title: how to pop a controller off the navigation stack without using the navigation bar
body: <p>I'm trying to implement a navigation controller with some hierarchical views.  I want to use a regular UIViewController to present choices for drilling down, I don't want to use the navigation bar - I want to have my own, custom buttons for returning back up a level.</p>
  
  <p>I see examples like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[[self navigationController] pushViewController:nextViewController animated:YES];
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and my questions are these:  Is <code>navigationController</code> a property of all UIViewControllers?  Can I refer to <code>self.navigationController</code> regardless of the view that's on the stack?  If I'm at an arbitrary view, can I have a button action that contains something like <code>[self.navigationController popToRootViewController animated:YES];</code></p>
  
  <p>Each view I present will need a button to return to the previous view, or to the root view, depending on the situation.  I want to create that button in each view controller and control which view in the stack it returns to.  Am I on the right track?</p>