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rado Plateau where he grew up.
"I was never much of a botanist," says Udall. Hefty pine cones lay around the tree trunks; a swarm of small purple butterflies flutters by. "I can tell a ponderosa when I see one. It's one of my favorite trees. Coronado walked through ponderosas when he traveled here. My favorite tree in New Mexico is the aspen, but we're not high enough. In St. John we had some cedar and some juniper at 5,500 feet."
Conversant with politicians, radicals and actors, Udall has been at the center of some of the great Western environmental conflicts of the 20th century: the Central Arizona Project, for instance, and the Glen Canyon Dam (he supported the former and regrets the latter). Memories for him are less moments of nostalgia than reminders of what can be done.
"Pete Seeger sang at a fundraiser we put on for the Navajo uranium miners once," he remembers. "Ed Abbey was there, too. I respected Abbey, and I suspect he respected me. The Atomic Energy Commission didn't tell uranium miners about the lung cancer possibility. They knew all along there was going to be an epidemic. If they'd told the miners about the possibility of cancer they'd have quit, and it would've affected the production of bombs."
Udall spent some 10 years representing lung-damaged miners, losing in the U.S. Supreme Court but winning compensation for them in Congress.
With his angular face and swept-back silver hair, Udall has a Mt. Rushmore profile. His friend Robert Redford says his face has the bearing that deserves to be on the back of a nickel. Their friendship goes back to 1970, when the actor invited the politician to chair the nonprofit Sundance-based Institute for Resource Management.
"It was pretty clear that this guy was devoted to not only the land, but the history of the West," Redford says. "He represents a great part of our country and a great time in our country that has sadly evaporated. He and I became very, very close in the '80s."
Today Redford is coaching Udall on a screenplay he's writing, set on the Colorado Plateau and drawing on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the notorious incident in southern Utah in which a Mormon militia and Paiute Indians attacked a wagon train headed for California, killing more than 100 settlers.
"He's pretty rich in lore," says Redford, "but translating that to the screen is a gigantic task. This last year has just brought us together even more as he reaches his emeritus stage. My affection for him is so keen."
On the trail, Udall passes hikers, most on their way to the waterfalls and beyond, up the back side of the Santa Fe Ski Area. The sun has dried his stream-soaked cuffs. Next to a huge rock he pauses and rests his head against the lichen.
In his Cabinet days, he hiked both Japan's Mt. Fuji, at 12,387 feet, and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, at 19,340 feet. "Kennedy wanted us to show some 'vigah.' " (A framed photo of Udall on Kilimanjaro hangs on his home office wall.)
On weekends during his Cabinet days, he and the family would pile into the car and drive to Interior Department outposts in the Washington area, among them the Washington Monument, where they'd climb the stairs to the top for exercise. When school was out, the family would raft on Western rivers: the Colorado, the Salmon, the Green, the San Juan.
Just this last year he rafted down the Colorado River from Lees Ferry - named for Udall's grandfather - and, with a grandson, trekked from the floor of the Grand Canyon up Bright Angel Trail some 7,000 feet to the South Rim. His family had cautioned against it, and he rejected a Park Service offer of a mule. "They wouldn't have liked it if I hadn't made it," he recounted, "but what a way to go." Once at the South Rim, Udall marched straight to the bar at the Tovar Lodge and ordered a martini.
Udall stands on the bank of the stream, having just crossed it again, when a couple splashes up behind him and does a double-take.
"You ... you're ... you're Stewart Udall?!"
The two suddenly gush with unrestrained admiration. Udall nods slightly, his stoic face breaking into a tight smile of appreciation. As the couple trots off, he looks at a tree in the middle distance. He's quick to deflect attention and eager to focus on what really matters.
"That's a willow, I think."
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