The Last Season (12 page)

By season's end, he had hiked nearly 800 miles, spread the gospel to more than 1,400 people, evacuated a dozen individuals for medical problems—and heard not a single word from his parents.

Even without that letdown, leaving the mountains had always carried with it depression. By all accounts, Randy wasn't programmed for civilization. Something in his being short-circuited the minute he left the Sierra, disallowing total happiness. The first few days were always the worst, but Judi was there to ease the transition. Having recently graduated from California State University at San Jose with a degree in art history, she met him at Ash Mountain and drove with him north through the park, in the shadows of the Giant Forest. On the curving mountain road, Judi filled him in on her job hunt in San Francisco. Randy caught her up to date on the newly implemented wilderness-permit trail-quota system, which he wasn't entirely in favor of. He liked the idea of quotas—limiting the number of people allowed on a certain trail could only be good for the wilderness—but forcing visitors to provide an itinerary on a permit contradicted his idea of a wilderness experience, which, in his words, should be “impulsive and subject to change at the whim of the traveler.” He understood the reason: to tally visitors and to track down overdue hikers who might be lost or injured. Still, he didn't like it.

Judi, though thrilled to be reunited with her man, was concerned that he wasn't even flinching at her mention of getting a job in San Francisco, a city, a place he would never consider living in. What, then, of their relationship? They loved their time together, but they were also comfortable apart, and comfortable “going with the flow” from season to season, year after year. And that, she worried, might become a habit she would eventually regret.

They got into Yosemite after dark—ten days past the full moon but it was still bright enough to highlight the granite walls rimming the valley. The valley always took Judi's breath away. “What a place to call home,” she said as they entered Randy's parents' house.

Dana was still awake after having presented his regularly scheduled photography slide show to a crowd of 110 at the Ahwahnee Hotel. Life was good for the self-taught photographer and botanist, who had come to be one of Yosemite's resident celebrities.

At the Curry Company, he had worked his way up from managing the accounting office to managing the reservations department, where he was then promoted to director of reservations and, eventually, director of guest activities. The job was at first administrative, but soon Dana was using his knowledge of the seasons, wildlife, and natural world to act as a sort of public relations representative. When Randy left for the Peace Corps in 1967, Dana was 57 years old. He had been aiming for 60 as a good time to retire to Sedona.

His superiors, however, didn't want to see him leave, and in 1968 they created for him a unique assignment, previously untried by any national park concessionaire. Combining two of his passions, photography and nature walks, with his natural ability as an orator, Dana led camera walks for park visitors. The camera walks became one of the park's most popular attractions, and he was so enamored with the job, he extended his retirement to 1974, and then another year to 1975. On this night, he let Judi and Randy know that he had decided to extend his retirement again, to 1979. He felt he owed it to the public.

Letters to the Park Service praised Dana's skills. “Among [the park's] fine human resources, there is one very special man, Mr. Dana C. Morgenson, naturalist, guide, lecturer, photographer, and author. [Dana wrote and provided the photography for two books in the 1970s:
Yosemite Wildflower Trails
and
The Four Seasons of Yosemite
.] To take a morning walk with the sensitive, artistic, knowledgeable, kindly human being, enhances our appreciation of the Park's loveliness.”

Another park visitor wrote: “Took the first walk [with Dana] on a Wednesday and didn't miss one the rest of the week. His patience was inexhaustible, his knowledge of the Park and its history, incredible. The quiet trails along the Merced, with its shadowed pools held us spellbound. Thanks to Mr. Morgenson, the Park really means some
thing to us. The manner in which he described an incident in history for a particular view brings it to life. I noted with interest that all ages seem to derive the same delight that captivated us. A trip to Yosemite without a hike with Dana is but half a trip!”

His father's success motivated Randy: If you worked hard, believed in what you did, and stayed the course, then success and recognition would follow.

Randy and Judi retired upstairs to his old bedroom and, as was customary after the season, he pulled from the dresser drawer a stack of mail that his parents had collected. Toward the bottom was a letter from
National Parks & Conservation Magazine,
postmarked June 6, and another from Wallace Stegner, postmarked September 23.

The magazine had accepted his story—for the August issue. Now, in October, the story was more than two months late. Stegner had told him that once he got beyond publishing that first article, credibility would help carry him through to the next, building momentum for his writing career.

Stegner's letter was bittersweet.

Judi knew Randy was crushed. “He'd worked so hard on that story,” she says. “It was as perfect as he could have gotten it.” He lay in bed, fuming at his parents. It tortured him to think that all that was needed was his signature to okay the $50 fee the magazine had offered to pay for his story.

Being the good son who rarely raised his voice in anger to his father and never to his mother, he didn't let on to his parents the full extent of the blow. He followed up with the magazine, but it was too late. They'd covered the Southwest fully in that issue and wouldn't be publishing stories on that region for a number of years.

 

JUDI RETURNED TO SAN FRANCISCO
a week later to continue her job hunt. She hadn't voiced her concerns over the relationship with Randy, but she had shared them with her roommate, Gail, who, since the seventh grade, had been her closest friend.

Randy called Judi shortly after she arrived. The conversation barely got started before Judi was talking about the drive back and forth from the city to Yosemite; how she could and would continue to do it, but that she needed something more concrete than the good times she and Randy shared. She could barely believe her own ears when she heard herself use the word “married” in a shit-or-get-off-the-pot tone.

She was met with momentary silence, then Randy calmly said, “Okay—then let's get married.” Judi and Randy had proven themselves a good match: neither of them wanted children; they shared similar philosophical and political views; they were content apart and happy
together. Holding her hand over the phone, she told Gail quietly, “He just proposed. What should I do?”

Gail—who liked Randy and, more important, liked Randy with her friend—nodded her approval.

On November 22, 1975, Judi and Randy were married by a justice of the peace in a short, nonreligious wedding. The backdrop to their vows were Half Dome and the golden-grassed Ahwahnee Meadow, where Randy had played as a youth.

“This was the wedding day for Judi and Randy,” wrote Dana in his diary. “The entire company walked out toward the sunny meadow in front of our house for the ceremony, which took about ten minutes. It was quite nicely done and a pleasure to participate in and see. Judi looked very pretty in her wedding gown, while Randy too was handsome in his blue leisure suit. Then everyone returned to the superb buffet Roy and Dottie Douglas had prepared and with plenty of champagne the occasion was a properly gay one.”

Dana and Esther treated the couple to a honeymoon in the Gold Country, north of Yosemite. Randy and Judi drove up Highway 49, exploring the towns born from the California gold rush and staying in the romantic bed-and-breakfasts that caught their eye along the way.

ALDEN NASH TRANSFERRED
to Sequoia and Kings Canyon from Yellowstone during the winter of 1975. As the new Sierra district ranger in charge of most of the backcountry rangers, Nash spearheaded a movement that helped nudge the parks' policy out of the dark ages.

For decades, the recruitment of backcountry rangers had been what some considered both chauvinistic and militaristic. Nash, the father of two daughters, couldn't see “any reason whatsoever” why a young woman could not do the job. Before Nash, a backcountry ranger had a better chance of being hired if he was a “clean-shaven white boy
without a girlfriend,” a statement Nash follows with “I'll deny that in court.”

Nash changed policy at Sequoia and Kings Canyon abruptly when he hired the parks' first female backcountry ranger, Cynthia Leisz, who had been working in the frontcountry and was capable and keen to break the mold.

Simultaneously, Nash toned down the dress policy as well—an impulsive, unauthorized move instigated during his first meeting with Randy. In early June of 1975, Nash walked into the district office at Ash Mountain and found a fully bearded man bantering with the secretary. The secretary looked over at the official-looking Nash, who was clean-shaven and wearing a pressed uniform, badge, and the traditional ranger flat hat.

“Ask him, he's your new boss,” she said.

Randy turned around and faced Nash, who, at 33, was the same age, and introduced himself: “Hi there. I'm one of your backcountry rangers. Any chance I can keep this beard for the season? It helps keep the mosquitoes off.”

The regulations dictated military-style haircuts (above the ears and collar) and absolutely no facial hair beyond a neatly trimmed moustache. Still, common sense told Nash the regulations were outdated. Why shouldn't a mountain-man beard be allowed in the mountains? But maintaining an air of authority, he countered Randy's bullshit “mosquito” line with a straightforward “Is it going to affect the way you do your job?”

Taken aback, Randy responded, “Not at all.”

“Then I don't see why you can't keep it,” said Nash.

A huge grin burst through all that hair, and Randy introduced himself properly with an enthusiastic handshake, quickly adding that he had been the Crabtree Meadow ranger the season before, and if at all possible, he would like the same duty station again. “There is some housekeeping I didn't quite finish last season that I'd like to follow up with,” he said.

Nash, thinking that perhaps the cabin's roof needed repairing, asked, “Something wrong with the Crabtree station I should know about?”

“No, no,” returned Randy, “housekeeping as in cleaning up after the campers—illegal fire pits, busted-up drift fences, things like that. The cabin's fine.”

Nash knew he was going to like this guy.

For Nash, that first summer as the Sierra district ranger was a dream come true—a homecoming of sorts. He started his career with the Park Service as an 18-year-old seasonal firefighter for Sequoia National Forest in 1961. In 1962, he worked the backcountry on a soil and moisture crew, building check dams and cutting down small trees in overgrazed meadows. In 1963, he worked on the helicopter firefighting crew at Ash Mountain, and in 1964, the year he graduated from Humboldt State University with a degree in forestry, he was a fire control aid at Ash Mountain. He then spent eight weeks in basic and advanced infantry training for the National Guard before landing his first permanent job as a ranger in Yellowstone.

To say that he knew the ropes of the National Park Service was an understatement, but he didn't come close to knowing the backcountry of Sequoia and Kings Canyon as well as the rangers he was supervising.

Before the end of June, a freak snowstorm left 4 to 8 inches of snow on the ground across the high country, making it a challenge to get over the high passes that separated Nash from his rangers. For Randy, it was a welcome act of nature that he thought might deter the first wave of backpackers, giving him a few more days to soak in the solitude. That wishful thinking didn't take into consideration those who were already in the backcountry and trapped by the storm.

Sure enough, a half-dozen “guests”—unprepared, shivering backpackers—kept Randy company like sardines in his little cabin the night of the storm. The next day, he kicked his “guests” out as quickly as possible so he could lock the place up and go on patrol in the unseasonable winter wonderland.

Not long after the storm had blown east, off the crest, Nash radioed Randy to let him know he'd be stopping by shortly. “You realize the passes aren't open to stock yet, don't you?” said Randy.

“I won't be on a horse,” replied Nash.

This impressed Randy, who, in his seven seasons, had formed a semi-contemptuous opinion of horses and mules in the backcountry, along with some of the men and women who rode them. He'd also formed an opinion of administrators and supervisors—most of whom, he observed, rode stock or helicopters.

Randy had seen only one administrator in the backcountry on foot: in 1974, when he had met Bob Smith, the chief ranger at the time, backpacking in Randy's patrol area. “This is the first time I've seen administrators hoofing around out here,” wrote Randy in his logbook, “so I congratulated them. Don't think they knew just how to take it.”

A different breed of district ranger, Nash refused to let go of the wilderness fieldwork that so often was lost under piles of paperwork. Generally, the shackles to a desk clamped down the second a ranger was promoted to district ranger or chief ranger. “Heaven forbid a superintendent wear out a pair of hiking boots,” said Randy, who was perplexed by the bureaucracy. The higher up you got, the less time you were expected—or were able—to spend in the wilderness you were supposed to be managing. “What's the incentive?”

Nash, who carried a mini office in his backpack, took advantage of any spare moments while in the backcountry to stay on top of the mountain of memos, employee evaluations, incident reports, and other paperwork required of a government employee in a management position. He also learned the favorite fruits and vegetables of his rangers, carrying in salad fixings, fresh green beans, once a whole watermelon. And he gave many long pep talks while hiking with Randy and other rangers. They weren't making much money, and he felt that a few pats on the back might keep them coming back, which was good both for him and for the “resource”—a government term for its parks. Randy preferred to call it “the country,” reasoning, “Would you use the word ‘resource' to describe your wife?”

Nash conveyed to Randy that backcountry rangers were like scouts, or forward observers, who reported back to higher-ups what was going on in their territory. In that capacity the rangers were crucial in their roles in managing the wilderness.

Randy was receptive, but let Nash know that he didn't think his and the other rangers' voices were being heard.

Nash made the same promise to Randy that he made to all his rangers that season: “I'll listen.”

 

IN THE SPRING OF
1977, during a month he had off between his winter and summer ranger duties, Randy took a long-dreamed-of trip to Alaska with Chris Cox, a buddy of his who was a climbing and ski guide in Yosemite. On this mini kayaking expedition to Glacier Bay, they camped alongside the thunder of an eroding glacier, paddled around icebergs, explored the islands and glaciers John Muir had written about, and barely slept while using a campsite where, the year before, a man had been eaten by one of the resident coastal brown bears. They watched bald eagles plucking fish from the sea, newborn seals basking on rocks, whales in their wakes, mosquitoes big enough to make off with a small child, and put their lives in the hands of a charter pilot who guessed that his oil-dripping plane could “probably handle the weight” of their gear.

Randy arrived home in Yosemite with less than a week in which to buy his food and supplies, get down to Sequoia and Kings Canyon, and hop a helicopter to Little Five Lakes, where he was stationed for the summer. There was little time for Judi, who in Randy's absence had been hired by famed mountaineer Ned Gillette to work at the Yosemite Mountaineering School—a full-time summer gig catering to the throngs of outdoor enthusiasts who came to the valley to experience the school's motto (and bestselling T-shirt), “Go Climb a Rock.” Randy and Judi had been married for a year and a half, and more than a third of that time they'd been apart. A friend had told Judi that they were living a military lifestyle. After some contemplation Judi agreed, but was quick to explain how she didn't really feel the separation because their connection was so strong. They made it a point to communicate as often as they could, and she had—each summer since they'd met—hiked in to see him for sometimes weeks at a time. This year, however, would be different.

She broke the news to Randy that she wouldn't have enough time off from her new job that summer to hike in and see him; it would take two days just to get into his patrol area. Randy's response was hurried and along the lines of “So, I won't see you till the fall? That's how it's going to be from now on?”

Judi was taken aback. She was irritated by Randy's attitude: he seemed to think she should drop everything to go and visit him in the backcountry, even though she had a job that she was looking forward to. “Well, if you wanted to see me,” she said, “maybe you should have left some time after Alaska, before you had to go into the mountains.”

She went on to tell him that she was going to be taught basic rock climbing at some low-angle granite not far from the mountaineering school so that she could speak the language while working the school's counter. Judi was excited to be learning rock climbing, not only because of her own increasingly adventurous spirit but also so that she could feel more compatible with Randy, who was—since guide school in the Himalayas—comfortable on vertical ice and rock.

Climbing was scary, but once the instructor showed Judi the rope techniques and demonstrated how he would stop any falls, she began to enjoy it. A couple of routes later, every muscle in her hands, arms, forearms, and fingers was taxed, but she was having fun. After down-climbing a pitch on a rock she never in a million years thought she could have handled, she hopped down and gave her instructor a hug born from the excitement of the accomplishment.

“It was straight out of a movie,” says Judi. “I jumped off the rock and gave my friend a hug the second Randy came around the corner and saw me in this guy's arms.”

It was innocent but awkward, and Judi forgot about it immediately. After all, Randy was known to flirt and, being a local to the valley, often hugged other women in greeting. Judi was confident in their relationship.

Randy, however, was not.

At Little Five Lakes, Randy wrote in his personal diary, “The last few days together before my summer here, jammed with the presence
of friends and my need to collect equipment and shopping lists for the backcountry scattered my energies like pollen in the wind, giving too little to her and too much toward others…. But a little distance, and a look back, and what was important was Judi and her place in my life, how much I love her and how I need to cultivate that, direct my energies there.”

In the solitude of the backcountry, he obsessed—rangers call it “looping”—noting that Judi's usual playfulness hadn't been there, as well as “a distance,” he wrote. “A distraction. An expression in her eyes and on her face which said, ‘Randy, I'm sorry, there are things I'm not telling you.' And it was left at that. Hanging.”

Weeks later, he was still analyzing, this time about the very moment when they'd said goodbye: “Don't worry about me, she said, the last thing, with a tone and a look of very un-reassuring reassurance.”

A dozen pages later in his diary: “The thoughts don't stop. The things that seemed to indicate a difference, did they really or am I working them up? Several times I mentioned there seemed a difference about her, finally saying it as an invitation to talk, to say something, to give me a clue so I wouldn't be left wondering blindly all summer. But her only response, ‘Oh? How?' No denial, no explanation, no comment. And around the mountaineering school she seemed more interested in the people there than in me—at least more lively with them…. Am I conjuring it all up?

“My poor feverish imagination. This summer, who is she sleeping with? How often? Where is her love? Is there anything left of us? If our young marriage survives this summer I'll need to give her more love, keep her closer, make us a real couple, keep a love going with us, forget my flirting ways with other women, and end these long separations—that above all. Judi shall be in the backcountry with me next summer. This ruins a mountain high.

“These feelings about us I wanted her to understand before this backcountry summer began, but was cut off. ‘This is all crazy. She'll be there. It'll be good. We'll have a good winter in Tuolumne,' I tell myself.”

Five days later: “No letter. Shit. More than a month has passed.”

That evening a stock party camped in a nearby meadow, which mercifully took Randy's mind off his worries. For two full pages Randy was back to his old self, defending meadows and their processes from the evils of man. “The meadow isn't here to make a comfortable campsite for you,” he wrote, “so don't circle rocks upon it and build your fire there. Nor is it here to provide feed for your horse's belly. Be respectful. You are on holy ground. Step lightly. Keep your imprint, your intrusion, your ‘use' to the barest minimum.

“This has been written about for decades by the New England Transcendentalists, by eloquent writers like Wallace Stegner. By cantankerous writers like Ed Abbey. So here I am trying again. How many are being reached? How much progress against the machine mentality are we making?”

Finding companionship in his surroundings, Randy wrote, “These things I watch year after year, and take leisure in knowing the names of these sedges and grasses as I watch them go through their changes like knowing the name of a friend whom I've known through the years.