Sometimes I forget about the mystery, adventure, splendor, and solitude that lies within our national parks’ back yards; the areas beyond the roads, visitor centers, designated lookout points, and well-trodden paths. I find, more often than not, we spend so much time and focus on the front-country that we lose sight of the real fruits of our efforts to uphold the parks’ mission: to preserve and protect the unique and spectacular natural resources and processes within the park and to provide enjoyment through means that will leave the park unimpaired for future generations. Arguably the best place to experience the results of these efforts is in the back country; the wilderness portion of our parks.

A little over a week ago, a group of about fourteen National Parks and National Forest employees, interns, volunteers, and members of other non-profit organizations associated with the park service and I, left our desks and posts in the front country and embarked on a three day trek into the Cedar Breaks, Dixie National Forest, and Ashdown Wilderness.

In my first month of being employed as an intern interpretive ranger and living in the NPS housing at Cedar Breaks National Monument, I hiked far out past the ramparts, spending time near the waterfall and double arch; explored the hidden ponds that are off a good distance from any of the trails; saw the sunset from all of the Monument’s overlooks; and rambled through the Dixie National Forest’s meadows, mountains, forests, and lava flows. I thought I had surely experienced some of the most wild, untrammeled, sublime, and remotest places the area had to offer. It hadn’t occurred to me that any of the areas along the Rattle Snake Creek Trail and into the Ashdown Wilderness could be any different or more glorious than what I had already experienced. A funny notion also began to take hold of me, after looking out at the mysterious fins, hoodoos, arches, and other colorful formations in the amphitheater days on end; a notion that all I was looking at out there in the depths was a view and that these views from the top of Cedar Breaks’ front country were the best part of all that lay below. I was wrong.

Half a mile into the hike, we saw one of the last familiar views before the landscape transformed.

Within a few hundred feet we found ourselves surrounded by large aspens seemingly whispering the world’s secrets in the wind. Engraved in many of their trunks are names, dates, and histories that have long since pasted us by; forgotten lovers, logger’s names, young adventurers, pioneers, and Paiutes.

Not much later, we found ourselves walking through what felt like lost meadows, hidden between jutting mountains and forests; an island plateau cut off from the surrounding landscape.

After lunch we continued our descent heading rapidly down. I found myself forgetting that the trail we were hiking was man made and that we were not the first in several years to traverse the area. Evidence of humans disappeared; seemingly swallowed up in the landscape. Seeing footprints in the dirt of the trail became a seldom occurrence. We began to feel truly alone.

Towards the end of our day’s trek, we could hear the sound of rushing water. Below the cliffs and drop-offs of the trail’s corkscrewed switchbacks, the water pushed its way through stones, boulders, trees, and debris that was scattered throughout the mostly open and dry wash, displaying undeniable evidence of the power of water in flash floods and the snowmelt season. Just a hundred feet beyond it was our camp site. We dropped our packs and dispersed; each in our own way contending with and contemplating the nine mile jaunt and the divine solitude of nature until the campfire was lit and we sat together for supper.

The next day, we hiked parts of the Potato Hallow trail, and followed a cherry stem road along an area of private property that coincided and jeopardized the wilderness that surrounded it. We stopped and contemplated the hazards of private land backing up to the Ashdown and Cedar Breaks wilderness. The landowners could, if they wanted, build a resort near the pristine forests, cliffs, and waterways. They could pave the cherry stem road bringing a tremendous amount of new traffic into an area that boasts little evidence of humankind. And, if they did do any one of these things, there would be nothing the National Parks could do to stop them. The owners refused to sell the land. These were the thoughts on our minds as we stopped and looked at a small cabin they had recently built and as we passed by older abandoned structures from the days when the owner’s descendants logged the land.

The logging structures would be considered historic and we all agreed, in their decaying and decrepit state, along with the old tin cans scattered around, that they, like the stone tools and carvings left by the Paiutes, were now part of the land. I wonder what will we consider part of the land fifty years from now; will our markings and more permanent tamperings with nature also be considered part of it? Will the human urge to leave our mark on this planet ever stop? The traces preserved from our times, if we succeed in this area, could be our efforts to leave no trace at all. What a beautiful mark to leave: no trace at all!

The trails eventually disappeared; the remains of the logging industry behind us. We had made it to the Cedar Breaks wilderness, so far tucked out of the way that very few ever entered it. I was convinced that we were the first to have been there in several years. We found, with the brush and forest as thick as it was, that the best way to proceed forward was by way of the trickling stream. This stream, like the one near our campsite, was littered with debris that suggested that a few times a year it too became raging rapids that refaced and rearranged the landscape each time it ascended. This, I realized was the fruit of all of our labor and the purpose of the front country; to keep this pristine area and its processes

continuing without harm or intrusion from human kind. Not that human kind shouldn’t be able to travel and experience the place, but that they should have the opportunity to experience it in the same condition we had; as if they were the first humans to ever set foot on the land.

We stopped for a while to discuss wilderness and rest our sore legs and feet. I became convinced that wilderness isn’t something that can be talked about much; it can only be experienced. I had also come to believe that each and every person experiences it in their own way and that attempting to define wilderness; what it consists of, and what it is, is not the role that we must play. Our role instead should be focused on conservation and protection, which I think it is. I’m convinced that no one can understand wilderness through any other means than experiencing it for themselves.

We gathered our things, took in the essence of the area one last time, and hiked the six or seven miles back to camp. The next day we hiked down the stream and into miles of narrows that, unlike Zion National Park, were vacant and practically void of human interaction. We ended the day scaling one last steep hill, the steepest of our journey, up to highway 14. We jumped in employee cars and headed back to our daily lives, holding on to our memories and experiences of the past three days to help remind us that there is so much more than the front country of our National Parks and Forests.