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Tramping the Urban Edge

By Michael Wolcott

My sainted but wheezing Toyota pickup began to fail last spring. For awhile it sat dry-docked under the carport, quietly dribbling oil into a stainless steel dog dish. Then I sold it, and did not buy another. This radically changed my recreation habits.

My frequent backpack trips are now taken exclusively to places very near to Flagstaff; they begin not with gassing up the rig, but by picking up the pack and stepping out the front door. In the dawning age of down-sized carbon footprints, this is good.

But backpacking from the urban center to its wilder edges does come with a few drawbacks: truck noise, sirens, wind-blown dirt, uncomprehending and hostile stares from motorists. These costs seem fair, however, for a chance to see the town's physical and cultural features in a new light, one that by necessity sharpens your savvy: See that police cruiser slowing down on the highway? It is slowing down for you.

Tramping the urban outback is not for the faint-hearted. It is more unpredictable, by far, than renting a backcountry site in a national park. Urban backpacking can be exciting, educational, and dangerous. Like its wilderness cousin, it puts you in intimate contact with unfamiliar worlds. It demands self-reliance.

Obstacles appear. Choices need to be made. Do I cross the train tracks? Here, or maybe up ahead, at the underpass? If you're walking alone on Industrial Boulevard after dark, and headlights appear, what do you do?

Urban backpacking is not all tense moments, of course. You'll be rewarded with esoteric knowledge (there's a hobo camp east of the Purina plant) and surprised by beauty (in season, there will be wildflowers poking up through the broken glass).

Time will stretch out before you. The wheeled world streaks past on pavement. You walk. You will find that sipping coffee at the base of a tree on a bright February morning, watching trains roll by, is more fun than most other things you might choose to do.

On a recent trip to Walnut Canyon National Monument, seven miles east of Flagstaff, I left my house a half-hour before sundown. The obvious foot route took me past a city park. From there I followed the local urban trail system for a half-mile, then dropped off into a working-class neighborhood on the east side of town.

It was nearly dark when I crossed East Route 66 and the train tracks, about three miles from downtown. I re-crossed the railroad tracks out near Flagstaff Mall, then stopped under a tree to cook some noodles for dinner. Occasionally headlights flared on the low branches Suddenly a high-powered beam clicked on me. The local cop was clearly puzzled: "Just doing some night hiking, huh?"

Yup.

I moved on. A mile or so past the new Home Depot, just east of the cinder quarry, I picked a campsite. In the morning I sipped coffee in my sleeping bag while sunrise spilled through the pines and the roads filled up with inbound commuters.

Walnut Canyon was lovely, but I'll skip that part of the travelogue. Some of you may know the place already; the rest can Google it. But the hobo's place? That one you can't find on the Web. You have to go out there and visit.

I suspect that you would like the way it feels to stand atop the railroad overpass just outside the Walnut Canyon entrance. You can look north and west at the Peaks, all silver with snow. You can feel the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train labor westward beneath your feet.

As you stand in the sunshine and stare at the mountain you will swear that you couldn't be luckier. You might think of the truly unlucky - the Joads, maybe, leaving the Dust Bowl for sunny California; or the world's countless war victims and economic refugees - and realize that you really have it made, even without a car.

And if you are willing to play this game - urban backpacking - you will come to know your home as the man from out of town must know it. That is to say, warily. You will be careful around police; you will at times seek to be invisible. In some small way, you will become "illegal."

Michael Wolcott is a writer, ex-Forest Service wilderness ranger, and former gifted child who lives in Flagstaff. He can be reached at angelpass12455@hotmail.com.