The Last Season (22 page)

“She wrote, that's not who I am,” says Durkee. “She said she was ashamed and embarrassed, and it wouldn't happen again.” Durkee wrote back and said, essentially, “Okay, shit happens. We have a pretty weird job, just a weak moment,” and so on. Randy had conveyed to him essentially the same sentiment as Lyness had.

“Game over,” thought Durkee.

 

MANY OF THE BACKCOUNTRY RANGERS
, including Lo Lyness, had, over the years, spoken about one of them writing a book on all the “crazy” backcountry relationships. Somebody dubbed it
Granite and Desire
. They joked about it becoming a television soap opera, maybe even a major motion picture.

Of course, in the real-life
Granite and Desire
these weren't actors, they were real people, and real people are bound to get hurt. Lyness and Randy's relationship didn't end in 1993. In the fall of 1994, the burden of knowing about it was still planted firmly on the shoulders of Durkee and his wife, Paige Meier. A few astute backcountry rangers also had picked up on a “vibe” during training.

Durkee had already made it clear that he would not keep the secret if pressed by Judi, but Randy urged him directly, “Please don't tell Alden.” Alden Nash had just retired in the spring of 1994, and he had become more than a well-liked supervisor to the backcountry ranger clan. For Randy especially, Nash was a very close friend, one of his confidants. In return, Nash had opened up his heart and his home to Randy on numerous occasions, going above and beyond his supervisory duties. Randy's direct request to keep his affair a secret from
Nash spoke volumes. He wasn't proud of what was going on and, by all accounts, neither was Lyness. “The problem was,” says Durkee, “they were falling in love.”

On October 17, Judi called Gail Ritchie (now Gail Ritchie Bobeda) to wish her happy birthday, a mutual tradition the two had shared since the early 1970s after they'd traveled to Europe and worked in Yosemite together. Judi had always credited Gail—who now lived hundreds of miles away near Santa Cruz, California—as being the person who had introduced her to her soul mate, Randy. If Gail hadn't gotten her the job at The Art Place in Yosemite, they would never have met.

Judi tried to maintain a chipper attitude on her friend's birthday call, but in the course of the conversation, she started to cry. She told Gail that her back was out of whack and that she had been worried about Randy's behavior of late. To top it off, she hadn't seen him in months, and instead of coming right home when the season ended on October 5, he had gone to Yosemite and climbed Mount Dana, where he and his brother had scattered their father's ashes back in 1980. Now they had returned to the summit of that sacred family mountain to offer their mother's ashes to the wind. Judi had planned to join them far in advance, but at season's end, she told Randy over the phone that she was in pain because of back problems and was having a hard time getting around, and to come home as soon as possible. Here it was almost two weeks later, and he still wasn't home.

That evening, Gail went with her family to a club in Santa Cruz to listen to some live music and, to her surprise, bumped into Randy, whom Judi believed to be somewhere in the eastern Sierra. Randy “stuttered” when Gail asked him what he was doing in Santa Cruz, then said he was with “Park Service people.” He asked Gail not to tell Judi that she'd seen him. Gail didn't agree to anything. It was obvious to her as she watched Randy return to his seat that he was with a blonde woman in the group—Lo Lyness.

Gail spent an agonizing night trying to decide whether to tell Judi or not. She believed in fate, and felt it was more than just a coincidence—and downright bizarre—that she had run into Randy hundreds of miles
from Sequoia and Kings Canyon on the same day she had spoken to Judi. She finally fell asleep after she made up her mind. She had to tell Judi.

The truth, delivered by Gail, broadsided Judi. She hung up the phone and immediately dialed George Durkee, who both confirmed the affair and apologized as Judi repeated tearfully, “I've lost my best friend. I've lost my best friend.” But she wasn't entirely surprised. She'd been putting together clues for some time—mainly letters written by Lyness, aka “just a friend,” that had begun the winter after Esther's death. Around the same time Judi noted that Randy's creativity had taken a serious dive. Once upon a time, the Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada, had requested twenty of his images for an exhibit and he had spent three months meticulously choosing the photographic tribute to the High Sierra. Now he had, for the most part, stopped taking photos. The dream darkroom he'd planned to build in the basement of their home was perpetually not under construction. Whereas he had once spent the winter processing the summer's photographs, researching environmental issues, and writing pertinent representatives in Congress, he instead moped around the house, ran endless miles, went on long hikes alone, and seemed happy only when he was gearing up to leave for the snow-surveying job he'd scored outside Bishop.

A woman knows, at least upon reflection.

The timing couldn't have been worse. Judi's mother had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. This after helping Randy take care of Esther as she battled cancer and, shortly before that, the death of one of Judi's brothers in 1992. She wondered what she had done to deserve this.

When Randy showed up with his tail between his legs, Judi was determined to be strong. She informed him of her mother's cancer and told him she was going to her mother's house and that it would be nice if he was gone when she got back. He maintained that he wasn't sure if he wanted to leave. Judi, who was deeply hurt and at an emotional disadvantage, eventually forgave him, but she didn't forget.

Randy then confided in the only person he could share his dilemma with—his photography partner from Susanville, Stuart Scofield. Sco
field had once experienced similar turmoil in his own life and was determined not to turn his back on Randy or take any moral stance.

After Judi returned home from a long visit with her mother, Randy wrote Scofield:

That tone didn't last. As Judi juggled her ceramics teaching schedule at a Sedona gallery with visits to her mother as she underwent chemotherapy, Randy worked on his head. The books he read that winter were found not in the nature section of the bookstore but in the self-help aisle. He was trying to understand why he had done what he'd done, why he was no longer content with his life, and why life itself had lost its luster. He was depressed and searching for answers. All he really looked forward to was going back to the mountains. He and Judi were cordial—she needed time to trust him again—but certainly not back to normal.

 

THAT SPRING
, Randy continued to see Lyness while on snow surveys in the Sierra while maintaining a strained marriage with Judi. One day he would tell Judi that he thought his life was “slipping away,” that he wanted to go to wild places she wasn't interested in—the classic midlife crisis. The next day, he would talk about quitting the Park Service and nurturing their life and marriage in the Southwest. They went to a marriage counselor, who spoke to both Judi and Randy separately, after which the counselor told Judi to “get out of the relationship” because they weren't compatible. Judi told Randy, who fumed, saying the counselor didn't know what she was talking about, that they were “ex
tremely compatible.” These vacillations continued, so when it came time for Randy to return to the mountains in June 1995, Judi wasn't ready to pull the plug on the relationship. Right then, she had a very sick mother to take care of. Randy told her he wouldn't go back if that was what she wanted, but then he'd say, “a season would really help me sort things through.” Judi knew that Randy was going to be near Lyness at ranger training—and she just had to trust him. She kept telling herself that, but even though Randy had promised the affair was over, she was not reassured.

Before heading into the backcountry on June 4, 1995, Randy wrote Scofield again:

At training, Randy and Lyness were circumspect, even avoiding sitting next to each other during classes. But except for newbies like Rick Sanger, everybody knew what had transpired between the two rangers, and Randy took the time to walk around and apologize to anybody whom he felt had been made uncomfortable by their actions. He also asserted that he had patched things up with Judi. George Durkee sensed otherwise and confronted Randy. They had a small blowup, and Randy admitted that he'd considered suicide as a way out of the mess.

“Really?” asked Durkee.

Randy replied, “Not seriously, but I've been having those kinds of thoughts.”

“You're certain?” said Durkee. “Not seriously?”

Randy said, “Yeah. I'm fine. I'd tell you if I wasn't.”

As training continued, Randy had a lot on his mind and no time to chat with or even acknowledge new faces like Sanger, who was excited about his first season as a backcountry ranger. Randy and many of the backcountry rangers made Sanger feel unwelcome, even though Sanger was actually a “vaguely familiar face.” He'd come to training two years in a row, hoping to get hired on. He'd gotten a law enforcement commission on his own, and his EMT certifications were up to date. All he needed was a nod from Randy Coffman, the district ranger, that the budget would allow his indoctrination into this elite crew, which seemed to be a completely unpleasant group of assholes who couldn't be bothered to give him the time of day.

Training ended, and Sanger was assigned a station. “It was one of the biggest thrills of my life,” says Sanger, who was taken under the wing of an “extremely cool” backcountry ranger without an attitude, Rob Hayden. Sanger took the snubbing he had received as a challenge to crack the ranks of the other backcountry rangers. His personality was such that he found it very difficult not to like people—even assholes got the benefit of the doubt.

Randy was flown into LeConte Canyon on June 25, 1995. The mountains were still predominantly white with snow from the heavy winter storms. When Lyness returned to her station at Bench Lake, both the tent platform and tent were under 5 feet of snow. District Ranger Randy Coffman was flown in to inspect the situation. Unaware of Lyness's affair with Randy, he pronounced, “This will never work,” and decided on the spot to send her to LeConte Canyon until the snow melted.

Unlike during the previous two summers, Randy seemed immediately taken by nature. “Aspens are just unfolding tiny leaves,” he wrote in his logbook his second day in the backcountry. “Willow buds are swelling. Robins sing at dawn. Warblers in mating dance. Rangers in unpacking and cleaning dance…. River fluctuates about a foot from
morn to eve. Snow must be recently gone for in wet places the warm earth just sends up fresh green shoots…the familiar comforting warmth of LeConte Canyon.

“Scrubbing, washing, cleaning day. Making space for supplies. 114 [Lyness] did a lot of scrubbing.

“Trying to make the psychic adjustment to being here.”

For two weeks Randy and Lyness were, for the most part, alone in the snowbound LeConte Canyon. Seventeen miles north on the John Muir Trail, Durkee was at McClure Meadow. When he heard about the bunking arrangement at LeConte, he thought to himself, “Here we go again.”

 

ON AUGUST
8, 1995, Randy patrolled to Bishop Pass and discovered that a bunch of cowboys from different packer outfits had teamed up, shoveling snow to allow stock access into the high country. There was a time when packers would sprinkle rubber shavings grated from auto tires across the snowy drifts along the trail, especially in the higher passes. The sun heated the shavings, which tripled the speed of the snowmelt. The NPS stopped the process shortly after Randy was hired in 1965, but thirty years later the occasional black shaving could still be found on Bishop and other passes.

Randy talked for a spell with one cowboy working a shovel near the upper third of the steep switchbacks—some of which have sheer drops to granite. The pass is a trail-construction marvel, a short, steep, dizzying climb. Those with a fear of heights usually hug the mountain side of the 2-foot-wide trail that is literally chiseled out of the granite. A stumble could send either animal or man to his grave—and has. Many a pack animal had fallen from these and other precipices. When this occurred, rangers, including Randy, assisted in disposing of the dead animal. This usually involved blowing up the carcass with dynamite, a grisly task that vaporized the remains and helped prevent the spread of disease to local wildlife.

Farther down the switchbacks, while chatting with two packers Randy knew from years past, a packer whom he did not recognize came marching toward them “about as fast as he could walk,” wrote
Randy in his logbook. So he “stepped back from the edge.” The noticeably agitated packer “walked right up to my chest and snarled at me,” wrote Randy. “‘Don't stare at me while I work. It pisses me off.' We looked at each other. For a moment I thought he might take some further action, but he backed up, turned and slowly walked down the switchbacks. Seemed resolved for now so I said nothing.”