The full color movie ad in the New York Times makes me do it.
I pull the Kodak slide projector from the back of the closet and aim it at the white refrigerator and click through slides from 1967 until I find me on my first backpacking trip, which was through Aravaipa Canyon. The projector hums; I look at a 10-inch version of me in an orange T-shirt with an overstuffed pack. “Like Reese Witherspoon,” I chuckle. “Wild, indeed.” I don’t often see women in the Times that remind me of myself so you’d think that ad would send me straight to the theater to see Wild. But I haven’t read the book yet; I’ve been foraging through contemporary British novelists for a couple of years (I’m done with Margaret Drabble, currently bemused by Julian Barnes). Should I see the movie before reading the book?
I call my friend Barb who is also a big reader and a fire lookout and a woman who has solo walked long trails for years: two thru-hikes of the Arizona Trail, 800 miles on the Grand Enchantment Trail from Albuquerque to Phoenix. Flagstaff to Yuma. Peloncillos to Pine. Moab to Arizona. Long hikes to her are “a creation that I dream and then walk. And see how they compare,” she says.
“Read the book first,” she recommends. I imagine for those of us experienced on trails, the book will give more context and ease the keen eye for detail we outdoor types bring to Hollywood representations of where our souls live.
I understand writer Cheryl Strayed suffered and was confused so she strapped on a pack to hike a long trail. I admire that courage, but when she doesn’t know what she is in for, I am puzzled: Did she have no friends with a clue? Why did she not have mentors to show her the way, friends who knew how to backpack? It sounds so lonely to me to think she headed out without having been shown a thing or two. Along with places, many many faces come back to me when I think of trail miles over the years.
Art helped me climb to the top of the Praying Monk by Camelback Mountain, and led me backpacking into the Pine Mountain Wilderness, and to Thunder River and to a myriad of out-of-the-way places around Arizona. Bill and Tom took me to multiple New Year’s Eves in the outback of Baja when fewer roads were paved there. Owen showed me Marble Canyon from Badger Point. Margie waltzed me down to Soap Creek where we watched a baggage boat go by, rowed by a woman in a marvelous hat. (We cheered; we waved. We hadn’t seen that many women rowing yet, though I did have that Sunday magazine with boatwoman Connie Tibbets on the cover.) Kate showed me the way to her favorite grandmother Alligator juniper north of Flagstaff. And later she took to me to the biggest aspen of them all on the west slope of the Peaks above Hart Prairie.
Barry showed me hilltops perfect for moonrise and canyon crevices that sheltered ancient ones and a frozen waterfall that still echoes through my dreams. Bill, walking with us to a place between places, pointed out where a village of rock walls disappeared into grass and pine trees. Phil led us up and down the Agua Fria River to swimming holes and petroglyphs long before national monument status arrived. And Forest Service foremen took us firefighters and lookouts into “the resource” to show us old mines, and recluse characters in the outback, and ruins with pottery on remote spines of rock. The tanks in Hell’s Hole, the lily ponds, a crevice where a lion lives. I’ve been led, and then I’ve led others. There’s a trickle of water in Temporal Canyon west of Patagonia that was given to me by Dr. Meg and then I gave it to a bird-watching wizard and later brought a woman good with ink pen to the same quiet shaded chapel of rock and willow leaf and bird sound.
It’s a precious thing to walk in the wild for all kinds of reasons. And when you give yourself days and days in the same direction, the power is amplified. The allure of the long walk is potent. In my teens I sat on the top of Squaw Peak in Phoenix and peered north toward Cave Creek and calculated what route I’d take to walk there across the desert. In my 20s I planned a hike down the Agua Fria from Arcosanti to Lake Pleasant. I studied the topo maps for months. I’d been on day hikes on many stretches, so connecting the dots looked plausible. But then I went to work for the Forest Service and actually never made that pilgrimage. (About the only thing left on my bucket list is doing a long day hike from Badger Springs to circumnavigate Joe’s Hill.) I did end one lookout season by walking from Crown King to Prescott with pals. And to celebrate turning 50 two of us gals walked the Arizona Trail from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon.
I applaud taking a chance on a dream; to dare the unknown happens in many ways through a life and one isn’t always blessed by having guides at hand. Lucky me to have friends who led me along trails again and again and taught me how to take enough water, how to leave things behind that weren’t necessary, and push through small obstacles, and not tempt fate by being stupid about big obstacles. It makes me want to take someone for a hike today. People have to meet their own angst to create a one-of-a-kind soul, of course, but maybe you can at least coach them about how to keep their toenails intact.
A native of Arizona, Jean Rukkila is a fire lookout and writer who has taught journal-keeping as a visiting artist in schools around the state and in writing classes at Coconino Community College. See more of her writing at www.flagstaffletterfromhome.com.
