Nearly 50 years ago, the Arizona administration requested my compliance in attending a one-afternoon desert orientation course. The university insisted on this because I was from the Northeast. A tenderfoot.

Back then, the school held these sessions for matriculating students unfamiliar with the desert. So, it just wasn’t Northeasterners, but seemingly anyone arriving from any community not considered a desert residence. Therefore, plenty of L.A. Basin and Bay Area freshmen joined me out among the sahuaros, ocotillos, and blue-green palo verde.

A week before venturing into the Sonora Desert, our would-be guides handed out lists. What to wear. What to bring. What to expect. Not only did a week give us ample time to compile the necessary gear but it also erased any excuses.

Doubtlessly it was a detailed check-off, yet what remains deepest embedded in my mind was the footwear. No canvas shoes, nor sandals or open-toed ones. Only solid constructed leather ones. Boots. Preferably those covering beyond ankles. Failing that, okay, leather shoes at least.

Surely, even the biggest greenhorns among the women either understood or were told pumps and platforms did not met the criteria. “Shoes” meant lace-ups.

In parenthesis someone had suggested adding gaiters if feet shod in regular shoes. First introduction to the desert right there even before stepping onto dirt. Gaiters, or as known in certain woodsy precincts back East, leatherstockings, are thick, tanned animal hide wraps twined between soles and heels. These shield insteps as they rise knee-height.

I mosied into a Western wear store. There, I bought a pair of coyote-skin boots. Resoled them thrice over the years before finally tossing that essential purchase for a new pair of shitkickers.

Without proper footwear, boarding transport for our Wild West excursion was denied. Had people stationed at the door whose only task was to ascertain whether genuine leather covered feet.

I don’t remember whether Arizona offered makeup excursions. Nor what possible penalties awaited if the course wasn’t attended. There must’ve been plenty of other scheduled trips because in the late 1970s a good percentage of Arizona students heralded from outside the state.

On our early afternoon departure all in line climbed into the bus.

Not much memory needed to remember the day a typical late summer Southern Arizona one. Cloudless and scorching. Why, yes, wide brim hats had been suggested on the list. But quickly accustomed to ducking under wherever shade availed on campus and throughout Tucson, plenty of my fellow orienteers had skipped hats or even caps. Therefore, sun singed a number of us. A few returned to campus bearing souvenir rednecks.

After some miles our bus turned off pavement onto a dirt track. Dust plumes obscured any vision behind us. Somewhere out in the middle of a well-trodden nowhere, we stopped, clambered off.

Our instructor gave us a concise history. Amazing to discover that an eon or so ago dirt we stood had been deep in water. Despite the “desert” tag, plenty of hardy flora pocked the vicinity. Each growth distinct. The instructor recited the names, most of which I still recall because of frequent trips back into the Sonora throughout the decades since.

Although we then would’ve been hard pressed to have seen any, our instructor informed us of the numerous warm-blooded animals and cold-blooded reptiles and insects scurrying in proximity. Afterwards back on campus, I started habitually shaking out my footwear in the mornings to dislodge and dump any black widows that might’ve nested in them overnight. But an upside to my new Wild Kingdom was listening to coyotes yipping at night. This before Tucson grew, pushing those scavengers beyond bedtime hearing range.

The instructor saved the important information for last. Throw this under the heading of “Getting Lost in and Surviving the Desert.”

Being 18 as most of us were, it went without saying a high number, if not all of us, would eventually find thrills in attending desert parties. Having been our age once, a lifelong desert denizen, the instructor knew human nature and habits. There would come occasions when one or more of us would stumble away from the party, the keg, the fire. Somehow an unfortunate one or two would get so high, drunk, combination thereof, and lose our bearings. Or venture so far into remoteness we’d lose contact with the group and maybe pass out.

He spared us statistics regarding percentages of errant partiers who needed recovering by rescue agencies. Instead, he emphasized what we could do in those situations to preserve ourselves until being found.

Yes, seeking shade and deriving moisture enough to further sustain us filled a redeeming portion of his talk. However, what fascinated me most were signs around the desert that might possibly hasten our deliverance from what could be an arid hell.

Cairns. Landmarks.

Numerous people, the tribes who’d lived there and Europeans crossing through, often left indicators of and directions to possible nourishment or protection. He asked whether any of us had seen the various piles of rocks seemingly haphazardly placed during our trek.

Of course not. To us they were rocks. Nothing more.

Having heard that reply so often, he didn’t smirk. Rather, he guided us to several piles. Or in our cases, set pieces. At them, he told us what they symbolized. Maybe water this way. A terrestrial direction that way. A trail this way. Silent as all were, even the densest should’ve heard these as lifesaving.

He left the most important tidbit for last.

“Never kick or disturb any rockpiles. Nature does not arrange them as such. Only men taking the time and making efforts to alert any who follow them.”

As he reminded without any drama, those piles which might be seen in the Sonora had told many tales, given many instructions, and likely saved lives for who knew how long. They could save one of ours.

There his lesson concluded. More than anticipating relief from the desert day, our return to the bus a quiet and contemplative walk.

Too bad our excursion didn’t include visiting any sites containing petroglyphs. Rock art left by the indigenous people. Maybe that’s what the orientation indirectly sought to instill. While now there are doubtlessly professionally led tours featuring ur-age art for just that purpose, looking back wasn’t ours an era which often had daytrippers roaming off known tracks in search of ancient finds to admire? The venturous being individuals or small-group curiosity seekers then.

Surely these treks weren’t made by many long-time Arizonans. (There is no Southwestern version of High Tor.) But in a land completely alien to their own wouldn’t these adventures be pursued by outsiders finding fascination in the West? Popular and accessible as likelihoods of losing bearings during and after drunken revelries at desert parties might’ve been, could another less facile reason have been if seeds of exploring the new environment had been planted, then why not provide newcomers with tools to negotiate and navigate what could turn inhospitable?

Until recently, higher education did provoke all kinds of discoveries; these either through introspection or immersion in greater, wider worlds.

Back in Tucson, we each received a mimeographed packet of what we’d been taught. With the comings and goings inside freshmen dorm rooms, it’s possible none of us maintained ours very long afterwards. Mine probably disappeared in short order. Fortunately, I retained plenty in memory over my undergraduate years.

That might attest to the number of desert parties attended. Thankfully, I never needed to call on memory to use any of what had been imparted.

Years later, when GPS became ubiquitous, I surveyed former dormmates who’d become lifelong friends who shared my Arizona background – Easterners or Midwesterners who’d come West to attend school – whether they too had undergone desert orientation. Don’t know if I was more disappointed than surprised, but no, none had.

Didn’t need to imagine now how difficult it would be to roust anybody in the university’s 2026 administration who’d remember of such or could unearth information about the program. Particularly what had initiated it.

I’d almost say the program should be revived. Yet with our handheld devices do we really need age-old landmarks to tell us our locations or the nearest nourishment? GPS has fairly made once essential navigation devices like sextants, chronometers, folding paper maps, charts, calipers, and compasses obsolete, no? It’s too bad we’ve succumbed to the ease of GPS. Convenience aside, there was plenty brain-building involved with charting one’s way by discerning landmarks from surroundings and calibrating locations.

Now residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, I wonder if those of us functionally integrated into society are mistaking the random slovenliness we overlook as sorts of cairns for the homeless. After all, during the Depression, hobos used to chalk symbols on posts and tree trunks designating which homes could be favorable to unfixed itinerants. Why not imagine the profusion of homeless roaming among us developing the same with signs for this time?

Naturally, 21st century Americans are warier than our 1930s predecessors. So no home today will provide a meal for strangers in exchange for chores around the premises. However, couldn’t today’s “landmarks” lead strangers to pantries or shelters? Or better, other refuges for those living rough, who perhaps want – or need – to remain below authority’s radar.

For example, empty cans set upon posts by or besides doors are common sights in Las Vegas. Particularly at residences featuring security gates. Might this mean somewhere inside there’s a unit (or units) available for flops? Provided, of course, the tariff can be covered for the evening, or duration if management insufficiently vigilant about the traffic of casual trespassers.

Maybe a lot of the litter we established residents disdain as simply trash has meaning and gives guidance. Much in the same ways arranged rock piles could’ve provided directions and information to desert travelers.

And no, I won’t diminish indigenous peoples’ petroglyphs by comparing them to current-day graffiti. The tribes who passed through the desert and inscribed rocks with their journeys desired leaving tales of the spirits encountered in the severe land. What they left behind weren’t akin to lovers carving their initials into tree trunks. Nor the marring of taggers who vandalize surfaces in the belief we who value propriety need to acknowledge their wasted passages.

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