Log0030 | Chris - Park Ranger
I had a rougher than usual night. My late ascent of Whitney had forced me to sleep on the summit with freezing temperatures, howling wind, thin air and hardly enough water. So once I’d descended out of the mountain’s cast shadow that following morning, I was happy enough to thaw by the edge of an alpine tarn. After finishing last night’s dinner for breakfast I was surprised to see someone come over the rise, in the opposite direction from the trail.
Chris’s story as a park ranger made me curious then intrigued. Much like Collin, a ranger I had met out here several years ago, she helped reroute my trip after an unforeseen but necessary detour, (in fact she laughed when she found out I knew Collin - this year he was stationed in the next valley over).
Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park was a tight knit community of rangers, she explained, this is why so few of them leave. Ordinarily, park rangers work their way around the country, spending a few years in different parks. She’d tried that for a season or two, but this was her favourite place on earth and so she’d been working out here for almost 20 years. I found this hard to believe, she looked incredible and had to still be in her thirties. Perhaps taking jobs for NPS as soon as she left high school I figured.
Only being a part time gig, she would enter the Sierras through the lingering June snow and not leave again until sometime in October when the fall weather rolled in and the mountains transformed. All her food was in the cabin - enough to last her the season. Then with all of her time she would go out on patrol. Up Whitney (where I first passed her the day prior), across the neighbouring basins, along the thru hiking highways and crosscounty in the back country. Trail maintenance, first aid, wildlife watch was all part of the job description, but it was mostly about helping the wilderness and people exist in a sort of hybrid harmony.
When the seasons ended, she worked the other part of the year as a nurse and taught wilderness medicine. Chris explained to me how she’d designed her life so that she could be out here doing what she loved. A beautiful fact, and an honourable sacrifice. Many an outdoorsman talks about wanting a life in the mountains, but few actually design a life around just that. Complaining ad nauseam about its impossibility in the modern era.
The job security was loose, there were no benefits, no insurance and it was year-to-year. But it also made her a small target for government job cuts. Someone still had to be out here; it might as well be the low paid seasonal workers with no benefits to pay.
I think I was perhaps a little enamored with the simplicity of her life and the beauty with which she could live it. The long days in the hills, tight knit responsibilities, and purpose beyond personal pursuits.