Forgotten viewpoints
New book pays homage to eco-wisdom, legacies of Colorado Plateau

The west is an increasingly popular place to relocate to or visit. Not only can people telework from almost any small town with high-speed connectivity, but there is ample access to outdoor recreation. The recreation economy looms large as more and more people trek into the wildlands with an array of equipment and devices, and a no-holds-barred intent to experience the land.

There was a time (1920s-70s) when caring for the land and land protection was as equally important as recreation. A strong land ethic arose through conservation advocates including writers Aldo Leopold and Wallace Stegner, and longtime director of the Wilderness Society, Howard Zahniser. An economic benefit was always part of lands that were set aside, but income generated from tourism was secondary to protecting the land.

Michael Engelhard speaks to this land ethic in his new book, “No Walk in the Park.” His stories and perspectives are fueled by his 25-plus years guiding in the Grand Canyon and Utah’s canyon country. Engelhard splits his time between the Southwest and Alaska, which was the setting for his previous book, “Arctic Traverse: A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range.”

His excursions in “No Walk in the Park” range from Grand Canyon National Park to northern Arizona and southern Utah. Snowshoeing the Grand Canyon rim, running the Colorado River, kayaking Lake Powell, he provides a range of perspectives, from early-day explorers to scientists to Indigenous people. Many of these areas are sacred to tribes – Hopi, Navajo and Hualapai, among others – as he draws relationships between people and the landscape.  

Rainbow Bridge is one destination Engelhard, a trained anthropologist and educator, visits. Spanning a side canyon below Navajo Mountain in southern Utah, Anglos did not discover it until 1909, although it had been known to Indigenous peoples long before. He recalls a hiking trip through the maze of canyons and red rock domes below the mountain as he reflects on this geography sacred to the Navajo.  

He also shares writings from Edward Abbey, Clyde Kluckhohn and John Wesley Powell, who led the first Anglo expedition to float through the Grand Canyon in 1869. Powell spoke of “rock forms that we do not understand.” Engelhard expands on this, writing about hiking through canyons, when on the final approach he sees, “One last bend and there it is. The curve of a mustang’s neck. A dream’s trajectory. Muscular yet weightless – the most elegant rock parabola you’ll ever lay eyes upon.”

In another chapter (“Let There be Night”), Engelhard describes a summer night hike into the Grand Canyon. Hiking is cooler then, and he shows the reader night-blooming flowers, night sky features and tribal values in a glorious nightscape. This turns quickly when his partner spies the silhouette of a mountain lion. The story moves fast and is notable.     

They do hike on – “Our mobile shadows, I realize, are minute eclipses, with the moon as our sun … ancient (moon) light on ancient geologic strata staggers the mind. We take in the flickering luster of stars long extinct, and compared to them and the galaxies pushing outward, even the Canyon’s oldest layers strike one as young.”

The message is clear that the landscape holds values intrinsic to itself. Engelhard calls the reader back to these values, beyond the recreation economy, by showing the power of these places.

The text sometimes refers to features in the Grand Canyon and elsewhere as though you might be familiar with them. It would be useful to keep a map (digital or paper) handy as a reference.

You can find “No Walk in the Park” at Maria’s Bookshop or buy it online here. It’s a short read (242 pages) that will bring you to a landscape close at hand but from a viewpoint that is sometimes unseen or forgotten. 

Paul Zaenger is a retired supervisory park ranger mostly recently at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.