Greenspan and I were halfway up the mountain when we paused by a remnant snowfield for rest and reflection. The wind, blowing from the West was ferocious on the far side of the ridge. But here, facing east, it howled above us while we contemplated the scene below. The air was sparkling clear despite the wind, and visibility was unlimited. My eyes scanned the horizon from North to South: the Book Cliffs, Eagle Park and the Devils Garden at Arches, the Sand Flats, the La Sals, Grand View Point, Elaterite Butte, Lisbon Valley, the Blues, the Bears Ears, Dark Canyon, White Canyon, Navajo Mountain.... and beyond.
Above us, the sun shined like a diamond in a sea of blue, darker and purer than I had seen in a long time. It was a perfect moment.
"Stiles?" grumbled Greenspan, "I don't think this duct tape is holding up." The soles of Bob's shoes had split open several weeks ago, and now faced with flipping and flapping his way to the summit, he turned to his old duct tape friend. A few wraps appeared to do the job, but the sharp granitic rock could be brutal. There was growing evidence that the shoes might not make the climb.
Greenspan, an out of work musician and an old friend of Abbey's, had joined me at the last moment on my yearly ascent of my favorite peak. But there was some concern that we'd kill each other before the trip was over. While there is no one more sensitive to the environment than Bob (he's never littered in his life), the man known also as Swarthy Walker can at other times be...well...sorry, Bob. The guy's a slob, although he claims I'm anal-retentive. But we'd barely left Moab and a pile of garbage began to accumulate at his feet on the passenger's side of the car. Salsa trickled off the dashboard of the Squareback and pooled inside the glove compartment. The rest of it clung stubbornly to his scraggly beard. "Greenspan," I groaned. "Try not to make such a mess, will you?"
Bob chuckled. "Relax Stiles. This stuff'll clean right up. Besides, we're on vacation."
Back to the mountain.
As Swarthy agonized over his feet, my eyes drifted beyond his shoulder to the talus slope that lay ahead. To my surprise and indignation I saw another hiker coming down the scree from the summit register. Stylishly attired in mauve and teal, and carrying a graphite hiking rod, the man appeared to march, more than hike, down the mountain. He stopped briefly to speak with us, and looked disdainfully at Greenspan's duct tape boots. He asked us if we'd ever been up here before, and inquired about access to the pass from the east during the spring. Factoid stuff. In a minute, he said: "I must continue my walk now," turned briskly and moved off at a very measured and efficient clip toward the saddle.
Greenspan eyed him suspiciously, as the man departed. "He's in an awful damn hurry... What's his problem?"
I shrugged and reached for my pack. Bob took another hard look and said out of nowhere, "I wonder if he's that Kelsey guy, the one who writes all those damned guide books?"
"Why'd you say that?" I asked.
This time it was Greenspan's turn to shrug. They'd never been introduced. He'd never seen his picture. It didn't matter. Swarthy pulled on his own pack and we both trudged onward. Twenty minutes later, we were on top. A large pile of rocks and a mailbox/register marked the spot. Inside a tattered and hammered book kept the names of everyone who had scaled the mountain since 1963. Flipping through the pages, I found the names of old friends - Dave Loope 1974, Michael Salamacha 1989, Dick Robertson 1985, and Joan Swanson, September 3, 1985.
A lot of water under the bridge. I'd climbed this mountain every June since 1986 and now I turned to the most recent entry in the register. I was stunned......
"Greenspan, look at this!" I yelled.
Bob leaned over the book, squinting in the bright sun, and read the signature. "I'll be damned," he said. "I'm a son of a bitchin' psychic."
The name read: Michael Kelsey, Provo, Utah.
I couldn't believe it. I had never considered Greenspan to be particularly intuitive; in fact, on several occasions I'd been concerned that his upper brain functions had ceased completely. Yet, there it was - the signature in the book had been foretold a full 30 minutes earlier by my swarthy buddy with duct tape shoes.
Michael Kelsey is known for his prolific writing of guide books about seldom seen areas of the Colorado Plateau. Like other guide book writers across the West, Kelsey provides detailed information on roads, distances, conditions, things to see, available services, historical and archaeological descriptions, travel times -- in essence -- DATA. It's an attempt to make exploring more....efficient. Kelsey's succinct comment in the trail register says something about his style. After his name he simply wrote, "45 minutes from Bull Pass (sic)." He'd clocked himself on the race up the mountain. Our chat with him on the way down must have upset his timetable.
Now, I don't know Michael Kelsey personally, except for our brief chat on the Peak. He's probably a warm and wonderful human being and a credit to the human race. But I have a real problem with what he and many others are doing to the last blank spaces on the map. They are filling them up with idiotic details and statistics, and taking the mystery, the adventure, the fun and the danger out of everything. They find remote, infrequently visited places, then grid and dissect them, write it up, desk top publish the results, and distribute the book in every book store, drug store, grocery store, and curio shop within 300 miles of the "target" area. Mass marketing brings results.
I've been watching this guide book phenomenon for a long, long time. In 1968, when I made my first descent into the Grand Canyon (I was just a babe at the time), backcountry hiking was almost unheard of. I walked into the South Rim ranger station and asked what I had to do to hike to Phantom Ranch. Nothing, the ranger said. Just make sure you have the energy to come back up. When I reached Bright Angel Creek, there was nobody around. The pool at the ranch was full of water but empty of tourists, and I never saw a ranger. It was great.
But the backpacking craze awaited just around the corner and would change all of that, almost overnight. By 1971, the Bright Angel and Kaibab trails were overrun with hikers. Phantom Ranch became a madhouse. They drained the pool and filled it with sand. Park Rangers got nasty. I looked elsewhere.
I discovered that there were a number of unmaintained, primitive, but passable trails that led from the Rim to the Tonto Plateau, and then, usually, down to the river. Trails like the Hermit's Trail and Grandview Trail were rough in sections, but wonderfully remote and full of history and surprises. I felt as if I'd been given a treasure that I should share with a very few. Let the masses trudge past the pissing mules on the Kaibab. Who needed them?
I kept my vow of silence, and looked forward to returning to the old trails and exploring some more unknown canyons that had no names. But when I did return a few months later, I was shaken to see a new book for sale near the park's visitor information desk. The book's title read:
A GUIDE TO THE PRIMITIVE TRAILS
OF THE INNER GRAND CANYONTell me this is a bad dream, I thought. I walked to the desk and asked for a backcountry permit for the Hermit Trail. The ranger shook his head and smirked. "You've got to be kidding," he said. "That trail has a five day waiting list. Take a number."
Take a number? Could this be the same lonely trail I traveled along barely a year ago? Reluctantly I realized the trail was the same - the world had changed, in the blink of an eye. Today those "primitive" trails are heavily traveled; designated campsites have been established, rules and regulations have been imposed, and are strictly enforced by eager rangers.
Elsewhere, the pattern was the same. Use of established trails doubled, tripled, quadrupled, thanks in part to the ubiquitous guidebook. When cramped hikers sought refuge in lesser known areas, willing writers were there to fill the void. A recent review of guidebooks in area book stores boggled my mind. Included were detailed volumes about the High Uintas, the San Raphael Swell, The Colorado Plateau (the broad stroke), the Paria and Escalante Rivers, the Grand Canyon, Mt. Timpanogos, the Wasatch Mountains, the Great Basin, Dinosaur, Desolation Canyon, the San Juan Mountains and the Wind River Range.
Anything ELSE? Is there anything left for the imagination? Does anyone have an interest in not knowing what lies around the next bend? Maybe not, but I know for a fact that my most memorable experiences were the ones I hadn't planned. I remember traveling north into Utah from the Grand Canyon one summer afternoon many years ago. As I approached Blanding for the first time on old highway 160, I saw a sign that indicated a road junction a mile ahead with state highway 95. The road led to places I'd only heard about, and I thought - why not? I'm in no hurry. I checked my Texaco road map (the only guide I had) and decided to give it a try. The little paved road wound its way through the pygmy forest, always climbing slightly on its way westward.
Abruptly the pavement ended. Beyond lay a dirt track cutting through the trees. Was it like this all the way to Hanksville, more than a hundred miles away? The map was no help, and thank God I didn't have a guide book to make me be logical. I remembered a passage from a slim volume of wonderful words called On The Loose by Terry and Renny Russell...
"Well Have we guys learned our lesson? You bet we have. Have we learned to eschew irresponsible outdoors- manship, to ask advice, to take care and to plan fastidiously and to stay on the trail and to camp only in designated campgrounds and to inquire locally and take enough clothes and keep off the grass? You bet we haven't. Unfastidious outdoorsmanship is the best kind."I decided to give it a try. The road was rough and dusty. I climbed in and out of ravines, always gaining ground. Finally, the world opened up and I found myself on the brink of Comb Ridge. The old road snaked its way to the wash below, where clear water trickled between towering cottonwood trees. I hadn't seen a soul. The air was still, quieter than anything I'd ever experienced in my life. I stretched out by a pool of water, chewed on a blade of grass, and watched the clouds float past the golden sandstone cliffs above me. It was on that day, at that moment, that I knew I had to find a way to make Utah my home.
Now I have to wonder: if someone had written a guide book about old Utah Hwy 95 (before they paved the whole damn thing in 1976 and completely civilized and ruined it), would warnings about loose sand, chuckholes, unbridged washes, and an absence of "services" have intimidated me into staying on the "designated roadway?" I'll never know.
Today, guide books are more prolific than ever. There is scarcely a piece of terra incognita left on the Colorado Plateau to a person with any imagination at all. And my favorite guide book writer, Mr Kelsey, is right out there on the cutting edge. He seems determined to turn the phrase, "a secret place, " into an anachronistic bad joke. In his book, "Hiking, Biking, and Exploring Canyonlands National Park," Kelsey sets out to give detailed route descriptions of those few and far between gems that the general public has not yet stumbled upon (and over).
For instance, he has this to say about a seldom visited part of the park. I've deleted the place name for this story:
"(Blank) was always impossible for cows to get into, therefore it was never grazed. The NPS considers this to be a special place because it was left more pristine than any other such place in the (area). They have never promoted it in any way and will not mention it to you, unless you mention it to them first. They have never put it on any maps either, so few people know about it."
In the very next sentence, he gives a detailed description of the route. "The rangers might tell you it's difficult," he warns, and adds, "But it's not." You bet, Michael...any damn fool can get in there, as long as he has your trusty handbook along side.
According to Canyonlands National Park Chief Interpreter Larry Frederick, the subsequent degradation to the park is obvious. "Backcountry use is increasing," says Frederick, "and very definitely, Kelsey's book is contributing to the damage that's being done.
Of course, Kelsey doesn't see it that way. In 1987, when the Zion National History Association refused to carry his books at the Zion visitor center, Kelsey made his feelings known to the park superintendent in a fiery letter.
"National park rangers are a bunch of city kids," Kelsey complained, "who are totally inexperienced as to the ways of the wilds...yet they continue to give advice to hikers, as though they were." Furthermore, Kelsey added, "To set the record straight, I've traveled in 129 countries of the world, and have climbed mountains in most, making this climber the most experienced in the world."
The most experienced hiker in the world. He really said that. At least we know he can count.
Kelsey is only one of many who are making a nice living by revealing what little is left of what was once the wild and lonely West. What can you do to stop these rip-off artists? It's real easy...don't buy their books. You say, if you don't, someone else will? Fine. Let the shame fall on someone else's shoulders.
But don't you need to know where you are, where you've been, and where you're about to go? Why? What difference does it make? If you don't know where you've been, you can't be forced to tell anyone else, thereby preserving it even more.
Do this. You've decided to take a hike, Arbitrarily pick a number to determine how far you intend to drive. When you've driven that number of miles, pull over, get out of the car, pick a direction and...just GO. Let it be a surprise. Treat yourself to the unknown.
After our climb down from the mountain, Greenspan and I discussed the problem as we bounced along a rocky section of the road near Copper Ridge. The problem was, we agreed, that anybody who writes, photographs, paints, or sings about the West is exploiting it to a certain extent. Our friend Abbey rued the day he ever mentioned the Maze in any of this books. He felt responsible for the rapid increase in visitation. Even in this story, I've felt the need to mention a place or two by name. It's important not to go too far.
I pulled my ragged copy of On The Loose from a satchel and read the line about "unfastidious outdoorsmanship" to Swarthy. The problem is, we concluded, with so many people descending on the West, this myriad of rules and regulations is becoming ever more necessary to control the impacts that the masses are creating. And we hate rules.
A few minutes later, as I crossed a bone dry Bromide wash for the fifth time, I looked over at Greenspan. He was eating tuna out of a can with his fingers. The fish juice kept spilling on the seat, and when he tried to open his wing window, Bob smeared the glass with his greasy hands.
"Swarthy," I complained, "look what you're doing to my car. You're making a mess out of it."
Greenspan gave me the evil eye. Then he winked and smiled and patted me on the back.
"You know, Stiles," he grinned, "that's the problem with you."
"What's that?" I asked.
"You're too...fastidious. You want some of this tuna?"
Why not, I thought. It's dolphin free.
