More on this important subject later.

Your author has briefly described in Part 2 the secret lives of the most common and interesting wild animals and birds, trees, and flowers likely to be encountered. Also the great geological formations of the West. Get a head start by using Google to capture for your phone library, pictures of individual species and formations that you come upon in this text for future recognition in the wild.

Wilderness is the playground of adventure, beyond the interiors of structures or soccer fields or golf courses. Adventure is getting out and making a story in the land of natural history. Your adventure story lies within another, the story of the world that existed before it became ours. There have been no preparations for your visit to the wilderness other than 13.7 billion years of physical and biological evolution, and the work of the trail maintenance crews.

Hidden in the mist of the ages, great transformations have changed the face of the land, such as the hundred-million-year reign of the spore plants and spore trees coming to an end in the great extinction that wiped most of them out as it did the dinosaurs. But soon followed the worldwide success of an overlooked little group of plants that made it through, the flowering plants (angiosperms). They succeeded, where the great majority of living things fell to extinction, because of a novel method of reproduction only angiosperms share—seeds. Seeds were the armored cases that allowed the angiosperms to survive the catastrophe. But that’s not all seeds were good for. Along with them came rich food—fruits, vegetables, and nuts that were appropriated by a hungry world of rapidly evolving hot-blooded mammals and birds that had also inherited the earth from the dinosaurs. The angiosperms, in a multitude of forms, spread from the Arctic and mountain tundra to the driest deserts. With their root systems, they dramatically slowed down the erosion of the mountains. And of course, angiosperms give us beauty because they make flowers. We observe the clues in the rock that reveal its origin and give it a name: limestone by its density, crinkly texture, and tenacous resistance to erosion; granite by its grandeur of curved surfaces, as the domes about Yosemite Valley, and mountainsides of rounded boulders; sandstone by the sweeping laminae of its bedding; shale by its thin and friable layers; volcanic rock of lava flows, hardened ash, and blocks of black breccia. The terrain tells us where mountain glaciers have been and where liquid water has been the exclusive sculptor. A suite of fossils in an ancient limestone thrills our blood, as does a garden of wildflowers drawing color and form from the soil. We get down on all fours in a meadow of lupine with dozens of rambunctious and busy bumblebees going about their important business in and about the blossoms, inches away, but far too busy to give us the slightest attention.

We observe the crumbling peaks and the storms that bring them down. This craggy world holds vast tracts of coniferous forests that have been blanketing mountainsides since they first grabbed the naked slopes, surging upward, the steeper the better, their habitat of choice. Since then, thousands of generations have fallen and decayed to mix with weathered rock to make the rich, deep, dark soil from which the forest blooms. And we see the whole story before our eyes: standing trees of many types and all sizes, dying trees, standing dead, logs freshly fallen and those in various stages of decay, a row of hearty seedling trees on a decaying log.

We look at everything, including ourselves, differently. We might notice the emergence of the gleaming red end of the light spectrum in a water drop hanging from a leaf, or dewdrops in a flower glittering in the morning sun like diamonds; or, camped near a lily pond lake, do a case study in bullfrog communication. We might feel the rumble of round rocks rolling on the bottom of a snowmelt creek, or follow the gander leading his flock across the twilight sky. And through the course of the night, we affirm the silent spinning of our planet reflected in the stars of the Great Bear traveling around the North Star. We go beyond a superficial enjoyment of the world’s beauty by packing a curiosity to know from nature through observation, foundation of the bond that puts legs into motion, and glorifies God.

Prehistoric Walking

Someone, a few years back, conceived of a different use for an old tool, the ski pole. Only recently have these poles been modified for dry-land use by adding length adjustment and a carbon steel tip. An adjustable wrist strap is used to seamlessly unite the hiker with the pole. The action of pole-assisted walking improves stability and balance. Two additional points of contact steady the hiker so that the scenery, rather than the ground underfoot, gets more attention. Hiking (or trekking) poles are particularly helpful in crossing streams, especially at high water. They are useful in wet and muddy conditions, over snowfields, on icy ground, or whenever there is an issue of traction.

Hiking poles ease the difficulty of rock gardens studded with stumbling blocks and on slopes of talus and scree. They are helpful in the wind and are indispensable for stable hiking before dawn and after dusk. On steep descents, the poles are planted out front, helping to control momentum, ease the jarring of the knees, and prevent tripping. In the late afternoon, when the weight of the pack seems to grow heavier, the assistance of poles offers relief for the lumbar vertebrae. With the active use of poles, the body of the hiker as a whole is engaged as never before. Obtaining and practicing with hiking poles is a good place to start your journey back to nature.

There is a natural rhythm to the motion of pole-assisted hiking. Without instruction, without even thinking about it, the left pole is planted along with the right step followed by the right pole with the left step—left pole and right step together, then right pole and left step together. Curiously instinctive, this is the walking or trotting gait of most four-legged animals.

The motion of poling can be addictive, perhaps because, rooted in our DNA, vestigial genetic stimuli, remnants from our ancestral four-limb locomotion, are activated. A lost time dimension emerges from the deep recesses of the subconscious, taking us back ten million years and into the twilight zone of our distant quadrupedal existence.

Begin your prehistoric walking with an inexpensive pair of telescoping poles. It is important that your poles contain shock-absorbing springs that effectively dampen the jarring forces against the shoulders and elbows, especially over long hours of hiking. Try the Shocklight poles from REI or the Mountainsmith Carbonlite, Pyrite, or Rhyolite poles, each equipped with spring loaded antishock systems that will allow you to amble comfortably all day long.

Adjust the length of the poles to somewhere between the bottom of your rib cage and height of your armpits (length will vary according to taste). When the pole is set ahead, the elbow should make close to a right angle. The simple single-loop adjustable strap attached to the top of the grip is preferable to poles with fancy, complicated handle straps. Open the loop. Now, this is critical: first, put your hand up through the loop then down, gripping the straps against the pole. Adjust the length of your wrist strap so that the hand can easily pass up through but tight enough that it holds your hand up high on the grip at the top of the pole. With the strap under the palm (flush, not twisted) and over the back of your hand and wrist, you can manipulate the pole’s placement, check an unexpected slip, or drive it against the ground, all with a very light, almost nonexistent, hand grip. A properly used wrist strap spreads the force out through the arm, shoulders, and upper body, taking the concentration of muscle strain off a quickly fatigued grasping hand. This technique offers a comfortable joint between you and the pole, with comfortable hiking ahead as the goal. Your arm, wrist, and hand gently guide the pole, which swings, pendulum-like, up to the next point of placement. Maintain that very light grip as you drive along.

Trekking poles are useful for maintaining balance on a rocky trail, but one discovers their real worth when hiking uphill. By the action of efficient poling technique, your climb to any summit or pass will take less time because the muscles of the upper body, especially those of the shoulders and trunk—the big pectoral, lateral, and trapezius muscles—are brought into play, counterbalancing the weight on the lower back by 10 percent or more and, at the same time, offering a forward thrust, all without even gripping the handle.

First, plant the left pole roughly parallel with the extended right foot and push downward and backward, twisting your shoulders and upper body slightly leftward in the direction of the pole plant rather than squared to the trail. The action of twisting the upper body slightly in the direction of the pole plant while force is being applied engages the big muscles of the trunk, transferring their considerable power to forward locomotion while, simultaneously, allowing for a longer stride. While driving the pole backward, keep the elbow slightly bent. Then, on the next step, in a continuous motion, maintaining your momentum, release your left pole and plant your right pole about parallel with the extended left foot, performing the mirror image of this action on the other side, remembering to twist the shoulders slightly to the right as you apply the energy coming out of your upper body. Lengthen your poles a bit, then plant each not parallel with but behind the opposite boot for more horizontal thrust and less vertical thrust. Receive an unexpected boost on uphill legs by utilizing this conduit of energy and support dredged up from our primordial past. You will quickly discover that poling is as easy and natural addition to ordinary bipedal locomotion. You might even feel naked without them. (Hey, loosen that hand grip.)

The cross-country skier performs this precisely the same motion, but with longer poles and a bit more speed and flair on the reduced friction of snow. Kayakers also generate paddle power, not out of their arms and shoulders, but out of their trunks using this same technique. The kayaker twists his trunk in the direction of the active paddle stroke, then shifts the same action to the other side, using the paddle in much the same way as the hiker uses her poles to get forward power out of the upper body. One can maintain a good pace on a summer trail by using the poling technique of the cross-country skier in the winter woods or the paddling technique of the whitewater kayaker.

On difficult uphill stretches, one is tempted to pour mental and physical energy into poling, but like the paddler on gentle waters or the cross-country skier gliding through winter woods, under most conditions, the technique is almost effortless and automatic. To avoid monotony and fatigue, vary the poling style from time to time. For example, sometimes cup the palms on top and, dropping the arms, swagger each pole backward with the opposite step—no upward component at all. Our artificial aluminum forelimbs are not locked into a routine motion, just as the horse has many variations of legwork. For example, try this pleasant modification, a four-part dance called the Butterfly. Plant both poles in unison ahead, pushing down while walking toward and past them. Then, on the third step, thrust both poles backward simultaneously in an action that causes an equal and opposite reaction, a boost in forward momentum. On the fourth step, bring the poles back in front to start the sequence again. The crux of the four-part butterfly dance is the backward thrust, accomplished without a tight grip, using the wrist straps almost exclusively, enjoying the forward boost, and finishing the thrust with hands back and straight elbows. Then, on the fourth step, the poles are swung forward and back into position for the next four-step set.

It’s called the Butterfly because the insect uses its wings together as we do our poles, and also sharing the butterfly’s love for trails that offer space to flutter down the way. The butterfly poling style is based on the two poles acting in unison, parallel with each other at all times. This sweetest of pole dances is done in 4×4 time: step, step, step, step (repeat); or one, two, three, four (repeat); or with poles—plant, step, thrust, recover; plant, step, thrust, recover; plant, step, thrust, recover, personalized jet-propelled walking in a relaxed and pleasant motion that can be maintained for hours.

Other times you may want to increase efficiency by shortening each set to 3×3 time, like a waltz—1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3; or plant, step, thrust/recovery; plant, step, thrust/recovery, plant, step, thrust/recovery. Your simultaneous pole plants will not be as far in front in order to put them in position for a strong thrust. The waltz requires more upper-torso energy and is used for special situations like short, steep places rather than long-term enjoyment, which favors the four-part butterfly.

At times you may want to supercharge your pole-assisted walking by thrusting backward every other step rather than every third or fourth. Keep the parallel poles behind (they never come forward with this style), thrusting on one step, then setting the poles with the next. This style will tire your shoulders quickly but can offer a brief boost for a couple of strokes on a steep slope.

Descents put wind in your sails. While gliding downhill, your poles play an important role in steadying yourself, recovering from a stumble, or protecting against a turned ankle by checking the completion of the impending injury in its tracks, so to speak, with a quickly set pole. They are invaluable in preventing a trip, a slip, or a slide. Continue using the wrist straps on descents, planting each pole on the trail ahead so that you can take some of the jarring weight off sore hips, knees, ankles, and feet. On steep downhill trails, the poles can be set in unison or one after the other out front for breaking. Some lengthen their poles a bit when the topo map indicates a period of downhill. Another option that works quite well on drops is to cup the palms of the hands over the tops of the poles.

If tall grass, vegetation, or shrubbery crowd a narrow trail, poles are rendered less effective or ineffective. On the rocky trails of glacial canyons, they are used more haphazardly rather than rhythmically. Or you simply choose not to use them for periods of time when they can be carried in one hand or shortened and strapped to the pack. At the end of the first couple of days, there may be some fatigue in the newly awakened trapezius, rhomboids, latissimus, and serratus muscles.

Poles don’t get in the way of using one’s binoculars, taking photographs, blowing snozzes, reading a map, checking a GPS, or writing in one’s notebook. The wrist straps keep them hanging out of the way or dragging lightly behind while your hands are busy doing other things. Take the wrist straps off on steep, rocky, and boulder-studded trails where more versatility in the use of the poles is desired.

More benefits: Poles are helpful to lean on when taking a stand-up break on the trail. Let a pole hang down around noontime for its north-pointing shadow, helping your orientation on summer days when the sun is high. In camp, poles are often utilized as a support for a backrest, a rain tarp, or a tent.

Trekking poles come with optional ski-type baskets. Under normal conditions, these baskets are unnecessary, but in loose desert sand, snow, or swampy muddy places, they can be useful.

Some hikers have evolved into religious polers. Other are agnostic about poling. And the poling atheists, bounding in the glories of youth, rely on their bipedalism exclusively. But there is no doubt trekking poles keep Grandpa going. Without them, I doubt the old geezer would still be cranking the mountain trails.

Bones of the Trailblazers

Do you remember the sensational anthropologic discovery of the fossil skeleton of our ancestor her discoverers named Lucy (after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds that was playing on the portable cassette tape player at the time)? Recall that Lucy and the others of her kind (scientific binomial: Australopithecus afarensis) lived in the Afar triangle of Northeast Africa about three million years ago. The many bones of Australopithecus afarensis uncovered over succeeding years reveal an upright, bipedal walker slightly smaller than ourselves, but with the pelvis, hip, leg, and foot bones of a modern human and a grasping hand like ours. Despite the shocking resemblance between Australopithecus afarensis and ourselves, they were different in one crucial respect. The volume of Lucy’s brain case was less than one-fourth ours, about the size of a chimpanzee’s. Judging from Lucy’s modern bipedal gait combined with small brain, it appears that we were excellent hikers before getting smart.

The grasping hand predated Lucy as an efficient mechanism for gripping branches while moving around in trees, but Australopithecus afarensis no longer enjoyed an arboreal existence. When our ancestors dropped to the ground and developed bipedalism, the hand was freed for an unlimited number of other uses—from constructing and wielding a spear, to eventually constructing and playing a piano. Our hands, once used for grasping limbs, became the essential tool in the elevation of humankind. The advent of bipedal locomotion freed the hand from forest branches and set us off on a new path into the future. Bipedalism is the root of our success.

The oldest known footprints of an upright bipedal walker—Lucy’s species (Australopithecus afarensis)—made in wet volcanic ash 3.6 million years old based on radiometric dating. Here, an adult and child were walking side by side (holding hands, don’t you think?). Later, ash eruptions covered and preserved the prints. They were discovered in 1978 by Mary Leakey near Laetoli, Tanzania. (photo by Corbin Smith)

The many descendants of Lucy’s species are called hominids. These hominids were a unique and sensational collection of bipedal primates and a relentless juggernaut of increasing brainpower. The story of the hominids provides a unique example of nature’s capacity for enrichment. The hominids moved beyond instinct into a new realm: intellectual power, advanced memory, reason, and abstract thought, a pathway the universe has never taken before, so far as we know.

The hominids set about enlarging and transforming their lives with the development of tools and culture. An example of such a transformation is seen in the rock chip-strewn savanna sites of Homo habilis, the handyman, Africa’s pioneer stone toolmaker who lived about two million years ago.

Each of the twenty or more species of hominids that evolved in the last three million years thrived in its day, but all eventually suffered extinction. None can be deemed ultimately successful, with one exception. Only one hominid survives, the one they call Homo sapiens. (Though some claim to have seen another—Homo bigfootus—a tall, hairy bipedal walker with long arms, a bad stoop, and limited communication skills.)

Two million years after Lucy’s species went extinct, and a million years after Homo habilis discovered how to chip rock into tools, one of these hominids opened a new day in the story of life on earth. It was Homo erectus, a tall, handsome, and robust ancestor whose brain size, based on the volume of their fossil brain cases, was growing incrementally larger over the generations, eventually approaching that of modern humans.

Homo erectus developed new, more efficient stone axes and bone tools, becoming the most efficient predator on earth, advancing technology in ways that could be said to exceed, in terms of importance, even the industrial and technological revolutions of the modern age. The transcendent accomplishment of Homo erectus was revealed in a momentous anthropological discovery in the cave homes of this ancestor. Thick black soot was found caked on the ceilings and walls, as well as charcoal and ash pits containing cooked animal bones on the floors, making it clear that these early humans had taken a momentous leap into the future—the ignition and control of fire.

Over the previous hundreds of millions of years, all fires were ignited by natural events, such as lightning and volcanic eruption, and propagated by natural conditions, such as available vegetative fuel, wind, and drought. Then, about one million years ago, our ancestor, Homo erectus, learned the trick.

Control of fire allowed cousin erectus to bring forth the blessings of the sun—heat energy and light energy—at will. Animal protein and fat—lots of it due to his hunting skills, and vital in the growth and development of his brain—was for the first time infused with the benefits of cooking, which destroyed previously devastating disease-carrying parasites and pathogenic microorganisms. Cooked meat is much easier to chew than raw, reducing the amount of time required to engage in eating. Cooking made consuming food more pleasurable by not only tenderizing but also enhancing the flavor of meat. It expanded the diet by making possible the consumption of previously inedible plant roots, stems, and leaves. Cooking improved digestion for more efficient absorption and assimilation of nutrients. The esteemed profession that has lasted to this day, the chef, came to be (it may be even older than the oldest profession).

I am sure your imagination can dream up multiple ways fire might have served Homo erectus in defense against leopard and lion predators. And we might also consider how fire could have been used as an offensive weapon for the purpose of securing prey.

At night, fire lit up their cave homes. Social congregation, communication, camaraderie, and ritual were elevated and embellished around the campfire. By taking control of fire, Homo erectus broke from many of the natural constraints placed on all animals since the very beginning. Something huge and unprecedented had begun on planet earth.

The continent of Africa had been the only home of the ancestors of humankind, including Lucy’s species, Homo habilis, and all the other early hominids. The control of fire, however, made it possible for Homo erectus to leave Africa, tinderbox in hand, bound for the colder climates of Europe and Asia. The anthropological discovery of the cave abodes of two subgroups of this noble species, Peking Man and Java Man, prove they walked eastward from Africa across the entire breadth of Asia.

Although Homo erectus met extinction roughly three hundred thousand years ago, regarding longevity this species was by far the most successful of all the hominids, surviving for well over a million years. By comparison, Homo sapiens has been around for only about two hundred thousand years, and for most of this time, we shared the earthly stage with a close relative, a physically stronger and more robust species equal in brain power—Homo neanderthalensis. The Neanderthals were strictly hunters. They used their strength and weapons hewn from stone for close-quarters ambush killing of large animals, wolf-like. But at the dawn of our current global warming, as the ice age herds declined, the Neanderthals lost their livelihood and went extinct. Meanwhile, the more versatile species, Homo sapiens, having survived ice ages, strengthened by the demands of a challenging climate, was the only hominid left. We forged on alone into the current warm interglacial period, learning to make a living in every habitat in the world, and progressing rapidly from hunting and gathering to agriculture-based cities. Then onward to supermarkets and the social art of fine dining.

Control of fire, passed down from Homo erectus, may have been a driving influence behind the lightning-quick evolution of human culture. Humanity’s power exploded when we discovered how to use fire to coax useful metals—lead, gold, tin, silver, copper, iron—out of solid rock. Then, utilizing fire again, we transformed these metals into sword and canon, cooking pot and needle. First the Bronze Age, then the Iron Age. The Industrial Revolution was accompanied by the first extensive use of fossil fuels, which hold the firepower of untold generations of ancient timber and swamp vegetation inside which the sun’s energy was captured day after day for millions of years, superconcentrated by organic chemistry, and stored as coal in layers in the sedimentary rocks. As the Industrial Age began, coal fired up the steam engine and the steam locomotive. Then coal’s compatriots, oil and gas, were discovered, and we were off to the races. The internal combustion engine, the jet engine, the rocket engine followed, all powered by fire. It gets us into space. Fire keeps the world’s factories humming. It transports people and goods over the land, across the sea, and through the air. Fire burns in our gas furnace to heat our homes. The heat energy of fire boils water, which generates steam. The high-pressure steam turns giant turbines connected to electrical generators that convert the heat energy of fire into electricity to light up the night and run our computers, air conditioners, appliances, and electric cars. We are as dependent on fire for our daily survival as our ancestor, Homo erectus, a million years ago.

Clearly, most of the ways we use fire today bear little resemblance to those of our noble pathfinder. There are some important exceptions, however, such as the art of barbequing over an open fire and the enjoyment of consuming a juicy and delicious steak, rare, medium rare, or well done, though Erectus’ etiquette was perhaps less refined. And when we join together around a happy fire, singing, telling tales, the humor of each person on display without restraint, we join with Homo erectus in the camaraderie of the campfire, a celebration of human life that spans the chasm of time.

The Big Divide

As a lifelong middle and high school teacher of the natural sciences, I always felt it my duty to get the students interested in nature. They respond to thought-provoking perspectives regarding the thundering power of natural history in their lives. For example, two contrasting entities govern all of our lives: culture and nature—culture, the history and productions of humankind vis-à-vis the history and productions of the wild. These are the two baskets into which everything falls. Combined, they encompass the entirety of the tangible and intangible that exist or have ever existed. (Culture is used here in the general sense. Though cultures are obviously far from homogeneous, they all have fundamental things in common—some form of government, religion, language, customs, ethics, commerce, transportation, music, art, architecture, morality, etc.) Culture is great, but nature is greater because the wild thrives without culture, but culture could not exist without nature. We honor her by going over the big divide, a metaphor for