Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks

by Andrea Lankford

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).

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

“Protect the park from the people, the people from the park, and the people from themselves.”

Rule Number 313: Tombstone humor is a Band-Aid placed over what may become a deep and festering wound.

He published the notes he wrote during this time under the title My First Summer in the Sierra. He writes of an extravagant, joyful landscape overflowing with good tidings. Snowmelt creeks are “champagne water.” Bears are “hardy mountaineers.” Nature is “beauty loving tenderness.” Trees and waterfalls sing and bow in worship. “Let children walk with nature” he writes, “and they will see that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.”

We can’t have 250-pound animals bitch-slapping people for their peanut butter sandwiches.

To many in the Park Service, Yosemite isn’t a proper park. It has four million visitors a year—more than a hundred thousand visitors on one summer day—a golf course, two swimming pools, four bars, and a jail. “That’s a town, not a park!” one ranger said when I confessed that I had accepted a job in Yosemite Valley.

A journey through this park and the Sierra Forest Reserve to the Mount Whitney country will convince even the least thoughtful man of the needfulness of preserving these mountains just as they are, with their clothing of trees, shrubs, rocks, and vines, and of their importance to the valley’s below as reservoirs for storage of water for agricultural and domestic purposes. In this, then, lies the necessity of forest preservation.

You can compete for an entry-level “open to non-status applicants” ranger position at a big city park like the Statue of Liberty or Independence Hall (where the scenery is scarce and the cost of living–to–wage ratio is punitive). You can accept a job as a federal prison guard, probation officer, or postal worker. You can work for the IRS. You can volunteer your services for two years while exposing yourself to political unrest and exotic diseases in the Peace Corps. You can enlist in the military and hope you become a veteran of a war. Or you can do your time as a Park Service clerk-typist, toiling behind a desk until a ranger supervisor rescues you from administrative exile.

The fourteen-mile trail from the river to the North Rim gains so much elevation that it passes through five of the seven life zones found in North America. Ecologically speaking, the experience is like walking from Mexico to Canada in a day.

At the age of nineteen Cale concluded that all he had to do was have faith in his own intentions, shed all concerns of others’ opinions, and ignore those who didn’t see him for who he was. Only then would he find true friends.

I’m not sure what it is about the Grand Canyon that unsettles me more, the park’s indifference to humanity or its stark reflection of my own duality. Like Lieutenant Ives did in 1857, I, too, have heard “harsh screams” while hiking in the canyon. But when I looked up, there were hawks soaring overhead. Any gargoyles I imagined peering down on me from the sandstone ledges were probably the contented ghosts of the Anasazi, revisiting their ancient food caches. And where I had begun to see a chaotic abyss filled with death and violence, young rangers like Cale Shaffer saw the beauty of God’s creation and opportunities to save lives. Yet when people ask me to name my favorite national park, I never hesitate; although my relationship with the Grand Canyon will always be a peculiar affair.

Death is not a merciful conclusion but a border crossing into a new land that could be more beautiful and majestic than the tallest mansion. Faith, courage, and hope are the characteristics that create happiness. They will stand as remembered monuments for all those left around the bed, and they are the qualities I will strive to obtain. —From the journal of Cale Shaffer, dated September 7, 1992, written when he was eighteen years old