Before I continue with my periodic updates about the places I’ve seen, I feel the urge to digress a bit and share some recent conclusions I’ve come to about national park rangers with you. Why, you ask?
Because it feels critical. You see, since Glacier, I’ve been toying with a theory about national park rangers and their place in the cosmic hierarchy. I have never met a breed of individuals so positive, so pleasant, so Zen with the natural world around them that they can bring a smile to your face and an end to [insert random concern about nature, e.g., bears, moose, mountain lions, here], even as they are warning you about it. Anyone exuding this much pure harmony with the world around them must have had an excess of positive karma in their previous life and, perhaps, being a national park ranger is the second to last stop before true transcendence. After that, all that awaits you is being reincarnated as a guru, a saint, the Dali Lama, the next Gandhi . . . you get the point. National Park rangers, at least the ones I have met, are elevated souls.
Let me provide you with some context.
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I am finally, slowly making my way back to D.C. after my cross-country and Baja Mexico road trip (updates on Baja and Big Sur to come). As I planned my route home in between beach hopping in Mexico, the Petrified Forest National Park was directly on my path. My research told me it had expansive views of the Painted Desert, crystallized trees, and sits off Old Route 66—the mecca of road trips. Even better, it was compact, meaning I wouldn’t need a lot of time to see it. As a bonus, it was also recommended by a former professor of mine. Sold.
I was up bright and early on Sunday (August 14) on my way from Phoenix to the park, but as I approached the park, it looked like rain. Once upon my life I lived in Southern New Mexico and to this day desert rain sets off my warning bells. Perhaps because it is so rare, my memory is that when it rains in the desert it comes down fast and fierce. Burned into my mind from my New Mexico days are pictures of the sky above the Organ Mountains lighting up with a greenish tint as lightning strikes sounded all around, gullies gushing with dirt and sand along the side of slick highways from Otero County to Las Cruces, and hurricane-like winds pushing me forward as I would run from the car to the house.
Desert storms are no joke, and I started to think that perhaps this national park might just have to be for the next road trip. Doubts notwithstanding, I decided to stick with my system (yes, I have developed a national park system now) and make a final decision after I got there. First, I would stop at the visitor’s center. Second, I would get the map of the park. Third, I would talk to the ranger. Fourth, I would ask about conditions and things to be concerned about, at this park, specifically rain.
Lanky and long-haired, the Petrified Forest ranger sat in the corner of the visitor center in front of a large wall depicting the different stops in the park. I grabbed my map from the kiosk next to him, looked it over, and started asking my questions. What could I do in an afternoon? Where should I hike if I had time? Oh, and should I be concerned about the rain?
He smiled, an easy peace spreading over his face and emanating throughout the room as he rattled off the route, the hikes, and the stops in a practiced manner. Yes, half a day was more than enough time. He’d recommend Blue Mesa and the Crystal Forest, also, don’t forget Jasper Forest. And no, no need to worry about the rain. Maybe it will be quick, he explained. Perhaps it will stay to the north, he surmised. Either way, I should enjoy my day in the park, it would be great. Then he sent me on my way, map in hand and worries quieted, to explore.
So, I did.
I drove around the painted canyon overlooks taking pictures of the deep red, striated buttes with dark rain and dust clouds off in the distance. It was fine, just as easy and engaging as the ranger said it would be. But it also seemed too good to be true as ugly clouds continued to build. Turns out it was.
By the second-to-last scenic overlook around the painted desert the wind was whipping, pushing me back towards Princess as I tried to exit for a photo. At the iconic 1932 Studebaker marking Old Route 66, I jogged through the rain to get a photo of the highway sign and the old car. By the time I made it to Puerco Pueblo, the archeological remains of an ancient village that once sat on the Puerco River, the wind was pushing me down the trail of its own volition as loud cracks of lightning sounded over the nearby buttes. Just in case you are doubting me, some proof below.
A mile or so down the road at Newspaper Rock (petroglyphs), it wasn’t just me being moved by the wind. Princess started rocking a bit as heavy sheets of rain came down. Then my phone screeched with a flash flood warning.
Feeling that a pause would be prudent, I stopped the car and sat at the overlook waiting for the rain to slow, contemplating park rangers.
I have learned to trust them. They have a wealth of information, they share it freely (as it is their job to do), and the ones I have encountered seem to love their parks. But perhaps the level of comfort they have from such constant communing with nature has given them a perspective that, while beautiful, is slightly different than the average park visitor?
In Glacier, for example, I remembered the ranger who suggested that I hike part of Siyeh Pass on the day the rain poured down at the St. Mary’s entrance. I did not hike Siyeh Pass that day, but I did hike it the next. The initial incline was steep, the dirt was loose, and I have no doubt that had I hiked it on that rainy day I would have been one slipping, sliding, muddy mess.
Or what about the mustache-donning ranger in North Cascades who answered my concerns about solo hiking with bears with a “they’re just little black bears, no need to worry”? Just little black bears can be anywhere from 130 to over 200 lbs and reach up to 4 feet. Then there was a moment he told the hikers behind me that they didn’t need bear spray, just snow gear. No big deal.
And what about my trek through the hall of mosses, where the ranger laughed and spoke exuberantly about maintenance of the Roosevelt elk and bear populations? Maintenance being a mix of interacting with the animals to get them to move from populated centers and then walling off such locations so that people wouldn’t come to close. Then, of course, there was the bobcat watching. He watched bobcats fish for salmon in the local creeks. They all did. They even made videos, in close range. This was man and nature to the extreme.
Eventually, the rain slacked up enough at Newspaper Rock to start the Jeep again. I made my way to Blue Mesa (think blue painted desert, stunning), and then to Jasper Forest where it stopped enough for me to climb out of the Jeep and take a close look at the petrified wood. In between shots of the once-upon-a-time forest, I learned from an Irishman in a Four Runner that the road further south (the direction I was headed) was closed. Apparently, those flash flood warnings were real and a bridge had flooded over. Probably, said the Irishman, I could cross it in the Jeep. Probably.
When I made it to the bridge, I could see the ranger’s car blocking the road. The driver in front of me chatted with the ranger for a bit before performing a three-point turn and heading north. As the ranger approached Princess, I drew heavily on my memories of rangers and their unique brand of nature-induced Zen, plastering a smile on my face pleasant enough to match his. It had rained in the desert after all, there could be few natural phenomena more peace-inducing than that for someone who works in the desert. He explained the unexpected flooding and told me to turn north. I explained that I was staying in Holbrook to the south, that the Jeep could cross water, and that, well, it didn’t look that deep anymore. He looked behind him and grinned from ear-to-ear at the water. Just stay to the left, he said, the water was shallowest there.
So, I did, thinking as Princess splashed across the bridge that in my next life I want to come back as a national park ranger. I want rain to make me smile, woodland predators to feel commonplace, and my very presence to exude enough authority-laden peace to induce even the most nature adverse to take to the trails.
But who knows, maybe I won’t wait until my next life. Indeed.com tells me that ranger work is seasonal, and a background in history coupled with the ability to speak in public might suffice to make me a decent applicant. Just maybe, once the sabbatical fund dries up there’s a water drenched desert road or mountain trail in my future? A whole new way to keep searching for my own Zen for another year more?
It’s something to contemplate, at least, on the long road back to D.C. Perhaps I shouldn’t have ditched the bear spray in Mexico after all.
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