National Park Ranger, a.k.a, "Bleeding Green & Grey" tells the stories that cover well beyond just the numerous and sometimes daily heroic deeds that other present park ranger books more than adequately validate. However, these new true-life tales not only embrace such topics as the customary high adventure cases, the sometimes humorous park visitors, and the dealing with the unfortunate death & mayhem; but now include various accounts of handling previously considered taboo matters such as limited budgets, hiring difficulties, increasing outside agency assists, and unfortunately, politics and bureaucracy. Also, something rather different in dealing with the typical stoical federal government, author Greg Moss actually enjoys to not only show the amusement side of dealing with the unusual park visitor actions, but also pokes fun of himself or other park staff. All those emergency life-or-death call-out operations and boring administrative meetings don't go off quite as smoothly as most other books on park rangers currently portray, or even totally ignore. This author uses a lot of dry humor, satire, and sarcasm in his book which makes you laugh out loud, scratch your head, and say, "Really? Is that true"
National Park Ranger, a.k.a., "Bleeding Green & Grey"
High Adventure Tales, Humorous Stories, & Deadly Consequences!By Gregory W. MossAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Gregory W. Moss
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4685-2585-4 Contents
Dedication................................................................viiBook Review...............................................................ixForeword..................................................................xiIntroduction..............................................................xiiiAcknowledgement...........................................................xviiChapter 1 Sadness on The San Juan.........................................1Chapter 2 Definition of Wilderness........................................10Chapter 3 Guard Dog at 9,000 Feet.........................................18Chapter 4 Miracles Do Happen..............................................23Chapter 5 Picking Your Nose Can Kill You..................................32Chapter 6 Youth Versus Experience.........................................35Chapter 7 All Water Flows Downstream......................................43Chapter 8 Motorcycles and Meth............................................49Chapter 9 Looking for a Needle in an Alaskan Haystack.....................59Chapter 10 You're Fired!..................................................66Chapter 11 The Worse Day of My NPS Career.................................71Chapter 12 Party Time at Your Boss's House!...............................79Chapter 13 Clean Hair Can Kill You!.......................................84Chapter 14 Radical Snow Dude!.............................................92Chapter 15 Sar & Geritol in the Glades....................................101Chapter 16 Ever Skin a Griz?..............................................108Chapter 17 Caribou and Outhouses..........................................120Chapter 18 Motion Sickness Sissy..........................................127Chapter 19 Jack Mormon....................................................137Chapter 20 Pain For Everyone..............................................147Chapter 21 Scuba Diving with Machine Guns.................................157Chapter 22 All Wedding Days Should be this Memorable......................164Chapter 23 Sleeping on the Job............................................171Chapter 24 A Killer Dog...................................................182Chapter 25 Life at Minus 50 Degrees.......................................186Chapter 26 Cocaine and Illegal Aliens!....................................199Chapter 27 Cat Kills Dog..................................................209Chapter 28 Sliced Lunch Meat..............................................214Chapter 29 A Traditional Ozark Wedding....................................219Chapter 30 Dogsled Zombies................................................230Chapter 31 Snagging Salmon................................................243Chapter 32 Hey Doc!.......................................................253How to Contact The Author.................................................261Other Recommended Reading.................................................263
Chapter One
"SADNESS ON THE SAN JUAN"
Once again my government residence phone was rudely ringing and it was still dark outside. Looking at the clock next to my bed, I knew from experience that it wasn't good because it showed that it was only 2:15 a.m. It was Park Dispatch calling and they had just received an emergency call from someone in Kansas saying that a male friend of theirs had called them from a cell phone somewhere on the San Juan River in Utah. The man was reporting that he had, "just killed his wife." This was a "not good" situation in anyone's book. I guess the original caller had tried to call 911, but couldn't get a hold of anyone local in Utah. So, he called everyone he could think of until he finally contacted a friend in Kansas. The RP (i.e., police talk for the original "Reporting Party") didn't say that he thought that his wife was hurt or sick, nor even possibly dead. He just flatly said, "I just killed my wife." Now what does that mean exactly? We law enforcement rangers call that "a sign," which means I have to get my butt out of bed now. So much for my beauty rest tonight!
Dispatch gave me what information they knew, which wasn't much. But it was enough for us to go start searching for our possible victims. I was told to respond to a boating accident with serious internal injuries somewhere up the San Juan River, or about 40 miles upstream from where the river empties out into Lake Powell and Glen Canyon National Recreational Area, Utah. At least two people were involved, with one of them reportedly "dead." I knew the area and it was very remote and hard to access.
I lived in the Bullfrog Ranger Station area on Lake Powell, which is located at lake buoy number 95 (i.e., 95 miles up-lake from the Glen Canyon Dam). The San Juan River empties into Lake Powell at buoy #57 which means we have to drive a rescue boat, in total darkness and with no moon, at least 38 miles just to get to the mouth of the river. And then head upstream another 40 plus miles to where the accident "might be."
I was also told that Steve, the Hall's Crossing Sub-district Ranger was en route to pick me up at the Bullfrog Marina, and that I was to be ready for anything. I asked dispatch to contact the local Medevac helicopter, place them on standby status, and that we would most likely ask them to launch their ship as soon as they legally could at first light (remember that most helicopters don't fly in the night unless they are equipped with night vision goggles). I already knew that this specific medical helicopter could only fly by VFR flight rules (Visual Flight Regulations) and not IFR (Instrument Flight Regulations), so a night time flight was out of the question.
My job as the Up-lake District Ranger for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA) was to supervise the northern half of the park and all aspects of the Visitor and Resource Protection Division for my district. Basically the rangers protect the visitor from the resource, and the resource from the visitor. If we didn't intervene, they both have a tendency to eventually hurt the other. Sometimes I like that concept, and other times I would pay for it by working endless overtime hours. In the busy summer months I was never allowed a full night's sleep. Welcome to supervising in a large National Park.
For my area of responsibility, I supervised 4 Sub-districts and about 15 to 20 Protection Rangers. To make things interesting, this NRA alone has more coastline to patrol then the entire coast of California, Oregon, and Washington combined (and that's a lot of shoreline!). Also, on any given Saturday night in the summer months, the park has between 15,000 to 20,000 visitors temporarily residing on that lake. And a large majority of these folks were under the influence of some alcoholic beverage to various degrees. Can you spell, F-U-N? O.K., then how about, D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S?We averaged 15-17 fatalities there every summer and that doesn't even consider the number of arrests, call-outs, vehicle or boat accidents, citations, medicals, boat fires, searches, and technical rescues we also responded to. The job of being a Park Ranger on a large recreational lake is never boring during the summer months. Matter of fact, it can be a real burnout for some staff that aren't used to the fast pace.
On most federal lands managed by the National Park Service (NPS), when...
