National Park Ranger, A.K.A., "Bleeding Green & Grey": High Adventure Tales, Humorous Stories, & Deadly Consequences!

National Park Ranger,

a.k.a., Bleeding Green & Grey

High Adventure Tales, Humorous Stories,

& Deadly Consequences!

Gregory W. Moss

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1-800-839-8640

© 2012 by Gregory W. Moss. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/14/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4685-2585-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-2583-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-2584-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011962498

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

DEDICATION

BOOK REVIEW

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter 1 SADNESS ON THE SAN JUAN

Chapter 2 DEFINITION OF WILDERNESS

Chapter 3 GUARD DOG AT 9,000 FEET

Chapter 4 MIRACLES DO HAPPEN

Chapter 5 PICKING YOUR NOSE CAN KILL YOU

Chapter 6 YOUTH VERSUS EXPERIENCE

Chapter 7 ALL WATER FLOWS DOWNSTREAM

Chapter 8 MOTORCYCLES AND METH

Chapter 9 LOOKING FOR A NEEDLE IN AN ALASKAN HAYSTACK

Chapter 10 YOU’RE FIRED!

Chapter 11 THE WORSE DAY OF MY NPS CAREER

Chapter 12 PARTY TIME AT YOUR BOSS’S HOUSE!

Chapter 13 CLEAN HAIR CAN KILL YOU!

Chapter 14 RADICAL SNOW DUDE!

Chapter 15 SAR & GERITOL IN THE GLADES

Chapter 16 EVER SKIN A GRIZ?

Chapter 17 CARIBOU AND OUTHOUSES

Chapter 18 MOTION SICKNESS SISSY

Chapter 19 JACK MORMON

Chapter 20 PAIN FOR EVERYONE

Chapter 21 SCUBA DIVING WITH MACHINE GUNS

Chapter 22 ALL WEDDING DAYS SHOULD BE THIS MEMORABLE

Chapter 23 SLEEPING ON THE JOB

Chapter 24 A KILLER DOG

Chapter 25 LIFE AT MINUS 50 DEGREES

Chapter 26 COCAINE AND ILLEGAL ALIENS!

Chapter 27 CAT KILLS DOG

Chapter 28 SLICED LUNCH MEAT

Chapter 29 A TRADITIONAL OZARK WEDDING

Chapter 30 DOGSLED ZOMBIES

Chapter 31 SNAGGING SALMON

Chapter 32 HEY DOC!

HOW TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR

OTHER RECOMMENDED READING

DEDICATION

To my loving wife Vickie, who

taught me peace and trust

And

To my caring parents Dean & Marilyn Moss,

who raised me to become the man I am today

And

To all the steadfast National Park Rangers far and wide,

my Stetson goes off to all of you

BOOK REVIEW

Greg’s stories are right on target; they play on all of your emotions and show the intense job of the NPS protection ranger. One minute a ranger may be talking to a park visitor, and the next minute taking a major law enforcement action or involved in a key criminal investigation, saving a life on a SAR or EMS incident, fighting a fire, or some other emergency incident.

The role of the NPS Protection Ranger is one of the most complex and difficult of any agency in the country. Greg’s stories show the complexity, hardships, dangers, and difficulties that our multi-talented NPS Rangers face every day.

These tales involve true and serious incidents faced in our National Parks, some are sad or even tragic, but his writing style allows the reader to use the incident as a learning point, and to even laugh even in the face of tragedy. I was very impressed with these stories and it definitely left me wanting for more.

~ Rick Brown—Retired Park Ranger and author of Ranger Up!

FOREWORD

I first met Greg Moss at a Western States Chief Ranger’s Conference in San Diego. He was prowling restlessly around during a break and we chatted for a few minutes about the conference. Later, when we worked together, I came to recognize his restlessness as the result of an active mind. Greg was always active in his career—always a teacher, always improving operational equipment and facilities. He put the agency and its people first—spending long nights organizing his work so that he could maximize the time he spent with his staff during their shifts. There was rarely a time that Greg was too busy to listen to a new problem and he was always ready to take on new assignments.

When I hired Greg as a District Ranger, his previous Superintendent told me: You are getting a great and capable employee. He’s unique… with the combination of focus, organization, and positive temperament. Greg always left a park better than he found it—teaching skills and frequently building organized storage for safety equipment. As a supervisor he was unsurpassed—beloved by his employees, known for humor, and a formidable tactician when the chips were down. Greg could competently care for the most challenging medical situations, organize a rescue, or quell a bar brawl. Seemingly nothing could faze him. He used the skills of verbal judo to defuse volatile situations and drew upon his competent preparation to manage emergencies in the elements—fire, flood, and cold.

But, Greg never suffered fools. As he grew in his career, he became more analytical—questioning how things worked and why. This book is a result of his analysis. He loved every minute of his career and liked best to work with people who were willing to adapt to changing needs and times.

Bleeding Green and Grey tells the stories of the men and women who protect the resources of the National Parks and the people who enjoy them. The stories are of raw courage, elemental death and near-death encounters, and people who are not always at their best when visiting the National Parks and Recreation Areas. Greg tells the stories through the eyes of the Park Rangers who provide amazing services, yet who themselves have human flaws. The personality of the National Park Service comes through these engaging tales. Greg delights, amazes, shocks and entertains.

With a Park Ranger’s insight of many years in the field—developing skills that include boating, mountain climbing, technical rescue, emergency medicine, and law enforcement—Greg gives his philosophy of how to make this fundamentally American agency better and how to use its natural areas more wisely. His poignant observations of emergency management show the human side of the victims and rescuers who use the National Parks. His matter-of-fact story telling provides a glimpse of an elite corps of people who struggle to balance protection and use for the public good—keeping… nature and people from hurting one another.

His stories delight and make you cry; make you laugh and make you grimace. Moss is an engaging and humorous storyteller. His first book is a fun read with fascinating stories and important survival lessons.

~ Karen Gatewood, Pacific West Region Senior Staff Ranger, retired

INTRODUCTION

I am tremendously proud to say that for 32 years I lived and worked as a National Park Ranger. Figuratively speaking, I believed that my blood was not red, but instead would come out of my veins & arteries as green & grey in color (hence, the subtitle of the book, "a.k.a., Bleeding Green & Grey"). The reasoning behind this phrase is the analogy that Park Rangers are totally dedicated to the mission they perform daily. In my eyes, my entire life was a dream that came true.

Unlike most rangers, that work one, two, or even five parks over their entire career, I ended up working—seasonally or permanently—in over 20 different Park Service units. These parks were all very different, and ranged from the frozen Arctic of Alaska to the sunny beaches in the Virgin Islands, and from the top of a windy 10,000 foot peak in Hawaii to the humid swamps of south Florida. I never planned any of that, it just happened.

Looking back over my career, I wouldn’t change a thing. Don’t take that wrong because yes, there are great supervisors & managers, and there are some that are just plain dreadful. Certain parks are more majestic in scenery, whereas others have wildflower displays that you can’t imagine unless you see them firsthand. Then there are the parks that have all the fantastic large wild animals, and those that you have to really get down on your stomach just to find a creature larger than your finger nail. Park housing may be fantastic and available in one park, whereas the next may be absolutely atrocious or non-existent. Basically what I am trying to say is that each park, like the employees that work in them, has its own strengths and weaknesses. But throughout my extensive traveling, I found that there are no bad National Parks in the system. I was once told that you get out of your job, and the park, whatever you put into it. I strongly agree on that point. Bottom line—someone had unbelievable tremendous foresight back in 1916 when they created the National Park Service as a federal agency. To this day I honestly believe that it is a fantastic organization to become a part of.

I started writing journals and memoirs back in college after taking a creative writing class and having one of those unforgettable and exciting professors that showed me the enjoyment you can achieve from writing. So, over the next 35 plus years, I wrote every day of what was in my head, and the things I had accomplished. I wrote facts, fiction, emotions, and observations. Later on, my friends & family would read my letters & e-mails, or the annual Christmas letter that I sent out, and I would receive comments back such as, Greg, you really do need to write a book on all the crazy and adventurous things that you have done with your life. That idea stayed there and I was constantly reminded of my stories that needed to be told. Eventually I knew that I had truly experienced more outrageous events than almost anyone I had ever met, and that I had worked in more NPS areas than most of my peer rangers ever wanted.

Being a Park Ranger is not a job for everyone. Although the highs may be inspirational, the lows can mentally ruin you forever if you let them. I was one of the fortunate rangers that changed jobs a lot so that I wouldn’t get burnt out with a hectic fast pace environment, bored with a ho-hum position, or disgruntled with a terrible employee or supervisor. The nice thing about working in the National Park Service is that word, National. If you don’t like where you are at, your immediate supervisor, the housing, the people you work with, the local community, etc., then transfer out to another park, to another state, and re-energize.

Even though all the stories in this book actually happened, some of the ranger’s names, or the actual park names, have been changed to protect the guilty, I mean the innocent (sorry). Also, as with all writers, your memory later may not be the same as the person standing next to you on that emergency callout from many years ago. I am sure that there will be a lot of individuals out there that were right beside me when one or two of these incidents took place, and you may want to criticize the way this book was written, or the so-called facts may not be perfect to you. My thinking, when I was writing the overall book, was that I did not want to regurgitate all the police reports. But instead, I wanted to make stories that either people would want to read, or something where others could learn from our mistakes. Rangers are not perfect.

As a friend of mine, and fellow ranger book author, once said to me when I questioned her memory versus mine; she politely informed me that if I had had a problem with how she wrote her book, then, Greg, write you own damn book. Fair enough. So here it is.

Lastly, for those of you that don’t know me yet, I have a very twisted mind, an outlandish sense of humor, and a rather loud, sometimes obnoxious mouth. Over my career, to get my point across to the politicians and bean counters that stopped listening to common sense years ago, I love to use satire, sarcasm, and even cynicism in my writings. So now you know. Read on and enjoy.

Oh yes, if you are a bureaucrat, you may not want to read this book!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to my extraordinarily caring wife, Vickie. Thank you for your patience with me as your husband, and for all the long hours I was hiding in my man-cave writing down my daily thoughts and events. I know it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to write a book until you actually do it yourself. It’s not fun or easy, and you spend an infinite amount of time sadly avoiding those that you love, and those that love you in return. Vickie was my in-house chief editor and corrected my never-ending writing mistakes. I know that gargantuan job in itself was daunting. You truly are my best friend, and my life partner.

Secondly, I need to show my appreciation to all of you that are listed somewhere in this book, for virtuous or immoral reasons. This manuscript could not exist without you. And I apologize to those of you that thought you should be in this book of eccentric tales. I could write a volume on each park where I worked—and its employees—but for now I was limited to this one small novel.

And I’m sure some of you reading this will be excited not to see your name, or any resemblance of your character, in my writings. But you just might want to hold your breath for now because I still have all my notes for further off-the-wall yarns. And if a sequel to this book should come about, next time I might not hold back and really let out the secrets and behaviors of the many other colorful characters that I worked with in my past.

On a serious note, this novel also could not exist without the never-ending guidance and mentoring that I received from all, or at least most, of my supervisors. Those names include outstanding rangers such as: Dale Antonich, Mike Mayer, Karen Newton, Loren Casebeer, J.D. Swed, Randy Brooks, Larry Van Slyke, Dale Thompson, Jim Hammett, Phil Campbell, and Clare Landry. These Supervisory Park Rangers are all retired today and I often wondered who took their place in mentoring the new rangers in the NPS system. I know that someone out there will be offended that I forgot to list you as a past supervisor – but trust me – you have not been forgotten in my aging mind.

I would also like to take the time to show my never-ending gratitude to a fellow retired Chief Park Ranger, Karen Gatewood. She was one of my best supervisors and graciously took the time to write the Foreword section for this book. She should write fiction in her future because she most certainly wrote some in her gracious comments concerning me. You have always been a true friend and always will be. Thank you lady.

And lastly, I want to acknowledge and thank every National Park Ranger out there in the system. You all are a member of a very select group of individuals that have an exceptionally important, highly respected, and totally envious job. Never forget what a Park Ranger is all about, and what that position means to others. Keep up the great work and thank you for just being there.

Chapter 1

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 you call 911, you get a Protection Ranger because it’s federal land and not the state or county’s responsibility or jurisdiction. Most folks don’t realize that NPS rangers today are federal police officers with full law enforcement authority and arrest powers. But generally speaking, Park Rangers today are also medics or Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s), fight wildland forest fires or suppress structural building & vehicle fires, and perform any kind of search and rescue that you can imagine from the mosquito infested swamps of the Everglades in Florida, to the high cliff walls of Yosemite in California, to the beautiful blue waters of the Virgin Islands, to the frozen Arctic glacial ice of Alaska.

Dreariness is something you usually didn’t encounter while working as a National Park Protection Ranger. I have heard that we don’t get paid a lot in salary because we make it up with sunsets and rainbows. That old saying only lasts for a few years into your rookie career and then it gets archaic very quickly. I actually think the reason that we love our jobs so much is because of the team concepts of such things as dedication, integrity, honor, respect, and loyalty. That last sentence sounds really corny but deep down we all feel it, just like our fellow brothers & sisters working as fire fighters, cops, soldiers, and medics do. Every day you are literally putting your life on-the-line, and by god something better push you to do it because the pay sure as hell isn’t that good! Plus, we all are a bunch of adrenaline junkies from responding to all the never-ending calls trying to save the idiots of the world. You know the ones that have watched way too much T.V., and think warm and fuzzy thoughts while not realizing the grizzly bear will eat you, falling off the rim of the Grand Canyon can kill you, or climbing to the top of Mt. Rainier without proper equipment is a really bad no-no.

Please get back to our story here Greg. Sorry. Anyway, the San Juan River starts from rain or snow falling in the upper hills of the majestic Navajo Mountain located in the Navajo Indian Reservation and just north of Page, AZ. It becomes a medium sized river which then drains into Lake Powell, and immediately upstream from the Dangling Rope Marina and Ranger Station. All this area is a part of Glen Canyon NRA. Normally there is at least one ranger at Dangling Rope that could respond to any incident, but on this specific night they were not in the area so the Bullfrog rangers were assigned this rescue mission.

Driving the rescue boat from Bullfrog to the accident site was something that I was definitely not looking forward to because of a previous serious night-boating accident that I had been involved with up at North Cascades National Park years earlier (but that’s another chapter). Needless to say I had white knuckles on this entire trip. Keep in mind that when operating a high speed boat at night, you normally run in total darkness (except your required navigation lights which show other boaters where you are, but they don’t give off any light for you to see what you are about to hit).

On this night, I was thankful that my partner, Steve, was probably the best ranger in the park when it came to boating operations, especially at night. Steve seemed not to worry at all, but then again he was chain-smoking cigarettes the entire way. It didn’t matter because I was scared enough for the both of us. Why you ask? Because even though the boat’s radar equipment will show you the walls of the canyon, it doesn’t show you anything floating on or beneath the water that you are about to collide with while operating at 40 miles per hour. Remember, I’ve been there, done that already, and not wanting a repeat performance of another boating accident that I could be involved in.

Author tying off a NPS patrol boat to a visitor’s boat in

Glen Canyon NRA, AZ

We finally arrived at the accident site just as dawn was beginning, but still a long way from the sun coming up. The victim’s boat was supposedly 27 feet long, but now was at approximately 23 feet in length due to it crashing into a vertical solid rock wall at a high rate of speed. From the looks of all the damage, I was shocked it hadn’t sunk by now. I told Steve to put the bow of our vessel up to the stern of the victims’ boat, and that I would jump onboard to access whatever it was that we were about to handle. At this same time, Steve then attached the two boats together (with mooring lines) so he could now physically control the damaged vessel.

In the back of the victim’s boat, lying on the floor, I immediately observed an adult female that had multiple unpleasant looking facial trauma, and was obviously deceased. The entire floor was covered with spattered blood so I knew she didn’t die instantly. I didn’t need to check her pulse or do vital signs because of all the traumatic facial injuries and massive blood loss. I could also tell that the victim was in the first stage of rigor mortis.

I also observed that the entire inside walls of the boat were relocated or destroyed from hitting the rock wall at such a high speed. The normal bathroom, located inside this small cabin cruiser, was half its original width and everything in the vessel was thrown forward 2-4 feet due to the impact forces. Anything that was originally bolted to the deck of the boat was now torn from its fittings.

Then a faint voice, moaning in pain, could be heard coming from the forward cabin compartment of the boat. Due to the damage of all the inside walls of this vessel, I had to go outside and walk around the boat railings to gain access to the bow. Once inside the front compartment, I observed an adult male that was complaining of pain to his chest and arm pits, suffering from multiple fractures, was showing classic signs of shock & mild hypothermia, and most of his clothes were covered in blood. He couldn’t stand up but could talk to me some. From past experience, I knew that he was dying and didn’t need my help. What he really needed was a trauma surgeon and a hospital, and fast!

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