That was only the first item I needed to initial. There were 11 more. It seemed I could die from falling into "old mine shafts and other openings or weaknesses in the earth, as well as other natural and/or man-made conditions which are too numerous to recite herein." I was to understand that there are "few road signs or other navigational aids to assist visitors," that the area "occupies one of the most extreme environments in North America," that a large portion "contains no sources of safe drinking water," and that it is the home of unnamed "venomous reptiles."

This document is the Hold Harmless Agreement one signs to legally visit Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, in southwestern Arizona. The refuge, the third largest in the lower 48, is an entirely unpopulated, Rhode Island-size sea of cactuses and sand. Ninety-two percent of its 860,010 acres (34,804 hectares) were declared wilderness in 1990, and its southern edge is a 56-mile (90-kilometer) boundary with Mexico. On my map there are seven mountain ranges but only two roads, both of them unpaved. The one that most visitors drive is El Camino del Diablo, or the Devil's Highway...