The Last Season (P.S.) by Eric Blehm

Author:Eric Blehm
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-13T07:00:00+00:00

Some considered the backcountry rangers arrogant. They generally associated only with each other and made little effort to talk to the other rangers at training. Their behavior wasn’t endearing. “My only defense to this,” says Durkee, “was that after a certain number of years, these other rangers—permanents and new backcountry rangers too—would come and go. Many wouldn’t last the season. It was hard to expend the effort to talk to them. At some point, though, it dawned on us that a vaguely familiar face kept coming back and might be just as excited about the park as us. Maybe even worth talking to.”

It was because of this keep-to-the-group mentality that many of the backcountry rangers, and certainly Randy, earned reputations as being reclusive. “They weren’t outwardly mean or anything,” says Scott Williams, a ranger who experienced their vibe when he started out at Sequoia and Kings Canyon in the 1980s. “They just kept to themselves—and for some that created resentment, but for me, that created a mystique. Especially Randy, who was the classic mountain man. So one time I decided I was going to hike in and sort of invite myself to stay at his cabin at Charlotte Lake. I’ll never forget the greeting I got. Randy was walking up from the lake, carrying two heavy buckets of water, and I introduced myself on the trail. Said hi, held my hand out to shake, and his response was ‘A lot of work for Giardia water,’ and kept right on walking. But to be honest, it didn’t take a lot to earn their respect. All you really had to do was show that you appreciated the wilderness, jump in and pick up some trash, pack it out, and if you stuck around long enough, they eventually warmed up.”

Eric Morey, whom Durkee says “came to respect us and even liked us, in spite of ourselves,” began a tradition of inviting the entire backcountry crew to his house for dinner one night during training. “Randy, me, Terry Gustafson, Bob Kenan, Lorenzo Stowell, Dario Malengo, and Lo Lyness were there sitting at one table,” recounts Durkee, “and the chief ranger, Debbie Bird, leaned over and told Morey, ‘There’s got to be more than a century of backcountry experience sitting there.’”

Actually, it was around 130 years of cumulative experience, with Randy at the head of the class.

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