Ranger Confidential

Author: Andrea Lankford
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762762683
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
For twelve years, Andrea Lankford lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes. Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it. In this graphic and yet surprisingly funny account of her and others’ extraordinary careers, Lankford unveils a world in which park rangers struggle to maintain their idealism in the face of death, disillusionment, and the loss of a comrade killed while holding that thin green line between protecting the park from the people, the people from the park, and the people from each other. Ranger Confidential is the story behind the scenery of the nation’s crown jewels—Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Great Smokies, Denali. In these iconic landscapes, where nature and humanity constantly collide, scenery can be as cruel as it is redemptive.

A Park Ranger's Life

Author: Bruce W. Bytnar
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
ISBN: 1604943459
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
What is a park ranger's life? A wild bear who favors Kentucky Fried Chicken A fugitive wanted in eight states A dog that saves his owner's life Wildland firefighters battling nature and fire A ghost haunting a colonial mansion Hikers who stay lost because they think searchers calling their names are wild animals Being willing to risk your life to make our parks safe and help preserve them for the future These are just a few experiences you will read about in A Park Ranger's Life. Drawn from the thirty-two-year career of National Park Ranger Bruce W. Bytnar, you will discover what it takes to be a park ranger, what threats to visitors and resources they deal with on a daily basis, and what you can do to help protect and preserve our national heritage.

Nature Noir

Author: Jordan Fisher Smith
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618711956
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
Smith chronicles his 14 years as a park ranger on a huge tract of government land in the Sierras, illuminating some startling truths about America's wild lands.

Hey Ranger!

Author: Jim Burnett
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publications
ISBN: 9781589791916
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
In his thirty years with the National Park Service, Jim Burnett has seen it all: boatramp mishaps that have sent cars into the water; skunks in the outhouse and bears at the dumpser; visitors looking for the bridge over the Grand Canyon.

Haunted Hikes

Author: Andrea Lankford
Publisher: Santa Monica Press
ISBN: 1595809856
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Book Description
Ghosts! Curses! Hoaxes! Unsolved mysteries! Paranormal events! Take a walk on the creepy side of North America's National Parks! Andrea Lankford, a 12-year veteran ranger with the National Park Service, has written a thoroughly investigated yet often tongue-in-cheek guidebook that takes the reader to the scariest, most mysterious places inside North America's National Parks. Lankford shares such eerie tales as John Brown's haunting of Harper's Ferry, the disembodied legs that have been seen running around inside the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center, and the "wailing woman" who roams the trail behind the Grand Canyon Lodge. Lankford also uncovers paranormal activities park visitors have experienced, such as the chupacabra that roams the swamps inside Big Thicket National Preserve and the teenage bigfoot who rolled a park service campground with toilet paper. She also reports on long-forgotten unsolved murders, such as the savage stabbing of a young woman on Yosemite's trail to Mirror Lake, and the execution style shooting of two General Motors executives at Crater Lake. The witnesses to the supernatural occurrences are highly credible people-rangers, park historians, river guides, and the like-and each tale has factual relevance to the cultural or natural history of the park. Haunted Hikes provides readers with all the information they need: for each hike: a "fright factor rating" is listed along with trailhead access information, detailed trail maps, and hike difficulty levels. Most of the haunted sites included in the book can be reached by the average hiker, some are wheelchair accessible, and others are for intrepid backpackers willing to make multi-day treks into wilderness areas. Intriguing photographs of many sites are included. Haunted Hikes is sure to satisfy readers looking for those spine-tingling moments when you begin to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we are not alone.

National Park Ranger

Author: Charles R. "Butch" Farabee, Jr.
Publisher: Roberts Rinehart
ISBN: 1570984468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
In this celebration of one of America's most enduring symbols, fromer ranger Butch Farabee brielfy revies the evolution of this national symbol.

Land on Fire

Author: Gary Ferguson
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN: 1604697008
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
“This comprehensive book offers a fascinating overview of how those fires are fought, and some conversation-starters for how we might reimagine our relationship with the woods.” —Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet Wildfire season is burning longer and hotter, affecting more and more people, especially in the west. Land on Fire explores the fascinating science behind this phenomenon and the ongoing research to find a solution. This gripping narrative details how years of fire suppression and chronic drought have combined to make the situation so dire. Award-winning nature writer Gary Ferguson brings to life the extraordinary efforts of those responsible for fighting wildfires, and deftly explains how nature reacts in the aftermath of flames. Dramatic photographs reveal the terror and beauty of fire, as well as the staggering effect it has on the landscape.

Park Ranger Sequel

Author: Nancy Eileen Muleady-Mecham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780979505522
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
True stories from the author's career as a Ranger-Paramedic in the NPS. Also chapters on her training at FLETC and some expeditions - in the Sierras and Tanzania.

The Last Season

Author: Eric Blehm
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061869996
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
"As Jon Krakauer did with Into the Wild, Blehm turns a missing-man riddle into an insightful meditation on wilderness and the personal demons and angels that propel us into it alone.” — Outside magazine Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada—mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.

Park Ranger

Author: Nancy Eileen Muleady-Mecham
Publisher: Vishnu Temple Press
ISBN: 9780967459547
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
The author joined the National Park Service as a naturalist. In the remote parks she was assigned to, she discovered a ranger must be ready for everything. She gradually became qualified to handle Law Enforcement, Fire, Search and Rescue, medical emergencies and anything else Nature and visitors to the Parks throw at her. Her true stories could be the basis for Nevada Barr's fiction.