Navigations: One Man Explores the Americas and Discovers Himself

by Ted Kerasote

Ever since two travelers met, knelt in the sand, and drew each other sketches of the way ahead, maps have guided our days. They lead us on the highway and in the backcountry. Often, they set the bounds of our imaginings. In Navigations, Ted Kerasote leaves the mapped territory of outdoor writing—the where-to-go’s and the how-to-do-it’s he regularly covers as camping editor for Sports Afield—and explores uncharted territory. Navigations in a three-part chronicles of Kerasote’s 12-year first South, then North, and finally Home. In the early 70s, Kerasote takes off for Central America. Early in the trip, he I wandered around the jungle for another week and never got to Colombia, at least not overland. I blamed the rainy season, the washed out trails, the flooded rivers, but most of all those bloody maps with their blank spaces—no contour lines, no shaded relief, the villages not even on the right bends of rivers. I didn’t realize that it would take me ten more years to read maps well. In fact, I had no idea that I was navigating in country for which a good map had not yet been made. Kerasote does make it through Central America, fishing and exploring along the way, and slowly travels southward—climbing peaks in Ecuador, Bolicia, and Chile, and at last climbing Argentina’s Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the hemisphere. What does he see and what does he learn from this sixteen-month-long experiment in using time differently? “Each of us is given some seventy years,” writes Kerasote, “a decent amount of time and such a niggardly small gift when you have eyes to see the gifts you must leave. In that time, you shouldn’t be afraid to take a year or two or even more to do something not in the straight path you originally chose. You shouldn’t be afraid to watch the slow turnings of stars and clouds and strange peoples, for although family, country, and abiding loves will never afterwards be holy, they will become tender and subtle in unimagined ways.” But a year or two in South America is not enough to cure Kerasote’s wanderlust. Inspired by what he experienced on the trip south, Kerasote travels north in the early 80s to the North Slope, Arctic Circle, Brooks Range, Alaska. Hiking, kayaking, casting for Arctic char, photographing caribou, moose, bear, Dall sheep, Kerasote travels unencumbered—no newspaper headlines, no breakfast music to dull the sharpness of the northern tundra world. Here, too, as in the south he is alone and silent and at ease in creation. Back Home, Colorado, a familiar place where, you’d think, a map wouldn’t be necessary, Kerasote finds he’s still navigating by feel—negotiating schedules and stress, cash flows and divorce, pain. These are challenges as difficult as those he’s found in more exotic places. Waiting for the hurry and the hurt to pass into wisdom. Kerasote goes fishing, kayaks the Dolores River, maps a trophy line. As Kerasote shares his adventure, he comes to realize he’s in love with navigating itself—with the act of finding and re-finding the way, and not forgetting any of the paths that brought him to his present camp. Navigations is the story of those paths, the places, the companions, his nomad self he’s come to know.

Genres: Travel

187 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1986

About the author

Ted Kerasote's writing has spanned the globe and appeared in dozens of periodicals and anthologies, including Audubon, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Salon, and The New York Times. He is also the author and editor of six books, one of which, Out There: In the Wild in a Wired Age, won the National Outdoor Book Award. He lives in Wyoming.

Reviews

[Sienna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kersaote's books on his relationships with his dogs have been some of my favorites. I wanted to see what he was like before the dogs. Definitely a driven & interesting person.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ted Kerasote's Navigations starts off weak--in my opinion, only--but ends very, very strong. Masterly strong. My issue with the first few essays--travels, really--is that they skimmed the surface. My surface. I have to keep pointing out that an opinion of a book like this is highly personal. A different person could have opposite and equally valid feelings.

But even when I didn't feel the connection with the author, I much enjoyed reading his adventures. His quest for A Record Snook is simply a fishing tale--hooking the fish, crashing through the surf, feeling his fish's indecision and then realizing with a hopeless determination it had decided to swim into the river where following it would require wading through a log jam and climbing the roots of a huge snag. Sometimes, when you're reading such adventure, you get a better feel for the countryside than if the author was simply describing it, from a high vantage point. It's a whole lot different thing to see a massive tree fallen in the river, gnarly roots exposed in a hideous snarl, than it is to climb over such an obstacle. Kerasote takes you with him.

Later on he described some years spent with his wife--a time when two people were greatly in love with each other but eternally pulled apart by their passions--dancing and climbing, for her; travel and writing, for him. I could see a lot of guys being turned off by this section--where's the sport? Where's the record fish, the sub-three-hour marathon, the search for the perfect, trophy Line? (that's a skiing route, best I can understand.) What's with all this emotional crap?

I didn't mind. But I have to say my favorite stories are ones like "Neva Hurry" where he confronts the contrast between his schedule as a working author of short stories, which involves deadlines, airline schedules, endless meetings, and his need to slow down and feel life...to dabble in a river for trout, get a hit at the eleventh hour, slowly release his catch, a breeding-sized female, then hold his hands in the freezing water until they ache.

It was a dark pool, dark as the bridge shadow over which I had stood the evening before, dark as a slow brown smile of Carib Billy Joe and as smooth, glossy, and continually moving as one's life in retrospect--when all the mindless hurry, inscrutable hurry, and senseless ambition have passed into what we kindly call wisdom. Into this pool, with a delicate plop, I dropped my hare's ear nymph.

[skipped a bit here, sorry...the nymph stopped moving.]

I gave a tremendous whoop, which stampeded the contentedly grazing cows, and of course I also immediately fell into the fiver, shipping water over my starboard hip wader.
"Man, neva hurry."
Yes, Billy Joe, yes.

[Ensiform · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a largely captivating collection of essays (many previously published) on outdoor life, in which the author shares his adventures and reflections on nature, wildlife, and the human relationship with the natural world. He writes a great deal about fly fishing, but also hiking, mountain-climbing, wildlife photography, and running. The book is divided into three sections: "South," which details some experiences in South America; "North," which is mostly about tracking wildlife in the Alaskan wilderness and what oil exploration will do to these beautiful refuges (as of 1984); and "Home," which contains essays that take place in the lower 48 and Baja California. His writing is infused with a deep appreciation for the outdoors and a thoughtful consideration of how humans interact with and impact the environment.

I had never heard of the writer, but I enjoy travel writing, and Vintage Departures is a reliable imprint for travel writing. Not knowing anything about the book, I was surprised to find that it was essays rather than a fluid, continuous story. As a result, the pacing is uneven, veering between reflective, Thoreau-like musings and vivid, Krakauer-like adventure, but I enjoyed the diversity of flow. I also appreciated that his essays are not just descriptions of his travels but also thoughtful meditations on broader environmental themes. One of the strengths of the book is Kerasote's ability to weave personal anecdotes with broader ecological insights. Indeed, the final piece, in which he details the dissolution of his marriage because her desire to dance professionally didn't mesh with his itinerant, running/climbing/fishing lifestyle, is one of the strongest of the book, having real emotional impact. Finally, I was impressed with his refreshingly honest, self-effacing accounts of climbing a mountain with two fellow backpackers and running a marathon in the desert outside of Phoenix. These are visceral and pulse-pounding, an eye-opening portrayal of the physical toll such feats take on even a well-seasoned human body. Overall, Kerasote effectively communicates the sense of wonder and respect he has for the natural world, encouraging readers to reflect on their own relationship with nature. It's too bad that much of the world that he depicts has now been gamified, hyped, drilled, and fracked.