Andrea Lankford - Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, And Dying In The National Parks

Copyright 2010 by Andrea Lankford

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Text designer: Libby Kingsbury

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file.

ISBN 978-0-7627-9626-7

For the one who pulled me back from the edge.

The seasons over and they come down

From the ranger station to the nearest town

Wild and wooly and tired and lame

From playing the next to nature game

These are the men the nation must pay

For doing nothing, the town folks say

But facts are different. Im here to tell

That some of their trails run right throughwell

Woods and mountains and deserts and brush

They are always going and they always rush.

From Oh, Ranger! A Story about the National Parks by Horace Albright and Frank J. Taylor, 1928

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

For twelve years I lived and worked in some of the most sublime places in the world. Zion, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon were all landscapes I was proud to protect. I participated in search and rescues, wildland firefighting, and law enforcement. I directed traffic around tarantula jams. I pursued bad guys while galloping on horseback. I jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the dark heart of the Grand Canyon and plucked the damned from the jaws of the abyss. I raced the sunset. I won arguments with bears. I dodged lightning bolts. I pissed on forest fires. I slept with a few too many rattlesnakes.

Hell, yeah, it was the best job in the world. And fortunately I survived it.

One of my dearest friends was not so lucky.

Park rangers bring to mind images fit for a postcard. A square-jawed outdoorsman wearing a stiff-brimmed Stetson rides horseback through lonely canyons. A freckle-faced young woman hikes to an altar of wildflowers under a shadowy cathedral of redwoods. A friendly guy stands on the porch of a hewn-log ranger station and waves to the happy campers passing by. These sylvan scenes make for pretty portraits of a rangers life, but as every park ranger eventually learns, sunny postcards tell only half a story.

Even paradise has its problems. Criminals go on vacation too. In the United States, a park ranger is more likely to be assaulted in the line of duty than is any other federal officer, including those who work for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF); the Secret Service; and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). A park ranger is twelve times more likely to die on the job than is a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In light of such numbers, some describe park rangerslike grizzly bears, wild orchids, and sea turtlesas endangered.

Within these pages you will meet a few of the park rangers behind these statistics and read some of the stories behind the scenery of Americas national parks. If my imaginary postcards were actual portraits of real park rangers I came to know and love during my intense and extraordinary career, the square-jawed outdoorsman would be Chris Fors, a hardy New Englander who used his sturdy expression to hide the fear and disillusionment he faced while working at the Grand Canyon. The freckle-faced young woman hiking through the trees would resemble Mary Litell, a rock climber determined to break the glass ceiling at Yosemite Valley. And the friendly ranger with a kind wave and goofy smile? That would be Cale Shaffer, a short guy with a big dream: to become a mountaineering ranger on Denali, North Americas tallest mountain.

I cherish the memories I have of working alongside park rangers like Chris, Mary, and Cale. For better and worse, our time with the National Park Service (NPS) changed us in ways we could never have anticipated. In the beginning we were four passionately dedicated rangers willing to risk our lives to protect the national park ideal. But age wreaked havoc on our idealism, a little courage bled from each tragic experience, and hope seemed elusive when so many lives were lost. In the end I watched someone toss a beloved rangers ashes into the Grand Canyon.

Rangers rarely share their experiences with those outside the clannish NPS. Chief rangers and park superintendents have politically fragile careers. NPS public information officers are reticent about the darker sides of the park experience. Concessionairesmulti-million-dollar companies that run the hotels, restaurants, and gift shops inside national parksthink bad news equals bad business. Park rangers, including those at the highest ranks, have been disciplined, frivolously indicted, and even fired because they told the truth about living, working, and dying in a national park.

This is a work of nonfiction. The park rangers are real people. The stories are true. Quoted dialogue and statements are taken directly from government documents, dispatch recordings, other media sources, journals, letters, and the recollections of myself or the people I interviewed. In one chapter only (Pine Pigs) I portray minor events as if they occurred in one day. In a few instances I combine several conversations into one for the sake of narrative efficiency. I occasionally use my imagination when dramatizing the actions, thoughts, and motivations of the park ranger who dies by this storys end. With the exception of a few high-profile incidences, I omit the names of the deceased to allow them and their families some privacy.

Reader beware. Ranger reality is rated R. Nature doesnt always play nice. Public servants curse from time to time. Search and rescue can involve wet work. Cliffhangers dont always have happy endings.

The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks... which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

The National Park Service Organic Act, 1916

Well... the only thing I can say is... Yosemite is one Goddamn beautiful place to get locked up.

Man arrested for driving while intoxicated in a national park, 1993

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON THE GRAND CANYON

Nude from the waist down, the woman arched her back off the gurney and kicked a padded ankle restraint across the room. Obviously the Valium wasnt working. The doctor yelled for something stronger. A male park ranger fought with the womans kicking legs while I leaned all my weight on her upper torso so a nurse could inject the drug into the catheter I had put in her arm. With all her panting and senseless blabbering, you would have thought we were trying to sedate a lunatic. But this young woman was not insane. She was just a girl who went hiking in the Grand Canyon.