Unveiling “No Walk in the Park”: A Journey Into Wilderness and Culture

A New Book about Grand Canyon & Adventuring by Michael Engelhard

Every once in a while, AzRA has the privilege to help local authors tell others about their new book! We had the opportunity to do that with Michael about his new book titled No Walk in the Park to learn more about his book. We’re happy to share that with you!

About Michael

Michael Engelhard learned the rafting trade on the glacier-fed, silty-smooth floods of the Matanuska River in Southcentral Alaska in 1997. Beginning in 2000, Michael rowed and paddled various sections of the Colorado, Green, and Yampa rivers for Outward Bound and Tag-A-Long, based in Moab: Gates of Lodore, Desolation, Labyrinth, Stillwater, Westwater, and Cataract canyons. In the Grand Canyon, he rowed baggage boats for OARS, Tour West, Moki Mac, and Outdoors Unlimited, and took passengers downstream for Canyoneers and Grand Canyon Youth. His twenty-five- year career as an outdoor educator and wilderness guide also comprised sea kayaking in Kenai Fjords and Southeast Alaska; running interior Alaska and Brooks Range rivers; and arctic backpacking trips.

This year marks the centennial of the world’s first wilderness designation (755,000 acres in the Gila National Forest, New Mexico)—a whopping forty years before the Wilderness Act. Michael is proud to add three new wilderness-centered books to his resume this summer, which include No Walk in the Park: Seeking Thrills, Eco-Wisdom, and Legacies in the Grand Canyon. His background as a cultural anthropologist (with a degree from the University of Alaska and fieldwork in the northwestern part of that state) shaped his worldview and writing.

Q&A with Michael

AZRA: Tell us briefly what No Walk in the Park is about.

M.E.: It’s a collection of personal essays written over the course of several decades years, based on my work as a wilderness guide and as an Outward Bound instructor with while I lived in Moab and Flagstaff. The Grand Canyon is the book’s center of gravity, but there are chapters about adjacent public lands—Vermilion Cliffs, the Painted Desert, Glen Canyon—and southern Utah settings like Cataract Canyon, the Paria River, and Rainbow Bridge. These are my home waters: the Colorado River-Green River watershed. I tried to expand the usual adventure-narrative canon with accounts of rock art, a visit to a dam and a Hopi ceremony, snowshoeing, and running a tributary that not always runs.

AZRA: How has your background as a cultural anthropologist informed your view of the canyon?

M.E.: What we too often perceive as “wilderness” has been “home” to various peoples for millennia. Indigenous place names in particular are a great reminder of that. And, most likely, a story or myth is connected to such a landmark, and more tales dangling off those. They have given me a deeper appreciation of what it took to make a living inside these canyons. It’s a humbling perspective indeed. I remember a kid on a Grand Canyon Youth trip during which we’d climbed to the top of the Redwall at Eminence Break on an old trans-canyon route. “Phew!” he’d said, wiping his brow with a bandana, “I’ve got even more respect now for the ancient Puebloans.”

AZRA: What are some things that stood out for you over the years as you joined hundreds of people on journeys through these places?

M.E.: It sometimes surprised me how unaware visitors can be of the depth of this land’s occupancy. Many Americans love Europe for its venerable cultures and civilizations. In the U.S., a farmhouse where Washington slept is a national historic site. But there were people hunting mammoths here, and ruins and rock art older than Gothic cathedrals hide in these canyons. Another, delightful, thing was how little time it takes some of the tourists to shed everyday selves and become young again, no longer pitching their tents but sleeping on the sand; marveling childlike at Redwall caverns and cliffs; or plunging into Elves Chasm’s pool, for example.

 

AZRA: How do you see the paired roles of educator and guide?

M.E.: My highest priority as a guide is to keep clients safe, fed, and entertained, in that order. But I also like them to learn things about the landscape in which they are traveling, its history and inhabitants, human and other-than-human…and about the threats development poses to those very same landscapes, though that message can be a hard sell with people vacationing, who want to escape from “mundane problems.” One Moab rafting company did not hire me because I was “too outspoken with my environmental convictions,” which the manager thought would negatively influence younger guides. In my writing as well, I seek to balance the personal with the universal, criticism with enthusiasm, and informing with entertaining the reader; all writers are guides, in a way, with similar skill sets required.

AZRA: What were some memorable backcountry moments for you?

M.E.: On the animal side, a mountain lion that showed up during an Outward Bound “solo” experience—with students camped scattered near a waterhole in the slickrock south of Moab. My co-instructor awoke me when she heard the lion’s caterwauling and we watched it as it tried to approach the water, clearly unhappy about our presence there. A close second was a lion during a night hike down the Bright Angel Trail to Phantom Ranch. I never saw it, but my wife, slightly ahead of me, did, which was enough to get me flushed with adrenaline. On the human side, a wedding ring that Westwater’s rapids stripped off a guy’s finger comes to mind. I found it while cleaning the raft afterward and returned it to him. Also, the couple’s kids who said our overnight trip had been the highlight of their U.S. vacation.

 

AZRA: What is the hardest part of being a guide?

M.E.: There are a few aspects that can be quite challenging, besides long days, vagaries of the weather, and, sometimes, demanding clients. One is that you can never let on if you have any worries, stress, or doubts, or are not feeling well otherwise. Showing those things will quickly affect a group’s mood. Another is people who are not receptive to the canyons’ magic, who manage to bring prejudices and consumer expectations with them instead of opening up to a new experience. Questions like “When do we get to the next rapid?”— kids mostly ask this—or “Were there any real people living here or just Indians?” got to me.

 

AZRA: Name one fun fact related to the book.

M.E.: I realized right way that the Cline Library’s Special Collections had mislabeled the historical Kolb brothers photo I chose for the front cover—and which fits into the present-day one almost seamlessly—as showing Kanab Creek. It’s in fact the mouth of Havasu Creek. I recognized the cove, here sepia-toned, as the sapphire grotto in which outfitters always moor rafts for stopovers with the clients. I’m a stickler for facts, so this correction tickles me pink.

AZRA: How does No Walk in the Park tread new ground for yourself?

M.E.: After pulling the manuscript from a university press over “artistic differences”—specifically the design of the cover—I decided to self-publish it, the first of my eleven books to be produced in this fashion. Along the way, I learned a boatload about printing, marketing, distribution, and hiring editors and designers, and gained even more respect for any book that is well put together and finds its readers. I took great care, because self-publishing still carries the stigma of being an amateur, vanity enterprise. I enjoyed having full control over a project for once.

No Walk in the Park: Seeking Thrills, Eco-Wisdom, and Legacies in the Grand Canyon will be available online and at bookstores after May 1. For his other books and more information, visit the author’s website: michaelengelhard.com

Like what you see on the AzRA blog? Sign up here to receive an email notification when new article posts. Email used for article notifications only.