Ranger Confidential

by Andrea Lankford

  Seven miles into the trip they stopped to scout their first rapid. Martin recommended that they take the line flowing between a large pour-over and a large rock. The first rapid unnerved Cale, but Guy, his swamper (an assistant who scouts rapids and bails out the boat while the oarsman concentrates on the rowing), stood in the bow and pointed out the obstacles; Cale rowed Zambezi through Badger Rapid without incident. Martin’s group of sixteen people in five boats continued downriver, stopping to see waterfalls and ancient ruins while bald eagles spiraled through the skies overhead.

  On day two Cale rowed through several rapids. His runs were far from perfect, but he was getting through the difficult whitewater intact and, for the most part, dry. On day five Cale and three of the men arose at dawn to climb Kwagunt Butte. At the summit they left a note in a film canister under a cairn. The days were sunny and warm, but the nights were often chilly. One evening the group gathered up some rocks to heat in the campfire. The heated rocks were piled under a tarp “roof” held down by oars. Inside this sauna they poured water on the hot rocks and enjoyed a sweat.

  From the start of day nine, apprehension dampened Cale’s mood. Today he had to run one of the canyon’s most infamous rapids. “Hance. Hance. Wet your pants,” the river runner’s refrain had tormented him for days. They stopped to scout several rapids that morning. On what he believed was Mile 75 Rapid, Cale took the left line around Muffin Rock with Jocelyn in his boat. His female passenger held tight when Zambezi hit a series of monster waves sideways. Wet but still aboard, Cale rowed the boat into the downstream eddy. As soon as he met up with the other river runners, one of them asked, “How does it feel to have four of the canyon’s most difficult rapids behind you?” Cale believed his friends were teasing him. “Cale! I’m serious,” someone said. “You just ran Hance!” The entire group was laughing at his ignorance before he realized it was true. He had just run Hance! Cale jumped on the nearest rock and performed a well-earned dance in the end zone. With Hance and Sockdolager behind him, Cale felt ready for anything the Colorado had in store.

  Day eleven included a stop at Phantom Ranch. Cale hiked up to the ranger station to call Brittney in Death Valley. Over the phone Brittney expressed her desire that they both work at the Grand Canyon that summer. Cale reminded her that he planned to volunteer on Denali in the spring. But Brittney still hoped they could be together. She had applied for a permanent full-time backcountry office position at the Grand Canyon, and Cale’s former boss had revealed a way for him to beat the ranger’s catch-22. Cale’s grade point average put him in the “Outstanding Scholar” category, and outstanding scholars can apply for most jobs listed as “closed to non-status applicants.” If Cale put in for the first permanent full-time-with-benefits ranger position that opened up at the Grand Canyon, he might get it.

  Cale’s phone call to Brittney was brief. A few passengers on Tom Martin’s river trip were leaving at the midway point, and a new group of passengers had hiked down the Bright Angel Trail to replace them. Among the new additions to the group was a young woman named Amanda.

  On day fourteen they reached Crystal Rapid. Crystal has claimed at least five lives since 1983. The canyon’s deadliest rapid, it eroded the confidence Cale had built up over the past two weeks. But he ran it without difficulty.

  On day fifteen Cale, another young man, and two women left their camp at Bass for a trek to Merlin Abyss. The hikers never made it to their intended destination. The traverse over to the Shinumo Creek drainage took much longer than they had anticipated. Cale spotted a new route down to the creek. Amanda fell, but she recovered quickly and kept on smiling. They hiked up Shinumo until a waterfall blocked their progress. The sun was very warm. They swam in the huge pool under the waterfall and dried out on the rocks.

  As they walked downstream through the narrows, Cale spotted a granary across the creek. He wanted to check out this archaeological relic, but the other couple preferred to continue. In January the sun sets quickly, and they were more than a half mile from camp. Cale looked at Amanda. “You go on,” she said to the other couple. “We’ll catch up later.”

  Below the granary they discovered a small arch. Potsherds, broken bits of ancient pottery, were scattered underfoot. Since the Anasazi often stored food in their stone granaries, they built them in hard-to-reach places. The climb to the granary was challenging. Cale had Amanda wait by the arch while he scouted for the best route. A ten-foot scramble over loose rock brought him to the site.

  The granary was in fine shape. The dried mud caulking between the stones had preserved the handprints of the maker. When Cale peered inside the granary, he saw something that took his breath away. Inside the ancient storage compartment was a woven basket. The cone-shaped basket was about eighteen inches high and woven out of grass. Cale estimated it to be at least eight hundred years old. He yelled for Amanda to join him. The rush of finding an intact granary brightened the girl’s eyes. Cale had known her all of four days, and he was smitten enough to kiss her. He settled for sitting beside Amanda on the ledge as the last blush of day glowed off the Redwall.

  The ranger and the young woman silently watched the sunset, just as a granary mason and a basket maker may have done more than a millennium before. Then the moon rose, almost full, casting shadows across their path back to camp. Their friends were waiting for them. The river party ate dinner, had a sweat in a makeshift sauna, and drank whisky around the fire. Before they retired to their tents, Cale made a joyful announcement. Today was one of the best days he’d ever had in the canyon, or in his life.

  The perils of distraction were toying with him. The day before his hike with Amanda, he ran Crystal, the canyon’s deadliest rapid, with finesse. Now, on a short and nameless rapid, Cale hit a wave sideways, lost an oar, and nearly fell out of the boat. During his near ejection from the raft, he landed on an oar and probably fractured a rib. It hurt, but only when he carried things or took a deep breath. Later that same day he shoved Zambezi off from shore but failed to jump into the raft quickly enough and ended up in the icy water. A few days later while running Lava Rapids, a monster wave sent him airborne and then under the boat. The rapid tossed him around like a sock in a washing machine. When he came up for air, the boat went one way and Cale went another. Someone threw Cale a line while Zambezi ran the rest of Lava Rapids without her captain.

  Unlike some river guides, Tom Martin did not run his river trips as though they were a “twelve-step program,” but his trips were such that his team members formed tender and trusting relationships. One night the group formed a human circle in the sand, each person with another’s head resting on his or her abdomen. As soon as one person began to giggle, it sent a jiggling hilarity throughout the group. On the lazy layover days they sang, painted, drummed, or played backgammon. One night they gathered around the fire and asked one another profound and intimate questions, such as “What are you most afraid of?”

  Over the next week Cale fought to keep sadness at bay. Soon, on day thirty, he would have to leave the river party at the Diamond Creek takeout. He considered Alaska, his plans for the summer, and how much he loved the Grand Canyon. It was a shame to abandon the journey before trip’s end. He pictured himself standing on shore while Amanda and his new friends waved at him from a raft taking them farther and farther downriver until he couldn’t see them at all.

  At the Diamond Creek takeout, they derigged three boats and rearranged the gear. When the time came for Cale to climb into the pickup that would take him out of the canyon, he couldn’t do it. “I don’t want to go,” Cale said to no one in particular. “You can’t make me.” He would skip the training at Denali and eat the cost of his airline ticket. His friend Zander was leaving the trip at Diamond. Cale asked Zander to make a few calls for him when he reached a phone. He’d sort the rest out later.

  Jumping back on the boat felt more than right. That afternoon Cale rowed through some fun, splashy rapids. At camp a fa
bulous sunset led into a terrific dinner eaten by a cozy fire. His life was going to get back on track. And it was going to happen here at the Grand Canyon. Cale crawled into his tent and drifted off to a peaceful sleep.

  The next day they arrived at Separation Canyon. Here, on River Mile 239.5, Capt. John Wesley Powell, a Civil War veteran maimed at the Battle of Shiloh, experienced the most heart-wrenching moment of his famous 1869 expedition. Powell’s team consisted of eight men and four boats. By the time they reached what we today call Separation Canyon, Powell had been on the river for nearly one hundred days. Two months earlier they had lost one boat and a third of their rations while running a rapid in the Green River. What little remained of their food was now spoiling.

  Three months of fear and hardship had soured Powell’s men. Fights broke out, curses were thrown, and the air held whispers of mutiny. After scouting the frightening whitewater at the mouth of Separation Canyon, three of Powell’s men decided that another terrifying run through another vicious rapid was more than they could endure. They were no longer committed to the one-armed captain’s obsessed determination to lead the first voyage down what he called “The Great Unknown.”

  The night before the men planned to part, Powell could not sleep. On the morning of August 28, 1869, the mood at breakfast was “as solemn as a funeral.” In The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, Powell writes, “Each party (believed) the other (was) taking the dangerous course.”

  That day Powell and four of his men shoved off and headed for what is now called Separation Rapid, while the other three men began their escape from the canyon on foot. It was a little spooky how this agonizing separation at River Mile 239 mirrored the inner conflict Cale felt during the hours leading up to his fateful decision at Diamond Creek. But in the end, the story validated his choice. The four men who ran Separation Rapid with Powell survived. The three who left the canyon on foot were murdered by unknown assailants.

  At noon on day thirty-two, while his flight to Alaska lifted off the tarmac without him, Cale sat on a rock with Amanda. There they spent a lazy afternoon, reading books, painting with watercolors, and talking about life. Their ledge provided a sublime view upriver to Separation Canyon. It seemed a fitting time and place to expose one’s true feelings.

  A month on the Colorado River and you begin to forget. No televisions. No radio signals. No cell phone service. No Wi-Fi. An atomic bomb could start WWIII, an earthquake could send California into the Pacific, an alien mother ship could have landed and you wouldn’t know it. There was only the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and its inhabitants. The people and obligations waiting for you topside seemed to be concerns from another lifetime. Here, as Cale said, “Life is Grand!”

  A day on the river overflowed with whitewater, wildlife, and waterfalls. Your fellow species included shirtless river runners and bikini-clad women willing to wallow in warm mud. A night at camp glowed with moonlight, campfires, and whiskey. The isolation conspired with the scenery, and mischief ensued. Yet the canyon cast a fleeting spell. Though river romances were sweet and plenty, they rarely survived the real world.

  The girl probably knew this instinctually. Or perhaps it was because she was a drama major, and girls who major in drama are not the kind of girls who date park rangers. Whatever the reason, Cale confessed his infatuation and she rebuffed him. They were near their journey’s end, and the Colorado River was changing, becoming more domesticated as it entered the lake created by Hoover Dam. Powerboat operators from Lake Mead could travel this far upriver. Cale saw the trash they had left behind on the beaches.

  On day thirty-five they took out at Pearce Ferry. They dragged the boats to the trailers, jumped into the pickup trucks, and were gone. Hours later, Tom Martin and his river runners met in downtown Flagstaff for a farewell dinner. After many long hugs and solemn good-byes, Cale stepped outside the restaurant. A starry sky and crisp mountain breeze sent him back to the canyon—the views; the warm sun; the smell of desert air. He sensed the void, the open space that was all around, and it overwhelmed him with bittersweet emotion. Then a train roared by, jerking him back to the rush and rattle that was life above the rim.

  Back on the South Rim, Cale had some facts to face. He had missed the required yearly law enforcement refresher in Alaska. The girl on the river had rejected him, and Brittney was hurt. The permanent full-time ranger job at Grand Canyon position he had counted on was going to someone else, and all other prospects for a summer job were dwindling.

  Over the phone, Cale spilled his guts while Brittney listened. She couldn’t have been more annoyed. It had been a month since she last heard from him, and she had worried. Then she received a cryptic letter from him a few days after a friend told her the man she loved had fallen prey to the river’s charms and all their friends knew about it. She had every right to curse and cry. But Cale’s heartbreak over the girl he met on the river melted Brittney’s anger. Instead of scolding Cale, she comforted him. By the end of their conversation, his optimism returned. Like always, new friends and new adventures would come his way. He just knew it.

  A week or so later, Brittney received a much anticipated call from the Grand Canyon. “Guess what?” she said, phoning Cale with the news. “I just got a permanent full-time job in the backcountry permit office at the canyon!”

  “Guess what?” was Cale’s response. “I just got a mountaineering ranger job on Denali!”

  29

  PLACE OF EMERGENCE

  It happened right in front of me. I didn’t see it, but I heard the muffled pop when it hit the ground. Someone said, “A helicopter just crashed,” and my first thought was egocentric. The Grand Canyon will not let go of me.

  The South Rim was less than two miles from where the aircraft went down. I could see the pink gash of the rim from where I stood. I ran up the knoll blocking my view of the crash site. What I saw from the top gave me that heavy bad-news feeling. The bottom half of a white helicopter was crushed on the tarmac, its contents leaking out like the yolk leaks out of a cracked egg. Later I learned that the engine had failed after takeoff because someone forgot to clean the snow out of an air vent. But as I looked down on the mangled mess of man and metal, as far as I was concerned something big and mean had slapped that sucker out of the sky.

  Seven people were on board—the pilot and six passengers. The passengers had traveled from places as far as Germany to see the seventh natural wonder of the world from the air. Each year 750,000 people enjoy fifty thousand scenic flights over the park. The Grand Canyon scenic air tour business is a $100 million industry. The helicopter tour industry, the bane of the National Park Service’s crusade for “natural quiet,” currently funded my paycheck.

  Fifteen months earlier, in the summer of 1998, sitting in my supervisor’s office I had said, “I quit” through clenched teeth. I felt beat up by the Grand Canyon. I feared for the safety of my employees. I was too tuckered out to suffer a less-than-supportive boss without complaint. Still, leaving the NPS was the emotional equivalent of chewing my arm out of a gilded trap. The prolonged, agonizing incident certainly left an appalling mess at the scene of my escape. I spent most of my first year off recuperating on the Appalachian Trail. After living out of a backpack during my 2,200-mile trek from Georgia to Maine, I found myself in the mood to accept work of any kind. As long as it was easy. I returned to Arizona and accepted a job fueling tour helicopters three days a week. The pay was suitable. The work kept me near my boyfriend, Kent Delbon, the ranger I had met in Yosemite, who now worked on the South Rim. Best of all, the job was far removed from the chaos inside the park. Or so I thought.

  I walked around the crashed helicopter to survey the scene. I heard moans of pain. I saw blood and angulated extremities. I began to triage the victims. The German lady with lower back pain and a rapid pulse might have internal hemorrhaging. The pilot with a foot pointed in the wrong direction cou
ld be a future paraplegic. I kneeled down by the pilot. I didn’t like it when he told me he couldn’t feel his legs. I didn’t like it one bit. I was reminding myself to take it slow moving this one to avoid sending a bone shard into his spinal cord when I sensed fluid oozing through the knees of my jeans.

  At first I thought it was blood. Then the cool feel of it on my skin told me the fluid soaking into my clothes was something much more terrifying than blood. It was jet fuel. In my mind I saw a rescuer pull a piece of metal away from the aircraft, dragging it across the asphalt and setting off a spark that could ignite the growing puddle of highly flammable liquid. More than once I had seen what remains after a jet fuel explosion. It was not something I cared to experience firsthand. With the help of volunteer firefighters, we picked the pilot up and ran with him, away from the aircraft. On my way back to grab another patient, I saw green-and-gray uniforms pouring out of patrol cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Although this crash site was two miles outside the park boundary, NPS emergency personnel responded to help, as they always do.

  After it was all over, I was pleased with the way I had taken charge on the scene. I had fallen back into emergency work like a goldfish falls back into a fish bowl. I’d been gone for more than a year, but my former colleagues still acted as though I was one of them. The helicopter didn’t blow up. The injured pilot would regain the use of his legs. After a few surgeries and a few nights in the hospital, everyone would make it. Other than the lawsuits that haunted the helicopter company, this one had a happy ending.

  Later that day, back at my cushy job loading tourists into helicopters, I eased the minds of the fearful. “You don’t stop driving your car because you’ve seen a crash on the interstate do you?” I told them. Despite this logic, the stench of jet fuel followed me around like a shadow, and a pit of anxiety behind my sternum began to grow tentacles. I retreated to the women’s restroom. When I reached for the faucet, I saw that my hands were trembling.