“Where are we?” and “Are we there yet?”

Into Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah. When surrounded by giant mushroom rocks, the natural question is, “Where the heck am I?” Photo courtesy of Cottonwood Gulch

When I was a teenage trekker with the Cottonwood Gulch Foundation, I could hardly point out our summer adventures on a map, much less navigate between them. We visited one amazing location, got in a van, and emerged at another several hours later. This past summer, after graduating from college,  I returned to the Gulch  to lead expeditions with a new generation of young trekkers. We crisscrossed the southwest going from site to site as I had years earlier, so it was bound to happen: we were already ten minutes into a tour of the Gila Cliff Dwellings before I had the sudden and embarrassing realization that I had visited there as a trekker.

Because of similar shared experiences among the group staff, we decided to try out an educational theme: “Where are we?” We wanted to weave the disparate destinations of our summer (Valles Caldera, Mount Taylor, the Weminuche, El Malpais) into a landscape tapestry. Our conversations searched for ways to get trekkers thinking location and associated broad concepts. This would be an opportunity to develop hard skills as well like reading maps, understanding topography and navigation.

One of my favorite strategies while riding in the vans was to play relevant segments from Radiolab episodes, like Lost and Found and Where am I?  I hoped to use these in-between hours to our advantage, to maximize the amount of knowledge crammed into these young adults heads over three weeks. I was especially enthusiastic about one segment. Bird’s Eye View described the almost sixth sense like, dead-reckoning ability of an Australian people. I dreamed that by the end of the summer, we would have a trained tribe of perpetually oriented trekkers.

Staff get lost too. Searching for a campground, we found a summit. Oso Ridge Lookout over El MalPais. Photo courtesy of Cottonwood Gulch.

I’ll say upfront that I’m not sure how successful we were carrying out this theme. Our priorities and exhaustions were keeping nearly 20 teenagers happy, healthy, and whole, so we fell short of our original imaginings. I was asked, “Are we there yet?” more often than, “Where are we?” Once, I gleefully listened in on the trekkers in the back seat who were in the middle of discussion on the historical importance of railroads. My delight was cut short when I heard one trekker exclaim, “At first women weren’t allowed on trains because they thought the speed would make their ovaries fall out.” This statement (whose accuracy I have been unable to confirm) predictably derailed the rest of the conversation.

On our five day trek through the Gila Wilderness and its wonderful ponderosa pines. Photo courtesy of Cottonwood Gulch

The most educational experience of the summer was shared by both staff and trekkers. Like the best learning moments, it was something we did not plan. On day two of our five-day hike into the Gila Wilderness, we had some snags. Snag One was that water was not where we thought it would be. Snag Two was that we spent several hours trying to find a trail that had disappeared in the regrowth following a serious forest fire. We were shocked to later learn that some hikers had been knocking over cairns! Eco-terrorism at its most pitiful. Snag Three was the same as Snag One, but now it was getting late and with the cloud of dehydration over us, we would have to keep going. Two tumultuous miles ahead, the map drew a solid blue line: year-round water! Yet at the bottom of some perilous switchbacks, that blue line was nowhere to be found, Snag Four. Just as we began to worry that a learning experience was turning into a hazardous situation, Snag Four was deflected. A few minutes downstream there was more water. We all fell asleep exhausted and cradling full Nalgenes.

Lessons learned may include: a new appreciation for how far 10 miles can be, the value of a GPS and map, a healthy suspicion of any map or park rangers’ certainty, and an awe of water and its capricious nature.

Snags aside, the summer presented so many moments to explore location. Our experiential educational setting released us from most of the typical classroom limitations.  We were never at a loss for examples, having only to wave our hand at the horizon or show the trekkers the day’s route. This proximity made it relevant and visceral. Nor was there a lack of teachable moments when you all live together. We held geographic trivia before meals, drew our route in dirt at rest stops, and read passages at campfire. Most importantly, when a trekker asked, “Where are we?” we would lay down a map and figure it out together.

The famous map of the Gulch domain

“Where are we?” became my personal summer query. This is part I in a series, Teaching, travel, and distance in the southwest. I’ll continue this theme and post more on my lessons in geography and distance from my summer. Next up: travel.