Ghost Days

I am sitting on a rock at the edge of the Mogollon Rim sweeping off to the southeast as a thunderstorm moves along the edge of the cliff. The wind is blowing in gusts and I can smell the rain and see the lightning striking closer and closer. It is time to move off the Rim and back into the forest.

With a whisper, like a gossamer curtain, I move to the top of an extinct volcano, a cinder cone, looking across the Colorado Plateau, into the haze of the distance, again watching the clouds, make a patchwork of shade as they move across the desert.

Again I move, this time to the edge of deep canyon, so deep and dark, I cannot see the bottom. I clamber along the rocks, trying to get to point where the bottom is visible. I cannot believe that such a huge and deep canyon could be so unknown. I can finally see the creek at the bottom and I am surprised at the amount of water, where did this huge creek come from here in dry Arizona?

With a sweeping motion, I am sitting on a mountain top, looking out over the red and blue wastelands of the painted desert and glimpsing the edge of a huge crack running across the whole horizon. The wind is blowing again and I crouch down behind a rock to keep warm and to keep my eyes from running with tears from the cold and wind. There isn't a cloud in the sky, and the sunlight is intense. I can feel my skin burning.

I am walking, like a shadow, wading through ice cold water, the canyon so narrow there is no other path. The cliffs above rise in rocky crags, almost shutting out the sun. The green jungle growth in the bottom of the canyon, contrasts with the barren Sonoran desert of the canyon walls.

I move again, to a narrow box canyon. The echoes of my footsteps heighten the constriction of the rocks. I can reach out and touch both sides of the canyon at the same time. I can only see a narrow shaft of sunlight reflecting down from the cliffs above.

I am walking across the desert, stepping carefully to avoid the cholla, and watching for snakes. I see glimpses of the red ornaments of the Christmas cactus and watch for the sudden jumps of rabbits.

A thousand pictures, a thousand smells, a thousand sounds, crowd into my mind and again, my eyes fill with tears, this time not from the wind and not from the sun, but from my memories of walking Arizona.

Desert dangers: dehydration

Every year there are news stories about people dying in the desert in Arizona. This has become a big issue with many Latin American migrants being the victims. However, anyone who ventures into the desert must be prepared or suffer the same fate. There have been a number of occasions when I have been caught without enough water under the circumstances. One day, when the temperature was over 95 degrees F I lost six pounds to water loss alone. What may be a pleasant outing, can quickly turn into a challenge of survival, if you are not prepared.

Early symptoms of dehydration include thirst, loss of appetite, dry skin, skin flushing, dark colored urine, dry mouth, fatigue, and even, chills. Once your heart rate and respiration increase, and your body temperature increases, you are in serious trouble. When loss of bodily fluids reaches 10% you are in serious danger of dying.

The first and best rule is do not venture into the desert without adequate preparation. Make sure you carry enough water for everyone in your group, at least a gallon a day per person. There are certain times of the year when the desert experience is just not worth the risk. The Superstition Wilderness Area is a wonderful place to hike, but not between the months of May and September. Let good sense dictate when and where you go.

When you do go into the desert, make sure you tell someone your plans and your return date or time. When you do go into the desert, take those things that will be helpful in an emergency; a tool kit, a shovel, spare parts, extra engine oil and coolant.

With today's off road vehicles, you can get into trouble by having an accident or a breakdown only a short few minute's drive from the highway. What takes only a few minutes drive on an ATV can take hours to walk out. Without water, the walk may take the rest of your life.

Hypothermia-- a real danger, even in Arizona

Contrary to the popular view of Arizona, a large portion of the state is at higher altitudes. As I noted in my last post, the North and South Rims of the Grand Canyon are both over 7000 feet above sea level. The northeast third of Arizona lies on the Colorado Plateau, most of which is over 5000. Temperatures in the Arizona high country can go as low as 40 degrees F below zero which was recorded at Hawley Lake at 8,180 feet above sea level. However, one hallmark of the high country in Arizona is the wind. It is not unusual for the wind to blow almost constantly at over 30 mph. With a wind chill factor, that -40 degrees F would have been the equivalent of the lowest temperature ever recorded in Alaska, -80 degrees F. NWS Wind Chill Chart

At those low temperatures the average time to frostbite can be as low as five minutes. But it does not take such extreme temperatures to put someone in danger of hypothermia. The primary indication of hypothermia is a core body temperature below 95 degrees F (35 degrees C). Below that temperature, hypothermia is life threatening. With the contrasts in temperature varying by altitude, you can leave Phoenix at a balmy 60 or 70 degrees F and within an hour or so, step out of your car into below freezing temperatures. Additionally, the temperature can vary significantly during twenty-four hours most places in Arizona, especially at altitude. For example, in the winter, Flagstaff can have a temperature variation of over 30 degrees from day to night.

Hypothermia can occur whenever the ambient temperature is lower than the body temperature. Obviously, the lower the temperature outside, the greater the danger. Hypothermia can be classified into three stages, mild with a core body temperature above 89.5 degrees F, moderate with a core body temperature over 82.4 degrees F and severe when the body temperature falls below 82.4 degrees. Young people and those with little or no body fat are at greater risk of hypothermia. The main symptoms of mild hypothermia are shivering, lethargy, confusion, loss of coordination and rapid heart rate. As the hypothermia gets worse, the shivering stops and confusion becomes delirium. At very low temperatures, the heart stops and you die.

Don't treat excursions out into the Arizona wilderness lightly. Temperature conditions can be extreme.

Next time: Heat exhaustion and heat stroke

Grand Canyon dangers -- altitude

Dropping over the Rim of the Grand Canyon, you enter an entirely foreign world. Both the North and South Rims are relatively high, and quite cool, even in the summer months. The Kaibab National Forest, on the North Rim, is a high, between 7000 and 8000 foot mountain, known as Buckskin Mountain. The North Rim is traditionally closed to vehicular traffic during the winter months because of snow and difficult weather conditions. The South Rim is lower, but still about 7000 feet above sea level.


This combination of altitude, heat and dryness is a real danger to those who, without proper preparation, leave the cushions of civilization on the Rim and drop into the Canyon.

First, the vast majority of people live well below 7000 feet. Altitude sickness, also known as acute mountain sickness commonly occurs above 2400 meters or approximately 8000 feet. See Altitude Sickness. However, symptoms of the condition can appear as low as 6,500 feet about sea level (2000 meters). Symptoms include headache, fatigue, stomach illness, dizziness, and sleep disturbance. Exertion aggravates the symptoms. In extreme cases, altitude sickness can be fatal.

I have lived much of my life at altitude, but have had acute symptoms of altitude sickness strike randomly, without warning. I remember one episode on Humphrey's Peak, the highest mountain in Arizona. I got an acute headache and had to lay down several times coming down the mountain to recover. I spent a lot of my summers up on the Colorado Plateau, I finally realized that my symptoms of fatigue were probably altitude related, going from near sea level in the desert to almost 6000 feet.

The Grand Canyon is definitely within the range of altitudes that can cause acute altitude sickness. When planning any hike into the Canyon, you definitely need to be aware of this possibility. While hiking out of the Canyon from Phantom Ranch, on one occasion, I could not figure out why I was hiking so slowly near the Rim. I finally realized that I had to breathe. So I would stop every 50 steps or so and breathe deeply. I finally began to move up the trail.

With all the other issues about hiking in the Canyon, this is one that is often overlooked.

Grand Canyon: Death and Injury

The scenario is almost legendary, a tourist on the Rim of the Grand Canyon backs up to get into a picture and falls to death off the cliffs. Unfortunately, the legend is in many cases, a reality. The exposure to falls on the North and South Rims of the Canyon are immense and the number of visitors is huge, combined these facts make for a relatively common problem. What it comes down to is that the Grand Canyon is reality, it is not Disneyland where the rides are not real. A fall into the Canyon is not cushioned by foam rubber. But falls are not the only dangers in the Canyon.
There is a recent book on the subject of the dangers of the Canyon. Here is the citation to the book:

Ghiglieri, Michael Patrick, and Thomas M. Myers. Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon : Gripping Accounts of All Known Fatal Mishaps in the Most Famous of the World's Seven Natural Wonders. Flagstaff, AZ: Puma Press, 2001.

Although this subject is "gripping" and perhaps "dramatic" my experience has been that, more than any other place I hike, the Grand Canyon seems to attract the unprepared and just plain stupid. On one hike, down from the North Rim to Thunder River, we found two groups of hikers that were in serious trouble. One group was wandering aimlessly on the Esplanade totally disoriented and lost. Hopefully, we put them back on the trail. The second group was caught without water. According to my conversations with Park Rangers, it is a very common occurrence.

On one trip out of the Canyon, we passed a man who was limping up the trail, his boots held together with Duck Tape. Another group, a man and two very small children passed us with the children crying from exhaustion. A short time later I passed the young boy laying down in the middle of the trail. Apparently his father was too tired himself, to help him up the trail.

Stepping off the Rim, either accidentally or intentionally on a trail, is a serious business and requires preparation and planning. Once we left the North Rim where the temperature was 27 degrees Fahrenheit, by the time we reach Phantom Ranch, the temperature was 97 degrees in the shade. Although I am not sure how helpful it is to know about foolish people who fall off the Rim but here are a few stories:

Canadian falls to his death in Grand Canyon

Services Held for Canyon Death Victim

Junction man recovering after Grand Canyon hiking accident

The list goes on and on. A word to the wise, the Grand Canyon isn't a theme park.

My Christmas Card to Everyone

We wish you the most joyous Christmas and a happy New Year.

This is my Christmas card to everyone this year:

Joy to Everyone This Christmas

Please feel free to share this wonderful message with everyone.

The Grand Canyon a place or an institution?

Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is the hub of a complex transportation and communications network. People can travel to the Canyon by air, train, bus or automobile. Thousands of tour groups travel to the Canyon each year, many from distant foreign countries. It is evident that the Grand Canyon is a destination attraction. But how does it compare to some other attractions?


According to InfoPlease, France is the world's top country for tourists, followed by Spain and then the United States. However, the United States earns the most in the world in tourist dollars. In 2003 Arizona was not even in the top ten of the U.S. States visited by foreign travelers and none of the top ten cities for foreign visitors was in Arizona. According to The Travelers Zone, the Grand Canyon was number twenty among the top visited tourist attractions in the U.S., far behind Times Square in New York and Temple Square in Salt Lake City. To give you an idea of popularity, Walt Disney World in Florida was number five and Disneyland in California, number six.
In Arizona, the Grand Canyon is, by far, the most popular and visited attraction in the state. According to the Arizona Department of Tourism report "Arizona 2007 Tourism Facts, Year-end Summary," the Grand Canyon led in numbers of tourists by more than a million people over the second place destination, Phoenix's South Mountain Park. The next three attractions on the list, number two, South Mountain Park, and number three, Saguaro National Monument near Tucson, and number four, Tempe Town Lake, are located adjacent to or actually in, large metropolitan areas.

It is apparent that the Grand Canyon has become an institution with a visitation to the specific facilities at either the North or South Rims as practically the only major activity. An examination of the statistics in the Tourism Report show that only about 10% of the Arizona resident visitors actually hike or camp in any of Arizona's natural attractions. The number one activity is dining out at a restaurant. When non-resident visitors are counted, only 6% either hike or bike and camping isn't even a measured activity. It is clear that the commonly portrayed image of the outdoors as a place for camping and hiking involves only a very, very small minority of the tourism population. This probably isn't surprising given the fact that the average age of a tourist in Arizona, whether resident or non-resident is between 40 and 50 years old.

There are two entirely different and divergent poles of experience at the Grand Canyon; those who view the Canyon from above as an attraction, a commercial institution, and those who experience the Canyon from below and see the real Grand Canyon, a huge and complex ecosystem. Think about it, how many photographs have you seen in Arizona Highways Magazine taken from down inside the Canyon? (Not counting the rafting photos).

What would Arizona be without the Grand Canyon?

In a recent edition of the Grand Canyon National Park newsletter, handed to visitors as they pay their $25 fee per vehicle to get into the Park, it said that the Park's free shuttle buses had carried 85,000,000 passengers since the service's inception. While sites like Coal Mine Canyon might get a hundred people a year, the Grand Canyon is host to roughly five million visitors each year.
The Arizona Hospitality Research and Resource Center, School of Hotel & Restaurant Management at Northern Arizona University did a Tourism Study of the Grand Canyon National Park in April, 2005. Not surprisingly, they found that the Grand Canyon National Park is one of the world’s premier attractions, with the power to draw visitors from great distances. to quote from the survey: "This survey documented visitors from all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, plus visitors from 41 foreign countries. Overall, 83% were domestic visitors residing in the United States; California (12.2%), Arizona (8.9%), Texas (4.8%), Florida (3.4%) and New York (3.2%) represented the top domestic markets. Seventeen percent of visitors were of foreign origins, and the top foreign markets were: the United Kingdom (3.8%), Canada (3.5%), Japan (2.1%), Germany (1.9%) and The Netherlands (1.2%). "

Although these facts may not be so surprising, the study also says: "Grand Canyon visitors averaged 48.5 years of age. Nearly half (47.5%) of survey respondents were between the ages of 46 and 65. Those 26 to 45 years comprised over a third of the sample (35.2%). Visitors over age 65 years (11.5%), and those 25 years or younger (5.8%) completed the age segments. GCNP visitors were highly educated. The vast majority of respondents (85.2%) had attended some college. Of these, one-fourth (24.8%) had completed a 4-year degree, while another 34.3% engaged in graduate study or earned graduate degrees."

The economic impact of the Canyon is substantial, the study states that: "Grand Canyon visitor expenditures averaged $536 per travel party in the park and $595 per travel party within 90 miles of the park. The total annual economic impact (direct, indirect and induced) of Grand Canyon National Park visitors was $687 million of output into the regional economy, which supported 12,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the area.

Only a very small percentage of the visitors descend below the rim. Even fewer hike to the bottom of the Canyon. It is something to be viewed, but not experienced, I guess.

Coal Mine Canyon, a study in contrasts

Coal Mine Canyon is a study in contrasts. It is a relatively small place with unworldly beauty. It is almost entirely unknown and yet is located only a short distance from a major highway. There are no signs marking the turnoff or identifying the canyon. No interpretive sites. No visitors' center. No guardrails. No signs telling you not to fall into the canyon. No vendors. No IMAX movie. No Japanese or European tourists. No shuttle buses. No Rangers in uniform. No hikers. No campers. No newlyweds taking each others' pictures. No curio shops. Not much except the canyon.

You can see Coal Mine Canyon in the morning and be to the Grand Canyon National Park by lunch if you want all the other things listed above. Or you can spend a week exploring its nooks and crannies.

It is one of the jewels of Arizona and it is hard to find. Even if you know where it is, it is hard to find. The roads are not only not marked they are dirt and don't go directly to the canyon. It cannot be seen from any paved road. It is not on any map of Arizona. Here are some pictures.

The rim of the Canyon and the view points are extremely unstable and undercut. Walking too close to the edge could dump you 200 feet down to the bottom of the canyon.
The upper edge of the Canyon is a low grade coal. The Hopi Indians used to come here to mine coal. The red rock is shale and is said to have oxidized as a result of the burning of the coal. In examining the beds of shale, I disagree, they are highly oxidized but the shale is in narrow bands separated by other clay bands that do not appear to have any coal content. The read shale beds have fossils.

This site is on the Navajo Indian Reservation and subject to Navajo Nation laws and police. A Navajo Nation permit is required to camp anywhere on the Reservation. The Canyon is practically in the backyard of someone's home and they would certainly be aware if you were camped there.


The wind blows all the time and there are no restrooms, water or anything resembling civilization other than five cement picnic tables. Some of the accounts mentioned a lot of garbage, we didn't see much, it must have been removed by the Navajos or some other civic minded people.

Remarkable Antelope Island

There are many places in the vast Western United States that are so beautiful that they defy description. One of those places is Antelope Island State Park. Antelope Island is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake, the largest lake in the Western U.S. and probably the largest salt water lake in the world. Although it is only a short distance from a large city, it has a remote and unworldly feeling. The level of the Great Salt Lake determines how much land there is adjacent to the island. In years of high water, these pictures would show the lake covering all of the flat land. This picture shows the "beach" made of oolitic sand. I talked about oolitic sand in a previous post but on this trip we found out that the little spherical grains are mineral deposits on salt water shrimp fecal matter. We lost some of our fascination with the sand upon learning this fact. There really is water way out there in the distance.


This next picture shows the lake disappearing into the haze.



In the distance you can see the dramatic Wasatch Front



There are almost no trees on the whole island.

But there is a herd of around 800 North American Bison



Even though this blog is called Walking Arizona, I do walk, ride and fly to other places now and again. Antelope Island is one of the most spectacular places to visit especially if you like wind, sand, no trees and bison.

Beautiful sights in Arizona

It is almost guaranteed that in any given issue of the Arizona Highways, there will be one or more pictures of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and/or the Oak Creek Canyon area around Sedona. I do have to agree that all of these places, and more, warrant the attention they get from the media. But I am equally impressed with a lot of other areas that are just as beautiful, if not as well known. In the next few posts I will give my impressions of some of these other, less well known, locations throughout the State.

First on my list are Big Lake and Mount Baldy. Located in eastern Arizona, just about midway from the north and south borders, this area known as the White Mountains is spectacular. Mount Baldy is the second highest mountain in Arizona and can be easily climbed by anyone with the stamina to walk up to 11,391 feet. On some lists it is ranked as low as number eight, due to the fact that the San Francisco Peaks, including the highest peak, Humphrey's Peak at 12,562 or thereabouts, have the first seven highest peaks.

Arizona has very few natural lakes. Almost every lake in the State has its origin as a man-made reservoir and Big Lake is no exception. When I have taken people to see this area of Arizona for the first time, almost with out exception, they declare that they had no idea that Arizona had such a beautiful place.

The White Mountains are volcanic in origin and are now covered in thick stands of Ponderosa Pine and Fir, with open meadows called cienegas. Intermixed with the pine and fir are stands of quaking aspen and the fall colors are spectacular.

There are dozens of Web sites that tell the story of the mountains, here are a few of them:

http://azwhitemountains.net/
http://www.go-arizona.com/White-Mountains
http://www.wmonline.com/
http://www.arizonawhitemountains.com/
http://www.biglakeaz.com/Big%20Lake%20AZ.htm
http://www.go-arizona.com/Big-Lake

Check these sites out.

For the beauty of the earth

In 1848, Ce­cil F. Al­ex­an­der, wrote Hymns for Lit­tle Child­ren. Alex­an­der is thought to have writ­ten these lyr­ics at Mark­ree Cas­tle, near Sli­go, Ire­land.

Refrain

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colors,
He made their tiny wings.

Refrain

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

Refrain

The purple headed mountains,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning
That brightens up the sky.

Refrain

The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one.

Refrain

The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
To gather every day.

Refrain

He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.

Refrain

One of things that God Almighty has made well is Arizona. I am always impressed with the absolute grandeur of the desert, mountains and plateau that make up our wonderful State. At this Thanksgiving season, let us remember He who made us all and Who has made all things well.

Myths of TV and other media

The proliferation of cable TV channels has exalted the myths of TV to a new level. It is impossible to watch almost any channel without seeing pure nonsense in the form of commercials and entertainment. Without conscious effort the viewer is indoctrinated by this constant stream of concepts that have no anchor to reality. First, it is important to understand that I grew up with TV. I watched hours and hours a week, often until end of the Tonight Show. When I was younger, I was outraged by the suggestion made, in the context of a Church meeting, that TV viewing on Sunday was inappropriate. Now in my dotage, I have finally begun to understand the message of the media and I find it wanting.

Myth #1
That life consists of a series of crisis that can all be solved.

Life does not ever resolve. It goes on and on with no real satisfying ending. Although the cast of characters in real life changes slowly over time, the themes, the plots and the stories never end. There are no easy solutions to life's challenges, unlike the TV episodes that would have you believe people never have to shop regularly for food, work all day for a living, ride buses, drive for hours in cars to get anywhere, go through airport security, take regular baths and perform other such bodily maintenance activities and so forth. Even if people die, the rest of us have to go on with our daily routines. TV fails to show this well or at all. No one would really want to watch a real reality show, it would only remind us how real reality really is.

Myth #2
The majority of people look like movie stars.

I started to watch some mindless movie about a huge earthquake in New York. That should have been the giveaway, there has never been a huge earthquake in New York, but I stopped watching when it turned out that all the refugees from the disaster were beautiful people. Now I have been to New York, and the people there look remarkably just like the people anywhere else in the United States and I didn't see one person that looked like a movie star. You know the type, perfect hair, perfect smile, no skin blemishes, no fat, not one paunch in the lot. When TV does show real people they cut away fast so they can get back to the beautiful ones. I believe the number of beautiful people is roughly similar to the percentage of basketball players that make it into the NBA.

Myth #3
All cars are luxuriously manufactured to go fast and smash through things.

If you watch car commercials, the cheapest Ford or GM models are filled with luxury and drive like they could win the gran prix. Every car is shown charging down the empty highway or dashing through traffic at speeds that would usually get the attention of the local police or photo radar. Despite the commercials, all cars made in the world are about the same. The more expensive fast cars are just that, more expensive and fast, not really any better. Cars vary in their size and weight. The only real innovation in automotive design is a figment of the imagination of the ad agencies. If car manufacturers really cared about gas mileage and innovation then more cars would look like and get the gas mileage of a Toyota Prius. Cars are not a luxury, they do not make us happy or rich or popular. They are a huge expense and have a monumental impact on our culture, our environment and our society and that is not all good.

Myth #4
People are not accountable for their actions and any life style is acceptable.

Not only does TV show only beautiful people, they do whatever they want to do without any consequences. Just as in the old movies, all of the people smoked and no one ever got lung cancer, today, nearly all of the TV shows depict people doing immoral, dishonest and wicked things without any consequences. Wickedness never was happiness and depicting evil as good is not acceptable. Everyone will be held accountable for their actions, either in this life or the next. There is no free lunch, every action has a consequence.


Myth #5
No physical possession can make us happy.

TV would have you believe that happiness comes from using the right products or owning the right possessions. None of this is true. Happiness does not come from owning anything. You will not be any happier with a 64 inch flat screen TV than you are today without one. Some of the most unhappy people have the most physical possessions.

More commentary later

Why was the Dutchman lost?

Through the mists of legend, can we discern the truth? Not always. Arizona is replete with stories of lost mines. There are lists, books and Web sites. Very few of the publications acknowledge that no "lost mine" has ever been found.

It always fascinated me that someone could discover a fabulous mineral deposit, spend time tunneling into solid rock and then, lose the mine. Gold and silver are heavy metals. I have a hard time believing that if I had a pile of gold, I could somehow lose it. Even though gold is not easy to carry around, it is so valuable that I doubt I would just leave it lying around. Likewise, if I spent days and weeks, perhaps years, tunneling into the side of a mountain, I probably would remember where it was. As I have pointed out in previous posts, there are over 6 million people in Arizona now, averaging almost 50 per square mile. With all of the hiking, camping, ATVs and other vehicles, it seems almost impossible that there are "undiscovered" mines in the state.

Reality has never been a strong point with those who promote UFOs, Monster Animals or Lost Mines. Lost mines and lost treasures are typical of this type of story. Ship wrecks to the contrary, most of the persistent stories of lost gold and silver involve robberies of some kind or another. (You might note that there haven't been that many ship wrecks in Arizona). The robbers always stash the loot, usually thousands of pounds of gold, in some unlikely spot and then all get killed before they can return and claim their ill-begotten gains. Unfortunately, the stories never tell how a few robbers are able to transport the thousands of pounds of gold to the stash point. It is also absolutely certain, that those who believe cannot be dissuaded by the truth. When I was a lot younger, we had an older desert rat of a man who used to come into the law office where I worked. He returned from time to time and I learned that he was trying to raise money for a mine. He claimed to have discovered the Lost Dutchman Mine. I guess he never got the funding because supposedly the mine is still lost.

Maybe this was the reason that I got started on reading about lost mines in Arizona. For years I researched the mines and read everything I could find printed on the subject. The most famous mine story is that of the Lost Dutchman Mine, supposedly in the Superstition Mountains east of the Salt River Valley. The "Dutchman" was really a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz or Walz. He was reportedly born in 1810 in Wurttemberg and died of pneumonia on October 25, 1891 in Phoenix, Arizona. Likely, the report of a mine came about as a result of a dying man's attempt to explain away his "high grading" activities. High grading was the practice of hard rock miners taking high grade ore and smuggling it out of the mine in sort-off pre-social security system. Coincidentally, a major gold strike was made in the area at the base of the Superstition Mountains in 1892. There were 50 working mines and millions of dollars in gold was mined. If there was a mine near Weaver's Needle in the Superstition Mountains, then it was likely the one found.

More on lost mines later.

Contrast contrasts

I recently wrote about the population of Arizona. This post was in contrast to the earlier posts about wilderness. Arizona is quartered by major Interstate Highways, but off of these heavily traveled roads are highways where it is still possible to drive for a long time without seeing another car. On some of Arizona's dirt roads, it is best to be prepared for trouble. If you break down it could be days or longer before someone happens along. As I have learned first hand, your friendly automobile insurance company will not dispatch a tow truck to help you out of being stuck in sand in the middle of a dry river bed. The contrast between six, eight or ten lane freeways and a dirt road is immense. Not just the technology gap, but the whole outlook on life difference. On the freeway, in most metropolitan areas of Arizona, you can get a traffic ticket for driving too slow. On a dirt road, you can get seriously injured by driving too fast, not to mention turning your tires into macrame.

As you speed along at 75 mph on the freeway, you can often look off to the side of the road and see a dirt track snaking off into the distance. Here is a quantitative illustration of the difference between the two worlds:

Over ten million people per year visit the Grand Canyon.

Sonora National Monument (you may never have heard of this one) has only 20,000 visits per year and it has a major freeway going right through it.

Coal Mine Canyon has such few visitors that there don't seem to be any records of how many people go there. (Now you ask, where is Coal Mine Canyon?) You will just have to read these posts in the future if you want to know.

Arizona, probably not what you thought

Arizona is a land of contrasts and extremes, but it is likely that there are a lot of things you didn't know about this, the sixth largest state.

The U.S. Census Bureau gives some of the following facts:

• Arizona had a population in 2006 of 6,166,318 people.
• The Arizona population increased 20.1 percent from 2000 to 2006.
• Only 4.8 percent of the Arizona population is classified as Native American but 29.2 percent are Hispanic or Latino in origin and 25.9 percent speak a language other than English at home.
  
• The median household income was $43,696 in 2004.
• Arizona averages 45.2 people per square mile out of 114,006 square miles.
  

Arizona's capital, Phoenix, is the fifth largest city in the United States. Only New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston are larger. Eight of Arizona's ten largest cities surround Phoenix in the Phoenix/Mesa Metroplex with a total population of 2,931,004 in 1999.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/04000.html

The highest point in Arizona is Humphreys Peak (one of the San Francisco Peaks) at 12,633 feet. The lowest point is near Yuma only 70 feet above sea level. The highest temperature ever recorded was 128 degrees F. at Lake Havasu City on June 29, 1994. The lowest temperature was -40 degrees F. at Hawley Lake.

More later.

Wilderness is in the eye of the beholder

One of the most sublime places is one of the least visited and, for most people, one the least attractive, that is the western deserts of Utah. The area south of the Salt Flats is mostly flat and barren between the low hills and one of my favorite places in the whole world. In reflecting on the attraction of this area, I decided that it is real wilderness. Except for a few sheep herders, no one seems to have found a use for the area. The United States Government has used it for chemical and biological warfare testing, and accidentally killing herds of sheep in the process, but no one else seems to be able to figure out what to do with the huge empty land.

Recently, we have seen an increase in the number of all terrain vehicles and four-wheelers. But the land is so big, that even they have to plan for the distances involved.

Almost all of the areas designated as "Wilderness" possess extraordinary natural beauty like the Grand Canyon, and other places where people have traveled from around the world to visit. I would guess that virtually no one travels from Europe or Asia to the western desert. There are no bus loads of Japanese tourists, no French and German campers, no car loads of Chinese. There is just miles and miles of solitude and beautiful empty desert. There are animals. In the picture above, if you look closely, you can see mounds of dirt. These are ancient ant hills scattered across the valley floor. From their size, it is obvious that they are thousands of years old. There are also antelope, actually Pronghorns. They run in small herds across the plains at speeds in excess of thirty miles an hour. If you do not know where and how to look, they are almost invisible.

Now, what are the chances that some environmentalist group is going to throw themselves in front of the bulldozers to protect this desert. The chances are vanishingly small. Why? Because, for all the hand wringing and angst of the environmentalists, they are only really interested in preserving the outstandingly beautiful parts of the land, the Yellowstones and Yosemites, where there are thousands or millions of visitors. But if you really want to have a wilderness experience, you need to go into the western deserts of the world. Then you can really begin to understand the meaning of the word, wilderness.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am certainly in favor of National Parks and Monuments. I certainly recognize the need to "preserve" the physically attractive places of the world from dams and development. But, that isn't the same as wilderness. In hiking across the Grand Canyon, I probably passed thousands of people. In driving out into the western desert, we might pass a few cars on the road. Off the road, you may never see another person.

More later.

Wilderness Incorporated -- the American view of wilderness

The November 2008 Arizona Highways ran an article about the environmentalist, Martin Linton. One of the quotes from the story caught my attention. Linton said, "Nature, where man has not interfered, is always sublime; mankind's interference is always crass and ugly." He also said, "We're the aberration on Earth--humans are what's wrong with the world." Not just anti-development, not just pro-wilderness, but anti-human altogether. Ironically, Linton spent the latter part of his long life, ferrying people down the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. His company, Grand Canyon Dories, advertises: "10,000 Trips, 3,000 Destinations, 126 Countries." The Grand Canyon Trip is from 4 to 19 days and costs from $1,735 to $5,267 per person. See http://whitewater-rafting.gordonsguide.com/grandcanyondories/trips.cfm

So apparently as long as the aberration is willing to pay big bucks, they are welcome in his wilderness. If you don't want to pay that high price for a trip down the river, the current waiting list for private trips has over 8,000 names on it, and the projected wait period is about 15 years. See http://southwestpaddler.com/docs/coloradoaz2.html

The Grand Canyon National Park has about five million visitors each year according to the National Park Service. See http://www.grand.canyon.national-park.com/info.htm The description of the regulations about river trips is pages long and as detailed as a legal contract. See http://www.grand.canyon.national-park.com/river.htm Even though you might hate humans, wilderness is a big business in the United States.

More to come.

Ah wilderness

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) one of the major political philosophers of the Enlightenment is often cited as the creator of the noble savage myth. However, the actual phrase came from John Dryden's The Conquest of Granada, a play first performed in 1670. Briefly, the idea of the noble savage is that man, in his natural state, is good and noble and that he has been corrupted by "civilization." The idea of the noble savage is so pervasive in literature that it has become a significant theme. Just as Rousseau saw civilization as corrupt, this same viewpoint has become a dominant theme among those who would preserve the wilderness.

The title of this post, "Ah, Wilderness" comes from Quatrain XI of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. There was also a Broadway Show of the same name by Eugene O'Neill. Neither of which have anything to do with wilderness. Actually, the translation of the Rubaiyat says "Oh, Wilderness."

It turns out that there are 704 Wilderness Areas in the United States with over 100 million acres of designated land. According to Wilderness.net, over 12 million people visit wilderness each year. In this context, only Federally designated land that is part of the Wilderness Preservation System under the Wilderness Act of 1964 is considered Wilderness (with a capital W). 4.57% of the United States, an area slightly larger than California, is designated as Wilderness. Assuming the government or any one else can actually count the number of people that visit a Wilderness (how do they know how many times I visited the Superstition Wilderness last year, for example) you can compare that to the attendance at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, 17.1 million visitors in 2007. See http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/socal-amusement-park-1492/

See also http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm Wilderness.net Just as a note, I searched this site for a photo of "Arizona" and got a picture of the Superstition Mountain from the west. It must be a really old picture because where the photographer is standing is now all subdivisions.

Now, back to the noble savage and his connection to the wilderness (with a small w). It reminds me of the time we were sitting around Thunder Falls, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It was well over 100 degrees in the shade and we were waiting until evening to hike out of the canyon. We had a number of young people with us, including one of my sons, who was under 12. Suddenly, we saw this man run up to the waterfall and start frantically pumping water through a water purifier into a canteen. He was dressed in the best REI attire imaginable down to the expensive hiking shoes. I wandered over to ask him what was going on and he told me that there were a group of people up in the canyon and they had run out of water and he was carrying all the canteens and was going hike back up and rescue them. I pointed out that Thunder River came out of the cliff side about 200 feet away and there was likely no reason to filter the water. He filled the canteens and ran off up the trail. A couple of hours later, the group came stumbling down the trail and literally fell into the creek. They were in terrible shape. Later, when it was cooling off, we left them and began our hike out of the canyon. We had stashed water along the trail on the way in, so we would have enough to make the hike out. On the way out, we reported the unfortunate hikers to the National Park Ranger we met on the trail and he headed their direction.

What is the attraction of the wilderness that will put a group of totally unprepared hikers at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the middle of the summer without adequate water? Why do 12 million people a year think it necessary to hike, camp, ski, and climb in the wilderness every year? Why do I see hikers in flip-flops or with shoes taped with duct tape hiking out of the Grand Canyon?

Just as Rousseau, who had probably never talked to a native aboriginal person in his life, romanticized the native existence, so too today in a society that has lost contact with nature and either believes that it should be transformed into a more manageable commodity or preserved out of a nostalgic desire to return to a simpler and less commercialized society. In both cases humankind is viewed as something apart from nature, either separated by our responsibility as custodians or our need to preserve "wild places" from the evils of society as a whole. Often, the native indigenous population is seen as an integral part of nature, not exactly human, and therefore also to be preserved in their primeval pristine state.

There is an insightful essay on the issue of wilderness sponsored by the Faculty Resource Laboratory at the University of Connecticut. You can read the article by David R. Klein at:
http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/wilderness.html

Although I do not agree with most of the article's historic analysis, I do agree that only a small minority of the American population ever visits a wilderness or a Wilderness. Klein's statement that "[t]he act of offering legal protection for wilderness that is far removed from our everyday lives provides salve for our conscience, perhaps in recognition that we have lacked the will to initiate the major governmental and economic restructuring necessary if we are to move toward sustainability of Western society" is a capsule summary of the entire wilderness issue.

More later

Thoughts on the illusion of wilderness

The theme of wilderness permeates western civilization and its literature. But the concept of a place devoid of human habitation and untouched by human intervention is a highly charged cultural concept that has little relation to the actual existence of such a place in the real world. Many of the early pioneers from the earliest European settlers along the eastern seaboard and westward across the continent had the concept that the area they were entering was a "wilderness" even though it appeared to be inhabited, sometimes heavily, with native American people. Today, it would be difficult, if not impossible to point to an area of the world, other than the continent of Antarctica, that could fall into the classic cultural notion of a wilderness. I have found petroglyphs and other evidence of human habitation in some of the most remote areas in North America, evidence that people have lived in the area for thousands of years.

In the United States we have codified our wildernesses into Federally owned enclaves, designated by law. Some of these areas are as heavily visited as an urban mall, but are still "wilderness" under the law. One night, I was laying awake in the bottom of Pariah Canyon, a norther Arizona slot canyon and an officially designated "wilderness area." I looked into the dark midnight sky and realized that I was watching a series of airplanes fly over. With a little thought I remembered that the main north/south airline routes between Phoenix and Salt Lake City, led right over the canyon. I thought of my wilderness experience, being days on foot from the nearest commercial outpost, but in reality, only a few thousand feet from people sitting in comfort reading or sleeping or talking on a cross country flight. The experience shattered the illusion of wilderness, that I could somehow separate myself from the rest of humanity by merely walking into the desert or mountains.

In the eastern part of the Mesa/Phoenix Metroplex there is a famous range of mountains which are included in the Superstition Wilderness area. Driving along U.S. 60 going east from Mesa, you can look towards the mountains and see them outlined with a line demarking the edge of the "wilderness" next to suburban subdivisions.

I frequently read about someone who moves out into the countryside, to experience the solitude and like a recent article in Arizona Highways magazine, living "off the grid... where the world is more primal and elemental." Arizona Highways, November 2008, page 21. But the fact that we are reading about this person in a major magazine, a person who is usually a contributor, indicates that living in the "wilderness" is simply part of their job, if you will. They define themselves by living at some distance from commercial services to make a point.

Talking about a businessman that just purchased 2.5 million square acres of wilderness in Chile, the news report states: "Doug is intense, driven, obsessive and self-deprecating. He is a curious fusion of Henry David Thoreau and Charles Lindberg with Martha Stewart's eye for detail. But at his core, he is a deeply committed environmentalist." Describing his land the article explains, "In this isolated region with chronic poverty, Doug is creating his own Utopian world -- a South American Walden Pond where natural splendor is complimented by handcrafted beauty. No detail too small: paths made of stone, fences of twigs, signs hand-carved, public campgrounds immaculate. And nine Hobbit-like cabins for visitors. Pumalin isn't just about preserving wilderness, it is about living in harmony with nature."

Wilderness including all the modern conveniences. As the article states: "Suddenly, in this remote mountain valley near the bottom of the earth, we enter a manicured lane way, passing immaculate gardens, glass greenhouses and then, far from everyone and everywhere, a graceful home. This is where Doug Tompkins and his wife, Kristine, live."

See http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/GlobalWarming/story?id=2931202

More about wilderness later.

The rare annual saguaro migration unveiled

During a recent trip to Payson, up the Beeline Highway, I was privileged to see the annual Saguaro Migration in full swing. This annual event has been totally ignored by everyone from National Geographic to Arizona Highways. It has also yet to be featured on Blue Planet. You will have to excuse the pictures because they were taken at 65 mph on the highway. It is not recommended that you exit your vehicle while the Saguaros are migrating.

You can just see the herd in the distance, coming over the hill. It is unusual to see them during daylight hours, but the weather has been very warm into the later part of the year and saguaros take advantage of the warm weather, even during daylight hours.

An old male saguaro is running from a pack of carnivorous cholla. The cholla prey on the weaker, smaller saguaros or those who stray from the herd.

You can just catch the lead bull saguaro leading the march across the desert.



A few juvenile Saguaros approach the highway. Unfortunately, many are killed trying to cross four lanes of traffic. You often see their squished bodies laying on the side of the road with their little roots sticking into the air. You who live in the South can relate by thinking of armadillos only longer and green.

Another shot showing a mixed group gathering for a quick dash across the highway.

He who hesitates is lost. Some of these fellows appear a little undecided.

This is a Saguaro barrier, a futile attempt to protect the migrating herd. You may think it is a crash barrier but that is what they want you to think.

Arizona is a land of extremes. But it is very disappointing that the conservationists have been so effective in protecting this species that their annual migration has almost gone unnoticed.

Arizona has flowers besides cactus

Some thoughts on poetry

Writing poetry is hard work. Contrary to popular belief, poetry is not simply short lines of prose arranged to look like a "poem." Here is an apparently simple poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Rain

The rain is falling all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

[this poem came from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, as available on Gutenberg.org]

I say apparently simple, because no poetry is simple. Let's look at this poem.

Stevenson makes a comment that is universal. But he makes his comment in a formal way, using certain conventions that make the thought unique and memorable. It is not the line length or the appearance that makes this into a poem. It is the combination of rhyme, meter, and content. So much of what I see today tries to be poetry by talking about "poetical" things. The whole world may be full of poetry, but it must be put into some form of rhyme, meter or content to actually become a poem.

Considering Stevenson's poem only from the standpoint of syllabic meter, it is in the form 8 syllables/6 syllables/8 syllables/6 syllables with rhyme on the last syllable of each of the two 6 syllable lines. The first and third lines have 4 iambic feet (tetrameter), that is accent on the second syllable such as -/. The second and fourth lines each have three iambic feet (trimeter). The word "umbrellas" is slightly problematical because the preceding stressed syllable falls on the word "the." The poem is constructed with enjambed or run-on lines in which the sense of the poem continues on to the next line without a natural syntactical pause, establishing a strong grammatical pull between the lines known as enjambment. See

http://english3.fsu.edu/~mkennedy/poeticform.htm Meegan Kennedy, Department of English, Florida State University.

Although the content of the poem appears simple, the thought shows substantial reflection on the universality of human experience and the egalitarian nature of natural phenomenon.

The next time you see a "poem" in print, think about both the form and content. You may find that much of what is being passed off as poetry isn't poetry at all. From time to time I will continue to comment on poetry. I believe that if poetry fails so fails the world. Not that I believe that poetry has any saving grace, but that true poetry embodies all that is good and beautiful in the world. An evil world cannot produce true poetry. However, just as pictures can uplift and edify as well as degrade and destroy, so words can be used for evil purposes. True poetry comes from the fullness of the heart and if used for evil, to that extent is no longer poetry.

Back to signs

I know this one is pretty silly. But how many of you worry about those labels that say do not remove under penalty of law?

On getting old

I think I can now relate to this poem I have read all my life, especially the sixth stanza:

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head -
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "As I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -
Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "And your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What has made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

by Lewis Carroll

The subject of signs

Now that I am on the subject of signs, I thought I should complement the Arizona State Department of Transportation for dispelling one of my great fears in life. All around the state you see signs that say "ICE MAY BE PRESENT IN COLD WEATHER." It was always a secret fear of mine that driving through the blazing heat of summer in Arizona, I just might hit a patch of ice and fly off the road. Now courtesy of the AZDOT I no longer have to worry.

Dust storms in Arizona can cause serious accidents on the highways. Admittedly, this is a problem and one that all drivers should be aware of. However, there are signs that say "REDUCE SPEED IN TIMES OF LOW VISIBILITY." (There are a few variations). Now, if there is reduced visibility, how am supposed to see the sign? I guess its just supposed to be a reminder, like all those signs that say "DO NOT CROSS DOUBLE LINE." They just make it hard to turn left. Not to mention all of the signs that say, "DO NOT PASS." I guess I break that one every time I pass one of the signs.

Use no forks

I was driving down the road and, as usual, reading all the signs. There was a truck in front of me with a large box. Printed on the box were the words, "USE NO FORKS." Now, I have been living for quite a while, and I am pretty much up on the news and such, but I have no idea why there is now a movement in America to ban the use of forks. As a former, and sometimes present, Boy Scout, I have gotten along well with just a knife. However, it is a little hard to eat things like jello, pudding and cold cereal with a knife. I assumed that spoons were invented for that purpose, and although I could probably make due with my fingers, a spoon and knife, forks have seemed to be convenient on occasion. Come to think of it, I really can't think of anything I couldn't eat with my fingers, a spoon and a knife. Maybe they are on to something?

The Death March

About twenty five years ago we had one of those memorable hikes that has long since passed into legend and has been referred to as the Death March. First of all, and right out of the chute, no one died. This was a Stake Camporee. The organizers, who will remain anonymous to protect the guilty, decided that all of the eight or so Scout Troops should have a real hiking experience. Since the hike was planned for November, they decided to hike to Charlebois Spring, probably named for a cattleman named Lou Charlebois who was the President of the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, deep in the Superstition Wilderness area, just east of Apache Junction, Arizona.

http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/pages/morin/charlebois.web/RR01/RR01_003.HTM

If you want more information, do a search on Charlebois Spring and you will find hundreds of references. Others claim that the Spring was named after Joseph Fernando Charlebois.

See http://genforum.genealogy.com/charlebois/messages/83.html

But as my son Jared would say, I digress. Now, depending on the reference it is anywhere from 6 to 8 from any access road. It just so happened that very few of these potential Scout hikers had actually walked that far in their lifetimes, especially not in Superstition Mountains. It also happened, as is possible at any time in the desert, that the temperature during the day was about 95 degrees. Unfortunately, they set the time for departure about 4:00 in the afternoon, guaranteeing that most of the participants would have to hike in the dark. (This is the tie-in to my previous post). If you do go looking for pictures of Charlebois Spring, you will note that most of the people in the pictures are wearing coats. This is not because they are crazy, it is because no one, in their right mind, would go hiking out into the middle of the Superstitions if the temperature is not down in the low 70s or 60s, with night time temperatures in the 40s or below.

At this time, my sons were not old enough to be in Scouting, and I had little contact with the Scouting program. (Of course this changed dramatically and I have spent the last twenty years or so in Scouting). We left later than the rest of the Scouts and their leaders. I remember that there were three or four of us hiking in together. I went along, essentially, for the ride.

We hiked in from the west end at the First Water Trailhead following the Peralta Trail. Keeping to the right (south) we got to the junction with the Boulder Canyon trail (if you follow this trail you go past Weaver's Needle and then to the northwest side of the Fremont Saddle). At this point the trail follows a wash for a ways and it is difficult to tell where the trail splits off so, of course, we missed the Peralta Trail. I figured out that we weren't on the right trail after a few minutes. We circled back in a large circle until I found the trail part way up a hill. Now, to understand this story, you have to realize that circling back to find a trail in the Superstitions isn't not very straight forward. You can never tell if you are going to run into a canyon or a cliff or something and you have to avoid cactus and catclaw.

It was starting to get dark when we were moving down the Peralta and soon it got really dark. I didn't have much of a light and I don't use a flashlight unless it is absolutely necessary, so I just kept moving. When we got to the main group, it was about 8:30 or so and the scene looked like that part of Gone with the Wind where all the wounded soldiers are laying all over the ground. It was pretty grim. A lot of people were injured and had blisters or back problems or whatever. They were spread along the trail for a couple of hundred yards, since there really isn't a clearing or anything to camp in large enough for Scout Troops. Some of the Troops never made it to the gathering area and just camped along the trail.

I went to sleep and in the morning it was even worse. The area of the Spring is pretty, especially with 100 or so Scouts running around. I worked on filling my water bottles with my filter pump. There was plenty of water. Those in charge decided that they had made a mistake and told everyone to just leave. They had a bunch of activities planned but all of them seemed irrelevant given the condition of the leaders and Scouts. We started hiking out the Peralta towards the Peralta Trailhead. We were supposed to have people come and pick us up about 4:00 in the afternoon. This was pre-cell phone and so we had no way to coordinate the pickup time with the rides who were coming. I walked out by Bluff Spring and still had most of my water. Bad decision, I should have filled up there. Making the climb over the ridge by Miner's Needle, the Scouts and leaders started to run out of water. I found some to filter, but my filter clogged up. I have given away most of my water and so I decided I better get out so I could be of some help to the rest on the trail. I was like the second or third person out, but there is no water at the Peralta Trailhead so I begged water off of people leaving in their cars. Finally, someone gave me a two gallon jug full, so I drank the whole thing and started back up the trail with one other leader. We found people all along the trail so we passed everyone to find out who was in the back of the group. We found a couple of leaders in really bad shape, almost passing out from the heat and dehydration. We gave them some water, took their packs and made them keep moving. I literally had to push my guy down the trail. We finally all got out.

When I got home, I found out I had lost six pounds of water in one day. Some of the Troops didn't get back until late that Saturday night after being lost all day. It was interesting.

Things that go blink in the night

Thinking about walking around in the dark reminded me of other dark related incidents in my, now dim, past. Our Scout troop would camp at various locations around the state, most of which, at the time, were moderately inaccessible. We camped for almost a week in a campground back into the canyon above where West Clear Creek now crosses Highway 260, which at the time was mostly a dirt road.

One night on this West Clear Creek camp, we were out running around in the dark making noise and probably playing capture the flag, when we saw a light a short distance away. Suddenly, we all stopped and stared at this rather unusual event. We ran towards the light to see if we could find the source and soon discovered that it was in a large bush. We shined our flashlights into the bush and the light disappeared. After a rather long discussion, we chocked the whole thing up to some hitherto unexplained natural phenomena, when the light appeared again a little ways off. At this point we had to decide whether to start being afraid or what. But the light disappeared and we finally all went to bed in our sleeping bags.

Many years later, for a short time, I lived along the Ohio River in Kentucky. This was my first introduction, as an adult, to the middle part of the United States. One of the things I saw for the first time were fireflies. It immediately occured to me that what had so mystified a bunch of Scouts from Arizona was nothing more than a lone firefly. I now know that fireflies are very uncommon, but not unknown, in Arizona. But it doesn't take that much to freak out a bunch of Scouts in the middle of the night.

Hiking in the dark

Sometimes I end up walking, misjudging the distance, and the hike turns into a night hike without planning for one. Occasionally we have planned to walk in the dark. When I was young, living in a small town, the electricity would go off regularly. Sometimes we would be sitting in the movie theater when the lights went out and the movie came to a grinding halt. We would all sit there and clap and yell, but eventually the novelty would wear off and we would file out and walk home. I had to walk up a long hill and it is amazing how dark it is outside with little or no ambient light. The only way I could make sure I didn't fall in a ditch, was to walk with one foot on the pavement and one foot off on the side of the road. It was so dark I really couldn't see my feet.

Maybe it was the darkness of the Colorado Plateau that made me unafraid of the dark and let me know that if you keep walking you will eventually get home or fall into or bump into something. It didn't really matter what happened. One of the more memorable dark night episodes occurred at the Dugway Proving Ground in the salt desert of Utah. At the time, I was being trained as an Army Ranger and I guess they thought it might be a good idea for us to wander around in the dark for a while, just in case we ever had to fight in the dark or anything. So they loaded us all up and trucked us out to the salt desert. It is dark out there at night and I would assume that they chose a night when the moon was supposed to come up pretty late. We were put in teams of two or three and given a compass bearing and a distance. We were supposed to find the next compass bearing and distance at the destination.

We took off in the direction we were supposed to go, walking out across the almost flat and very empty desert. When we had gone the distance, we found the next set of directions, but there was one small problem, back in those pre-digital days, it was too dark to see the directions, or see our compass or even tell what time it was. Every team had a different goal so we weren't all standing around in a group, but we could hear for miles and everybody was having a similar experience. We were on a tiny little hill, mostly just a rise in the ground, and couldn't see a thing. We could barely make out our hands in front of our faces. Looking to the East, I could see a glow on the horizon. I figured if we waited long enough, they would get tired of waiting for us or moon would come up and we would be able to read everything. It is quite interesting standing in the middle of an almost flat desert waiting for the moon to rise. It is amazing how slow the earth turns.

You can probably guess that the moon came up, or I probably wouldn't be telling this story. I can't remember what happened exactly, but I think the organizers got tired of waiting for everyone about 1:00 or 2:00 am and turned on a light and we all walked towards the light, got in our trucks and road back to the base. This must have been some sort-of standard Army experience because from time to time over the years I was in the Army, they would haul us out into the (fill in the blank) and let us try to find our way to (fill in another blank). The novelty of these experiences didn't last long, because before I was in the Army, I had already spent a considerable amount of time wandering around in the desert in the middle of the night. One time, we even swam across Saguaro Lake in the middle of the night. This is not an endorsement for doing things that aren't too bright, in the middle of the night in the desert, but it does cause me to think.

Usually, I start to think about these experiences when I read about someone who wanders away from a camp and gets lost. I could never figure this out. If it were daytime, you can see for miles in the desert and it would be hard to walk far enough so that you couldn't see where you started. Even in the night, there are few clouds and you can almost always see some kind of star which instantly tells you the direction. Even if you can only see a few stars, if you wait a while you can see them move and tell the major cardinal directions. Anyway, the wind always blows from the same direction in the Arizona and Utah at the same time of the year, so even if you can't see anything, if you can feel the wind you know what the directions are. If directions are important that is. It seems like from the time I was young, I had a map of Arizona and Utah in my head and I always knew exactly (or pretty close anyway) where I was.

One time I got disoriented in the middle of the night at Camp Geronimo, near Pine, Arizona. I was walking back to my camp and thought to take a short cut over a hill. When I got over the hill, I didn't know if I had come out above or below my campsite. I walked into another campsite and asked them the number of their site, which, by the way, none of them knew, and finally got an answer and immediately turned and walked to my own campsite.

OK, back to being lost. When I was in the Army in Kentucky and Washington state, I finally realized that with all those trees and bushes, if you got disoriented, it could take a while to find some way to see the sky or anything else for that matter. At least, I could now sympathize with some of the people that got lost.

One of my memorable night hikes was into the Superstition Mountains with a full moon. It was bright enough that we didn't need flashlights and I mostly remember walking through the huge cholla forests, it was like being on another planet. It is interesting but I can remember almost every foot of every trail I have ever hiked. (What a burden!!)

Relative Risk v. Perceived Risk

I am still thinking about the idea of relative v. perceived risk. Many outdoor activities are viewed as risky. For example, downhill skiing appears to have a higher risk factor than walking in a city park. However, depending on the time of day and the location of the park, the walk in the park might be much more of a risk that skiing. There are some activities which, by their nature, are high risk activities. For example, free climbing without protection, is more hazardes than with protection. My issue with the Scouting Magazine article for October, 2008 "Don't get sick on the trail" is the use of an unexplained statistic to increase the reader's perceived risk of an otherwise safe activity. It seems to me that ultimately, the real measure of any activity's risk is the mortality rate per number of participants. The use of mortality rates eliminates the issue that in a rather benign activity, like hiking, the injuries are likely to be minor, whereas a crash in bobsled could be a lot more serious.

Authors Richard J Zeckhauser and W. Kip Viscusi give the following observation:

"Society's system for managing risks to life and limb is deeply flawed. We overreact to some risks and virtually ignor others. Often too much wight is placed on risks of low probability but high salience (such as those posed by trace carcinogens or terrorist action); risks of commission rather than omission; and risks, scuh as those associated with frontier technologies, whose magnitue is difficult to estimate. Too little effort is spent ameliorating voluntary risks, such as those involving automobiles and diet. When the bearers of risk do not share in the costs of reduction, moreover, extravagance is likely. " See Simon, Julian Lincoln. The State of Humanity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell in association with the Cato Institute, 1995.

It is interesting to note the following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mortality Data (See http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/otheract/injury/injury_mortality.htm ):

"In 2002, the 10 leading causes of death were (in rank order) Diseases of heart; Malignant neoplasms; Cerebrovascular diseases; Chronic lower respiratory diseases; Accidents (unintentional injuries); Diabetes mellitus; Influenza and pneumonia; Alzheimer’s disease; Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis; and Septicemia and accounted for about 79 percent of all deaths occurring in the United States."

The CDCP indicates that in 2002, accidents comprised only 4.4% of all deaths in the U.S. However, the death rate for males between the ages of the 10 and 40 is as high as 50% from accidents. Essentially, what that means is that young men are not likely to die of anything else.

Perhaps, it would be a good idea to weigh the benefits of walking and hiking as compared to the risks of heart disease. When obesity is a national epidemic, it not appropriate to give overemphasis to the risks involved in walking around in the sunshine.