Backcountry Rangers

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BSquared
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by BSquared »

sierramel wrote:Wow.. How could I ever fail to remember Patt? The first time I ran into her in '96, she was working out of the cabin just west of Sally Keyes. After that, every time I was over that way she'd be wandering around between there, Rosemarie Marie Meadow and the Muir Trail Ranch. These days, as probably a lot of you know who get down to the MRT, she is the short, gray-haired, grandmotherly little person who checks people into the resupplies at the ranch.
Hell, it seems nearly everyone I run into on the JMT knows who Patt is!
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ndwoods
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by ndwoods »

I don't run into them that often, but probably at least a doz times in the last 30-40 years....:)
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Jimr
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by Jimr »

Only once. 1985, Ionian Basin. Randy Morgenson was hiking up into the basin on his day off trying to get away from the crowds below. My buddy had crushed his ankle trying to hurry over a talus field (idiot!) within an hour of ranger Randy's arrival. The next day was spent evacuating my crippled (idiot) friend.
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
sierramel
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by sierramel »

Hey!
Patt does some lurking here. I just got an email from her and she thought the picture was sooo funny. She really liked it!
"Some places remain unknown because no one has ventured forth. Others remain so because no one has ever come back."
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BSquared
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by BSquared »

Ut-oh! Better watch what I say ;)
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East Side Hiker
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by East Side Hiker »

Rangers and trail crews began getting cut in the early 80's. I have seen only one ranger in the past 10 years - that was while walking up Mt. Dana three July's ago. He was loaded down with all his stuff - including a gun - and had just come to Yosemite from Yellowstone. I was 100 yds off the trail, about 1/2 way up, photo'ing an alpine columbine, and he came over. To my astonishment, he asked what the flower was.
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Hetchy
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by Hetchy »

I used to meet a ranger everytime I crossed O'Shaunessey at Hetch Hetchy. After 9-11 they began to close the road from 9PM to 7AM so the last Ranger checks the backpacker camp at the dam before heading up to lock the road at Mather.
The last Backcountry ranger i met was back around 2002. It was late May and the Lake Vernon Bridge crossing was flooded as usual. I was waiting to cross when the water dropped afternoon (the "tide" is always oposite what you would think here). As i was sitting in the shade a Back Country Ranger(uniform) and a companion(no-uniform) showed up and scared the daylights out of me. I did not hear them approach due to the roar of the snow melt waters. We had a great laugh and all three of us waded across well above the falls at the bridge.
In 2007(I think) I met a Yosemite park docent in Beehive meadows. We were comparing trails we had hiked and talking about "sneaky" routes offtrail to places in the Northern Yosemite when he produced and ancient piece of paper. It was a very old looking map with all manner of hand draw routes to Edyth, Bearup, Ardeth, as well as the Branigan and Otter lakes Chains. It was like seeing a top secret document! I tried to memorise some of the routes but there was too much detail. He said that some of those had been closed down or disguised to discourage folks from using them. I sure wish I had taken a photo of that map! Anyhow it was cool to talk to someone that had so much knowledge of the area.
I will never forget what he said.
I told him I rarely ever have seen a backcountry ranger out there.
He replied: "But they see you!"
Perhaps a rather ominous and dramatic thing for him to say but i always try think: "What would a ranger, someone who sees this place all the time, think of my passing? " "Did i leave a trace?"
I can honestly say that encounter with the docent really made me think about how the rangers must see "us". The good the bad and the ugly things we do out there.
I really miss the Sierra.
You can make more money, but you can't make more time.
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BrianF
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by BrianF »

Good final point there Hetchy, Made me think. Each of us probably makes at least some minor transgression to leave no trace or the law at some point in our careers and looks at it as an inconsequential, isolated incident; but to a ranger who lives and breathes that area it must seem one of a long string of violations to that wnderful place we all love.
The direction you are moving in is what matters, not the place you happen to be -Colin Fletcher
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HillBob
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by HillBob »

I had just set up camp above a meadow at the Bench Lake - JMT trail junction when a ranger came striding across the meadow. I figured that he was going to check my wilderness permit or maybe complain about where I was camping, but he wasn’t on official business. He just wanted to talk. The ranger was Randy Morgenson and this was July 16, 1996.

My backpacking partner and I had come that day over a rough route from Marion Lake through Lake Basin, over Cartridge Pass and across the South Fork of the Kings. Morgenson seemed interested in that country and talked as if he might head over there soon. Conversation drifted over various topics of wilderness, the people who go there and their widely varying motivations. Morgenson mentioned that he had been having problems with the radio hanging from his belt and with spotty reception from the relay transmitter on Mt. Gould. He struck me as a thoughtful and serious guy, and the long conversation had been an interesting one, but it was late in the day and I needed to cook up some dinner, so I pulled the wilderness permit out of my pack to finish things off.

Morgenson disappeared on July 21. The Park Service called me up when I got home to ask if I had seen him. They seemed particularly interested in his state of mind, which had seemed unremarkable to me. I offered up the hunch that he might have gone over into Lake Basin, a suggestion that turned out to be a red herring. I also mentioned that crossing the South Fork of the Kings might have been a particular hazard because it had been a little tricky for me and my buddy, and we are both considerably bigger than Morgenson.

In the following months I saw the “missing ranger” trail signs and heard wild rumors and irresponsible speculation about what might have happened to him. Finally, in 2001, I learned in an email from R. J. Secor that his remains had been found.

I got around to reading The Last Season only recently. Despite his overly sentimental treatment, Blehm tells a compelling story of the search effort, which involved some people I’ve met in the mountains over many years. Randy Morgenson was a remarkable man. I’m glad I had a chance to talk with him.

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Jay
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Re: Backcountry Rangers

Post by Jay »

I had the pleasure of being ticketed by a warden in the Moke two years ago. :tear:
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