Ranger Confidential

by Andrea Lankford

  As soon as Lober wedged himself into the harness, the helicopter pilot lowered the rope to us. The rotor wash blew icy creek water at us, stinging our eyes and making it hard to breathe. It was like working on the deck of a ship in a storm. We rushed to hook the basket to the cable. Lober’s glasses were fogged. A volunteer wiped off the condensation. Somebody gave the Navy pilot a thumbs-up, and the helicopter lifted. The slack left the rope, and Lober and the patient were off the ground. On the way up, a corner of the rescue litter hit a large boulder jutting out over the creek. This sent Lober and the patient spinning like a yo-yo at the end of a twisted string. The sight of it alone was enough to make me motion sick. Later that night, I questioned Lober about the experience. He said, “It wasn’t the rock that scared me. It was that awful twisting.”

  * * *

  A Yosemite ranger’s job is not always this exciting. There are slow days. Tedious, boring days when, if you have to give any more directions to any more confused visitors or impound any more improperly stored food or type any more fender-bender accident reports or direct any more traffic around any more bear jams or smile politely at any more tourists who call you “rangerette,” you swear you’re going to drop a gallon of whiskey into your backpack, hike a hundred miles into the wilderness, and never come back. There are days when you wish for something interesting to happen just to break up the monotony. Sometimes your wish is granted, and you immediately want to take it back.

  In 1994 I completed an intensive park medic training program. “Park medics” are rangers qualified to start IV lines and give lifesaving medications in the field under a physician’s orders and direction. (A park medic is equivalent to an EMT-Intermediate and does not receive any additional pay for acquiring these skills.) Obtaining my certification as a medic involved four weeks of academic classes plus one hundred hours of clinical rotations at hospitals and with urban ambulance crews. I aced the academic requirements, but I was far from being competent in the field. After months of minimal field guidance from Keith Lober and other experienced ranger-medics, I nearly failed to convince a skeptical doctor to sign me off as a full-fledged, independently functioning park medic. But I wanted to be cut loose from the umbilical cord. What I lacked in skill, I’d make up for in ignorance.

  One afternoon we received a report of a serious head injury at Hidden Falls. The shift supervisor pointed at me, and I was out the gate. Sprinting up the trail with a rescue volunteer at my side, I weaved through boulders and hurdled low branches. I ran because I was driven by a desire to help the person with the serious head injury. I ran faster because I hoped to beat Keith Lober to the scene.

  Unless I reached the scene first and made lifesaving actions on my own, Sheriff Lobo would take charge and be the hero, like always. I figured he ought to let me have this one, but I knew he wouldn’t. While I approached the scene on foot, Lober was jumping into a rescue helicopter bound for the accident site. This did not deter me from the finish line. Helicopters are fast, but I once held my high school’s record for the girls’ half mile. If I hoofed it, I might beat him.

  I won the race when I saw a woman walking down the trail toward me. Blood smeared her pale cheek. A slack look hung on her face. This must be my patient, I thought. She looked a little out of it, but she was conscious and she was walking. Piece of cake. Then, in a monotone voice, she said. “It’s K—. She’s dead.”

  Behind the woman were four people holding a purple towel stretched between them to form a drooping stretcher. Inside the towel something heavy—a body—bounced as they hiked toward me. A misshapen head flopped out of the towel. Black hair hung loosely toward the ground. The name K— began to register. She was a nurse at the Yosemite Medical Clinic. She was my age. She had a thing for strong margaritas. I liked her.

  No. Please. I’ve changed my mind. Give me a shift that’s boring.

  “Put her down,” I said with a blunt voice that I barely recognized as my own. “I’ll take it from here.” A part of me closed shut in that moment, like a curtain had fallen to the stage in my mind, cutting off my backstage emotions about K— so that I could act. Behind me, a large thing crashed through the tree branches. It was Lober, performing a dangerous rappel from the helicopter into a dense forest. Today, neither of us would play the hero.

  The “on-scene death investigation” was a routine Lober could, and probably did, do in his sleep. Take some photos. Make a few measurements. Scribble notes onto yellow notepads. Put the body in a bag. Put the bag in the basket stretcher. Hook it to the line. Give the helicopter pilot a thumbs-up. After the body was off to the morgue, Lober and I remained behind to continue our investigation. We split up. He hiked west on the loop trail that leads to the top of Hidden Falls, and I went east.

  Hidden Falls is a short loop, a path more than a trail. During the wetter seasons, it travels under an elfin trickle of water surrounded by ferns and columbine. Then it goes up and around to a three-pronged gusher that lands in a clear pool. From the pool the path traverses a bald slab of granite. It’s a pretty little hike only locals know about. They bring beach towels in case they feel like taking a dip. At the topside of the loop, I met Lober. We stood on opposite sides of the rocky slab with fifteen feet of moist granite between us. In his report Lober described this stretch of rock as having a “Teflon-like slipperiness.” He pointed to a little divot in the moss—a silver dollar–size patch of green peeling loose from the rock, like a scab.

  “That’s the spot,” he said. The spot where K—’s foot lost friction before she slid off the edge and fell fifty feet. I lifted one leg up and stretched it out, toe pointed, balancing on my other leg like a ballerina. I grinned wickedly at Lober. I was going to step there. I was going to cross over to his side of the slippery slab by stepping on that same deadly spot. To beat it. To prove that it happened to her, but it wouldn’t happen to me. To show Lober how brave I could be. But Lober wore an expression I hadn’t seen on him before. “Andy,” he said, his voice weak and pleading. “Don’t.”

  When Keith Lober acts sensitive, it scares you. I brought my foot back down to the rock. “I’ll meet you down below,” I said.

  At the base of the cliff, Lober guided me to where he had found the impact site. We took photographs for the file: a bottom-side view of a cliff; a patch of gray rocks; a puddle of clotting blood. To a ranger, such pictures tell a sad story: a woman slipping down a granite slab; her friends watching her disappear over the edge, then running down the trail to find her crumpled among the boulders; the gurgling sounds of her last breath. Panic. Urgency. Grief. Desperate attempts to save a friend’s life and then the gloomy task of cradling a body in a purple towel and carrying it out of the wilderness.

  Dusk was upon us. We hiked out along the north side of Mirror Lake. The conversation was limited. I worried that Keith Lober, my reluctant mentor, would think me too female if I brought up the emotional impacts of our job. But I had to ask, “Do these things ever bother you?”

  “Of course,” he said. Death was never stingless.

  6

  DEAD BEAR WALKING

  Ranger Noel McJunkin thought he had the best job in the world. His commute consisted of a four-mile hike into the park wilderness. His office was a canvas tent near a babbling brook. His beat was the backcountry of Little Yosemite Valley. His job was to walk the trails, checking for camping permits and warning hikers of the hazards. How hard could that be?

  As a backcountry ranger, Noel met fewer people and responded to fewer calls than the beleaguered frontcountry rangers patrolling the park’s busy roads and crowded hotels. Away from their cars, outside the roaming ranges of their cell phones, and at least four trail miles from the nearest beer tap, the hikers in Little Yosemite were friendlier and more relaxed than the average frontcountry visitor. In turn, Noel was friendlier and more relaxed than the average frontcountry park ranger.

  But every man has hi
s limits.

  Each year, thousands of hikers travel through Little Yosemite Valley during their strenuous eight-mile trek to the top of Half Dome. Many of these hikers camp for at least one night in the Little Yosemite Valley Campground. In the evenings, before the weary trekkers crawl into their tents, a backcountry ranger like Noel McJunkin makes a stop by each campsite for a little chat. Raised in the hills of Tennessee, Noel was the type of ranger other rangers call “low key.” He smiled when he asked to see your camping permit. He conversed pleasantly with you while you dug it out of the bottom of your pack. And when you handed him your permit, he ever so politely asked you to turn it over to the back so he could point out your signature, the place where you signed a statement that you did read and understand all the park regulations listed above.

  Up to this point in the conversation, Noel’s Tennessee drawl was as sweet and smooth as syrup on pancakes. But then, just as he brought up the issue of food, the ranger’s voice changed, becoming deeper and more authoritative. “All food must be stored in the metal food-storage lockers provided,” he’d say, “except when being prepared and eaten. Then all food will immediately be put back into the metal food-storage locker. This includes all food and everything that smells like food—chewing gum, breath mints, toothpaste, suntan lotion, baby wipes, shampoo, lip balm, and what have you.”

  When it came to food in the Yosemite wilderness, the normally laid-back Noel McJunkin was extremely serious. Actually, Ranger McJunkin was more than serious; he was downright fascist. And like many hikers, you might wonder, “What is his problem?”

  Noel’s problem was female. His problem had three babies to feed. His problem had a name, and her name was “the Swatter.”

  * * *

  In July 1993 a bear was attacking so many hikers in Little Yosemite Valley that, like a serial killer, she had earned herself a nickname—the Swatter. So addicted to human food that she was willing to slap around a few humans to get it, the Swatter discovered that snatching hamburgers off picnic tables or pulling apples out of backpacks was much easier than digging for grubs under logs. Heck, to a hungry sow with three cubs to feed, even a bag of freeze-dried vegetarian lasagna was worth fighting for—even if she had to bite or slap one of those spindly two-legged things before it hollered, dropped its pack, and ran away. But humans see things differently. We can’t have 250-pound animals bitch-slapping people for their peanut butter sandwiches. Although black bears are less fearsome than grizzlies (a white hunter killed the last Yosemite grizzly in 1895), these animals still kill people from time to time. And if, God forbid, a Yosemite bear maims or kills a U.S. taxpayer, the park superintendent will find his butt in the liability hot seat faster than you can say “early retirement.”

  Earlier that summer, to avoid any more human-bear conflict, park biologists shot the Swatter up with tranquilizers, strapped a radio transmitter to her neck, loaded the sow and her three cubs in a cargo net, and transported them by helicopter to a remote canyon far, far away. Ten days later, with chin-scratching amazement, the biologists discovered that the Swatter and her babies were back in Little Yosemite Valley, extorting campers and robbing children of their candy bars.

  With the Swatter on the loose in Little Yosemite Valley, the pressure was on ranger Noel McJunkin. Every evening he diligently patrolled Little Yosemite Valley, explaining food-storage regulations to campers and acting extremely anal about dirty cook pots, chewing gum, and breath mints. If only he could convince backpackers to store their food properly. Then, maybe, Labor Day would come and go before the Swatter hurt somebody.

  Early one evening in July, with visions of dead bears and bleeding hikers dancing in his head, Noel met a young woman and her boyfriend sitting on two backpacks near the top of Nevada Falls. As was customary, the ranger asked the couple to show him their backcountry permit. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” the young woman replied.

  Neither Vanessa Butterfly (not her real name; but the one she gave Ranger McJunkin) nor her boyfriend had bothered to obtain a free camping permit that day, but this was not something they were going to admit to a park ranger. They would not tell the ranger their real names, either. No matter how laid-back he was or how thick he put on that Southern accent. Instead Vanessa Butterfly told Ranger McJunkin that she was born on “Valentine’s Day 210 b.c.” and “This is a free country, so we don’t have to do what you say.”

  These antics worried Noel. Was he really going to have to do the last thing he wanted to do? On this hot summer evening? When he was three miles from the nearest road and hadn’t had dinner yet?

  “Oh, ranger,” Vanessa Butterfly said. “The only reason you are harassing me is because you had a dysfunctional childhood.” Then she grabbed her pack and marched away, ignoring Noel’s pleas to come back until he said, “Stop, or you are under arrest.” At that, she took off running.

  Ms. Butterfly was spry, but she was no match for a backcountry ranger who hiked more than thirty miles a week. Manzanita scrub scratched at Noel’s legs and arms as he initiated his pursuit. In the heat of the chase, he grabbed the young woman and pulled one of her arms behind her back in a flustered and sweaty attempt to handcuff her. Meanwhile, Ms. Butterfly made good use of her free hand, pummeling the ranger about the face and shoulders while screaming, “Stop it. You’re abusing me!” According to Noel’s typewritten report, six hikers, eyes wide and mouths open, witnessed the entire event, thus missing the rare chance to watch the sunset from the top of Nevada Falls.

  Ranger Kent Delbon and I were sent up the trail to assist Noel McJunkin. To get to the top of Nevada Falls on the Mist Trail, you hike through a lush natural garden drenched with mist from the spray of Vernal and Nevada Falls. During the day, the soaking feels fantastic and you might see a rainbow. The bad news is that in order to reach the top of the falls, you have to climb three hundred ottoman-size granite steps.

  It was a warm evening. The trail was packed with tourists grunting up and down the slippery rocks. I started off at a pace with which Ranger Delbon didn’t care to compete. I slowed down once I realized that he wasn’t trying to prove anything. This wasn’t a race to him; it was two partners on the way to some bullshit call. As we climbed alongside the first waterfall, the humidity fogged up Delbon’s glasses. We stopped so he could pull a section of T-shirt out from under his bulletproof vest to wipe off the condensation. I watched him blink and squint before he put his glasses back on. Then he gave me a shall-we-continue smile.

  Three target-heart-rate-exceeding miles later we reached a flushed and fatigued Noel McJunkin standing next to a handcuffed Vanessa Butterfly. While Noel was preoccupied with catching his quarry, the boyfriend had made a hasty getaway. The young woman pouted and stamped her feet.

  I informed Ms. Butterfly that if she didn’t start cooperating, we would strap her down into a rescue stretcher and carry her ass out. This was something none of us wanted to do because six hours later, six rangers would be taking six ibuprofen for six severely cramped backs. It was tempting to let Vanessa Butterfly go. Chalk up the providing false information, illegal camping, resisting arrest, and assault charges to the fit-throwing tantrum of a confused young woman. It was tempting to tell Ms. Butterfly, “You know what, why don’t you go on ahead and camp wherever you like. Don’t bother with those tiresome food-storage regulations, either. In fact, right before you crawl into your tent and get all snuggly, be sure to dab a little peanut butter behind each ear.”

  Wisely, this time I let my male partner do all the talking. Delbon told Ms. Butterfly that playtime was over. “It’s time to start hiking.” Her response to the ranger’s request was to drop on her fanny and say, “Not unless I get to smoke a cigarette first.”

  By now we were all boiling, but Ranger Delbon’s voice was cool and collected. “I’m hot. I’m tired. I’m thirsty,” he said as a bead of sweat rolled off his nose. Pinching his thumb and finger within a millimeter of each oth
er, he added, “and I have about this much patience.” At that, Vanessa Butterfly stood up, shut up, and started following Ranger McJunkin down the trail.

  As Vanessa Butterfly and her boyfriend learned that night, camping without a backcountry permit inside a national park can earn you a $500 fine and a free permit to sleep inside the Yosemite National Jail. Yet for some hikers, citations and the threat of imprisonment are weak deterrents. A month after Noel McJunkin’s encounter with Vanessa Butterfly, another hiker backpacked illegally into the Yosemite wilderness. He illegally pitched his tent in the Swatter’s territory. He illegally fell asleep next to a bag of food. Despite his sins, the camper slept soundly. That is until the Swatter crashed through his tent and ripped a hole in his neck.

  Fortunately the Swatter didn’t kill the man. Holding a bloody bandanna to his wound, the backpacker hiked back down to Yosemite Village, where a doctor at the park’s emergency clinic sewed him up with forty stitches. The man came within centimeters of having his jugular slashed. A park ranger took a report—it was the Swatter’s death warrant. Cubs or no cubs, the bear had to go. In the memo authorizing the bear’s euthanasia, the park superintendent signed this statement: “There will always be conflicts that arise with four million visitors and approximately 400 to 500 bears in Yosemite. The sad fact is that the bears often end up paying the price with their lives.”