ONE STEP AT A TIME

ONE STEP AT A TIME

I paw through dust, must and mold. In a decrepit book store in Santa Fe. The book belongs in such places. There it is. The backpacking gods cast a halo onto it. I pick it up; examine it; read the first chapter. I buy it, read it cover to cover in one night. Backpacking One Step at a Time by Harvey Manning. My life changes forever!

I couldn’t have found it that way. The title isn’t catchy. It’s outdated-looking and frumpy, not glossy. A black and white photo of an old man hiking with ancient gear graces the cover. The book is far from Manning’s most famous or popular book, if he really had any. The reference to it is buried far down in his brief Wikipedia entry among “Other Books Written.”

My life is changing. I need a life-changing book. But I wasn’t seeking one.

Finding the book wasn’t an accident. I bought the book in Albuquerque, not Santa Fe.

My father passed away. I take Paxil for depression, see a string of counsellors. The faith-based counselor pronounces a cure in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I wasn’t much better. I do need a “self-help” book, but I loathe them.

I’m a bit middle aged crazy too. I have a reasonably priced convertible, but no Dallas Cowboys cheerleader…yet. Thinking of changing careers but not following through.

The problems in my family become silently toxic. I don’t talk about them or participate in solutions. I want to withdraw to a quiet place. A pack trip is quiet place.

My sons go backpacking with their scout troops. Big lists of expensive equipment. The scoutmasters recommend a store in Albuquerque. REI. Filled with gear for every outdoor activity. All the backpacking items are designed to make your life as comfortable as possible, while you remain just uncomfortable enough to have an adventure and realign your “Cheech” and “Chong” in the wilderness.

They didn’t like the Scout trips at all. Described the hikes as organized chaos. The food was good. But the scout master is crazy. He brings out a full kitchen tent and related gear and produces steaks, baked potatoes, and multi-course meals. They carry all this stuff out and back in semi-arid West Texas without enough water. The boys hike 15 minutes and rest 30. It takes most of a day to cover a few miles.

Despite this description, the gear intrigues me especially in the inviting way it’s displayed in stores. Will my sons and I have fun backpacking if we plan and organize differently? While wondering in REI, I visit the Help Desk.

“I’m thinking about backpacking. What do I need first?”

“Read this book. Then, come back and buy gear”

Manning’s book is preachy and a little grouchy. He describes himself as a full-time curmudgeon and mountain bum. He writes entire chapters on flashlights, batteries, water filters and tents. He recommends making your own lightweight food instead of taking freeze-dried meals. Says if you don’t know what you’re doing, be sure to choose a trail near water, along streams. Not in arid West Texas where the scouts hike. He praises Aldo Leopold and John Muir; lambasts the way the federal government administers wilderness areas. The first time I go through a gate in a wilderness area, I want to leave it open so the cows can escape. Harvey’s right: I didn’t go backpacking to see a cow!

One of my sons’ friends goes with us and teases a bull in one of those damn subsidized pastures. I break the coveted solitude by yelling at him to “Stop!” He’s the same kid who wades puddles all day on another trip at the end of the summer monsoon season in the Rockies. He saw me and my sons just walking straight through everything in our GorTex boots. So he did the same. His boots were so cold, muddy and wet the next morning—he could hardly wear them. I swear by GorTex as a life saver. Manning hates it.

Manning would never have hiked 15 minutes and rested 30. He recommends short breaks. 5 minutes or so. Explains in excruciating detail the physiology behind feeling worse after a long break. Teaches you to use something he called the “rest step” to keep hiking into your golden years. He emphasizes that you must usually hike far enough out into the wilderness…five…ten…fifteen miles…to even begin to experience it.

The damn depression usually makes me indecisive.

But I read the book and decide. I don’t borrow or rent any gear and take a “test trip.” I don’t go back to the store and talk to the people at the desk. I don’t buy equipment one step at a time. Instead, I purchase more than $1,000.00 of gear from the REI and LL Bean catalogs. The decisiveness exhilarates me. It fits with middle age crazy.

The first trip violates many of Manning’s rules. Except this one: try it out first near home. We go to Caprock Canyon State Park in West Texas. No water. Carry all of it in with us. It’s summer. Hot! We leave the trailhead just before sunset and return to the car first thing the next morning. But it’s beautiful! We see things you won’t see from the park road. Red sand stone formations that look like Utah. Wild turkeys, mule deer, antelope and snakes. Bison. We camp in the shade of giant cottonwoods near an intermittent stream. We see nobody on the trail. The solitude is renewing.

The next time I visit the desk in ABQ I ask, “Where do you guys like to hike?” Then the list of magical names begins. The Gila, San Pedro Parks, Latir Peak and Wheeler Peak Wildernesses in New Mexico. The Weminuche Wilderness in Colorado. Bandelier National Monument. One day, I hike them all.

“But this is the pinnacle. The ultimate backpacking location in New Mexico. And it’s only a few hours from your home in West Texas…” He hands me a map of the Pecos Wilderness, begins to describe some hikes.

My eyes weary and sad from depression, tired of practicing law, exhausted from child-rearing and from screwing up my marriage, light up.

I could stop now and write that my boys and I hiked happily ever after. I reenergize my law practice and save my marriage. Move from middle-aged crazy to contentment. One step at a time.

But isn’t the usual path the old cliché: two steps forward…one step back?

Stress, more than relaxation, dominates the first Pecos trips. We might get lost. Break a leg. Get sick from the water. A buck could gore us. And then there’s the thunderstorms. The lightning cracks behind you and sets a tree ablaze. Thunder echoes down the valleys, sounding like World War III. I spend too much time eyeing dark clouds and flinching with thunder claps. Not enough time enjoying.

And then one day, I’m setting up camp. Just “fiddle farting around” as I lay out the tent. Fluffing the sleeping bags. Unrolling the Thermarest pads. I feel strange. Shit! What is this? I’m happy.

The next morning, the coffee happily brews over my Coleman stove. The gray jays lovingly run off all the other birds and have a pleasant fight about which one gets to rob our camp. It rains all night. Soaks our gear. On the hike down from Stewart Lake the clouds hang in the valleys, obscuring the view below and enhancing the distant peaks. I stop and fix a blister. A fluffy-tailed red fox crosses the trail so near me I almost touched him!

Another time. It storms all night. That’s wicked loud in a tent. My sons snore through it. The next morning they say, “We weren’t worried about it, Dad. We knew that if we needed to do something, you’d tell us.”

I learn to enjoy my career one project and one case at a time.

I don’t stop screwing up my marriage one backwards misstep at a time.

But my teenagers become confident young men. One step at a time. My wife praises me for that. Steps forward begin.

I subscribe to Backpacker Magazine. After many trips with my boys, I read an article entitled “Going Solo.” Just as I must summit Wheeler Peak as a New Mexico backpacker…I must hike solo to reach the backpacking nirvana described by the author.

But I find no solitude at the trailhead. I arrive late. Nearly dark. Every spot in the car camp is full. I don’t pay because I had no empty campsite # to put on the little form that goes in the wooden box with payment. I walk far enough down the Cave Creek trail that I’m not right by the car camp. Except for a few closed areas, you can camp wherever you want in the Pecos. I set up my bivy. Roll out my sleeping bag and drift off to sleep.

The next day, the solitude did begin. I’m only hiking a few miles to Horsethief Meadow. Meeting some friends who are fly-fishing. I’ve hiked this trail three previous times. I don’t look at the map.

I stop at the mouth of the caves that give the trail and creek their names. Marvel as the rushing stream disappears for several yards and then reappears further uphill.

The solitude is profound. I reach the junction of the 70-mile Skyline Trail. One of the premier hikes in New Mexico. But I’m only hiking a bit of it. I’m mostly going downhill after summiting a challenging ridge. At the bottom, the forest opens into a vast meadow where the outlaws in the 1800’s divided the horses and split up after stealing them out on the nearby plains.

Just after wading Horsethief Creek, I should turn right and hike a few hundred yards to where the guys are camped. But lost in the solitude, my thoughts busily “fixing” my marriage, I go straight and keep going until what little is left of the trail peters out in brush. I’m lost.

I’m not frightened. Someone is near me. A pack and a jacket, cast off as the day warmed are in the middle of the last clear spot before the trail ended. I pull out my whistle. One of the “Ten Essentials,” and blow a few blasts. Shout “Help!” My voice disappears into the azure New Mexico sky.

Then I look behind me. I notice a boulder or a crooked tree. I remember that! I continue back the way I came to the next thing I remember. And so on. One step at a time. Before long, I’m back where I should have turned. Back to where I started going one step at a time the wrong way. Manning’s advice about what to do when you’re lost—honestly the same advice any seasoned backpacker would give—had found me.

I have seen nobody for many miles since leaving the trailhead. I meet my friends. I go fly-fishing and catch 4 fish. The little native NM brook trout are beautiful. Their skin covered with brightly colored balloons. I feel like Harvey Manning, Jr.

My sons are off in college or working. My career flourishing. After this experience of turning lost into found, I’ll go home and heal my marriage.

We’re separated when I start hiking. Still separated when I return to my lonely apartment. My wife and I began dating shortly after I moved out. Now we date more earnestly. Forward steps multiply.

The boys and I decide to take a 40-mile trip on the Teton Crest trail in Grand Teton National Park. Backpacker Magazine names it one of the 10 most beautiful trails…in the world. We see the backside of the Tetons which few people see. Part of it is called the Alaska Basin. A preview of the cruises Brenda and I take after enough forward steps.

She drops us at the bottom of the gondola at the Jackson Hole Ski Area. What a sight we are riding the cable car with all our gear among the gaping tourists.

We spend the first night near a lake. Only us and a backcountry ranger. He tells us deep snow blocks the trail ahead especially at Hurricane Pass. Not too long before our hike, the “ice axe rule” was in effect. You couldn’t take this hike unless you had an ice axe and demonstrated that you could use it. The ranger assures us that we can safely cross the 12-foot snow drift at the pass if we take one step at a time in the footprints left by others. He says the Alaska Basin ahead is spectacular. Talks animatedly about Schoolroom Glacier which is studied worldwide because of its classic behavior. It’s a chunk of schoolroom ice for environmental science.

A moose snorts the next morning while I’m making coffee. I nearly jump out of my skin. Her ears are pricked back in anger. I figure if she charges, the ranger will fire his revolver and chase her away. She slips off into the woods.

The basin is spectacular. Ablaze with wildflowers. We get briefly lost. I back our way out of it one step at a time. We cross over into the Jedediah Smith Wilderness, spend the night. The Light Brigade is there—happy children running and playing, a circus of tents, including a big kitchen. They packed it all up there with llamas. Cute. But I’m glad the Park doesn’t allow pack animals.

The following morning we cross Hurricane Pass. One step at a time across the massive drift blocking the trail. So huge, there’s no way around it. The Grim Reaper awaits if we take a wrong step. We’ll slide hundreds of yards, landing against a rock pile. With a massive rock pile at the bottom, it looks like a glacier.

We see the Grand…Grand Teton mountain in all its glory. So close. I could almost throw a rock and hit it. Spectacular from the east. This view on the west is breathtaking. Named by horny French trappers, it looks like a voluptuous breast on this side. It sports perky teenage breasts on the east.

We can see to the bottom of the cirque on this side of the Grand. The trail is a faint grey-brown line threading through the scree. One wrong step…a suicide slide. About halfway down, a huge dollop of snow fully blocks the narrow trail. It appears impossible to walk across. How will we leave the trail and safely go down the scree to the clear part of the trail without falling? Nobody says, “Dad you’re in charge.” But I feel it. Then I see it. The even fainter line in the scree where others have gone off trail…illegal but necessary…and continued their treks.

We reach the top of Schoolroom Glacier. We must only cross a short diagonal to reach the continuation of the trail. The ranger said it was small. But it looks like Hubbard Glacier in Alaska to a guy from West Texas!

The terminal moraine at the bottom is a death warrant forged in granite.

Hikers cross the glacier in groups. One group at a time…one step at a time…across the existing footprints. If you fall, you fall with your friends and family. Don’t take others with you.

We cross safely. Take off our packs. Walk back to the last step on Schoolroom where the groups take turns taking pictures. The same backcountry ranger is there. Going up and down the glacier with an ice axe like a cross between a sure-footed donkey and an agile primate. I realize that the axe works like a trekking pole for climbing. But if you fall, you use the “business end” to stop yourself.

I’ve never felt an exhilaration in the wilderness like crossing that little glacier. It was much bigger in 2001 than now. Less affected by global warming. I recently learned that mankind’s backward steps are terminating Schoolroom Glacier. It’s estimated to reach extinction in 2030.

We begin to follow Cascade Creek. But you usually can’t see it. The first part of August. The creek is still buried in show. We see a few huge holes, almost like giant portholes on a cruise ship. Windows to the rushing torrent below. One wouldn’t want to venture over there thinking he was walking on snow.

No more snow on the trail! Except for one more slushy patch. Not even a foot deep. We almost fall on that. It’s the only time we came close to falling.

We camp one last time. The next morning, after a brief hike, we begin to see hordes of people. Many ask what we’ve done. We’re proud to tell them.

We reach Inspiration Point. No sign. I wonder, “Is this really it. The end of our hike. Inspiration Point.”

My older son says, “Dad, of course it is. You can see half of Wyoming from here.”

We continue down the trail towards the Jenny Lake Boat Dock. Brenda meets us. We go back to the Point as a family. She can’t stop taking our pictures. We can’t stop talking about the trip. Especially crossing the snow one step at a time!

We take a motor boat across Jenny Lake to the car. Continuing to rave about the trip.

I’d like to say my marriage was immediately “saved.” We drove back to West Texas into the sunrise and lived happily ever after.

Instead more backwards steps follow. I wander off into a wilderness of scree where I sow discordant seeds of destruction. My behavior piles up a terminal moraine. I’m sliding towards it preparing to crash. Then Brenda’s character and our shared faith forge an ice axe. We renew our marriage…one step at a time.

And so, we continue to share highs and lows of marriage, one step at a time, to our 50th anniversary and beyond.