Monday, July 30, 2018

Heart of the Mountains- ProRanger Tour

Heart of the Mountains


This week at SAMO has been one amazing adventure! I finally met face to face with my program coordinators. They visited my park site learn about distinct features of the park in addition to various areas where I have worked. Most importantly their visit was based on me displaying what I learned about the unique features of my park site, history, daily operations and challenges faced by VRP division. I was also able to get some basic Taser training use done with my supervisor.



This week southern California experience another heat wave. Despite the heat the tour went as planned. I met with program coordinators and toured them around the magnificent Santa Monica Mountains. I showed them highlight areas of the park and explained the significance of each location. We hiked some trails and drove through the heart of the mountains. The views were breathtaking!
Solstice Canyon Waterfalls


Close up of waterfall

 Along the tour we met with many visitors and made some interesting contacts. Each contact made the tour more and more interesting. Some of them have been visiting the SAMO recreation area for more than 20 years. 
Visitors that make the SAMO great!!

This park has actually impacted the local community in ways I could not have imagined. The positive impact keeps them coming back to enjoy the Mediterranean ecosystems. I’m proud to say that the NPS truly lives up to the mission statement derived from the Organic Act by preserving the natural environment for posterity.
High five with my new friend

Preserving historical areas

Mr. Fernandez pushing me to my limits

There's a new sheriff in town
            

Hike at Rocky Oaks to see the pond. What would I do without my map 😄
            


I introduced my Program coordinators to SAMO employees such as the park Superintendent, LE division chief along with the LES and my supervisor. It was a fun experience being tasked with setting up the program tour. My supervisor and other members of VRP were very helpful in giving me assistance to ensure my tour was worthwhile. 


Awarding appreciation plaque
The best way to show recognition is to let people know that they are appreciated. At the end of the tour we had an appreciation ceremony awarding the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area. The ProRanger program presented the SAMO a plaque thanking them on behalf of Temple University for participating in this year’s program.


Taser training was awesome!!

Just deployed my first cartridge. Electrifying!!




 After going through a PowerPoint presentation I learned about control electronic devices (ECD). The slides consisted of safety fundamentals, parts of the Taser, areas to avoid when using Tasers on people, use of force and the incapacitating effects of the device. After the PowerPoint we got to use ECD on targets while undergoing active threat situations. It was a great learning experience to have under my belt.
Removing Probes from target






Friday, July 27, 2018

Badlands: Back in the Saddle



     Before this summer started I never thought I would be riding a horse for this job. I was pleasantly wrong, and found myself recently riding a horse through the backcountry of the Badlands, which is an awesome way to enjoy the wilderness areas. A local group was applying for a permit to run a backcountry horse program and offered to show us what they would be doing and how their operation would work to make sure they followed the laws and regulations in the park. The main concern was over the depth of the latrines, and if they would disrupt the resources.
Changed out of those shorts 1/4 of the way in, pants were better

     After starting out and getting on the horse for the first time ever, it came pretty easy as the horse was well trained and pretty much did everything without any commands, so I got to sit and enjoy the nice ride through this beautiful land. On the way out the group leader applying for the permit discussed how he had been doing these excursions in Yellowstone for years and had previously done them in the Badlands years ago. A wealth of knowledge he clearly knew what he was doing and was well prepared for this endeavor.

     Halfway through we broke for camp as they set up tents, an electric fence to keep in the horses, and put up the latrine. Not only were all the supplies brought in for us the group also supplied us with a free lunch to see what those who partake in their program would be getting on their rides out. A free lunch is definitely a tactical move I could not turn down. After eating and breaking down camp everything seemed to be set to go leaving the rest of the permit process to be done through paperwork, and getting everything signed off.
 View of Camp
 Teamwork makes the dream work

Badlands: Time at Mount Rushmore



     
      Although this summer I have been stationed at Badlands National Park, I have had the great opportunity to transfer to Mount Rushmore for three days of training with the Rangers there. Mount Rushmore is a National Monument, and has its own unique setting with the dense traffic of an urban park set in the great outdoors of the Black Hills. This creates a dynamic situation especially in the summer months when thousands of visitors flock daily to see this iconic symbol of our nation.

      The first day I got the introductory tour of the park and its facilities and got to see for the first time up close, Mount Rushmore. After the tour we got right to work assisting on two traffic stops that included drug searches and an open container citation. Both searches did not find anything, but one car did have empty marijuana dispensary bags and a cleaned out pipe, however there was nothing illegal found in that vehicle.
     
      Continuing into the second day I woke up after the night shift to get my first taste of CrossFit. A different style of working out than I am used to it definitely gave me a great workout and left me sore the next day. After coming on shift for the day we dropped off bones that I had delivered from Badlands and continued on to check on the most elusive trespasser at Mount Rushmore, a small Chihuahua that was loose in the park for the last week. Unable to trap the dog we have been improvising new tactics on the traps in hopes to safely catch the dog, however as of writing this post the dog remains at large in the park. If any has any information concerning this dog or its whereabouts be sure to relay it to a park ranger at Mount Rushmore.
      Moving on from the dog we got a medical call from a visitor that had reportedly scraped their elbow and bruised their head in a fall, after applying bandages and an ice pack the visitor denied ambulance services and left the park. We returned to the administration building and went over a multitude of topics for my training including use of force, superintendent's compendium. and the seasonal academy I have coming up in the Fall.

      As darkness enveloped the park, the amphitheater became crowded with people as the time for the night talk, movie, and lights were getting ready to start. On foot patrol we made sure visitors were being safe and maintained a strong presence in the highly trafficked areas. We maintained this presence through the talks and lighting of the heads as over a thousand people stood in awe of the spectacle before them. After the conclusion of these events people began to disperse in large numbers and we kept our presence around the congested areas until we headed back to close out our shift in administration.
Wildlife in front of employee housing
The trees smell like butterscotch I swear

Badlands: Off Duty



      As ProRangers a lot of our time is spent on shift and helping around the park, but in our down time we are free to roam and travel. Over the past few weeks in my down time I have been exploring multiple units in the area and got to camp at Theodore Roosevelt National Park


Theodore Roosevelt National Park
      Afternoon on a Friday myself and one of the seasonal employees at Badlands decided to go on a long trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Though only one state away the drive ended up being over five hours long. On the way up the windshield of his car got cracked from a hail storm, and we had to pull over to wait it out. Thankfully this was only a minor deterrence and we pushed on to the park. Arriving at night we visited the local town of Medora, with only a few hundred people this is a city around here. We grabbed some food at a local pizza shop and continued to our campground in the surrounding National Forest. The next day we broke camp in the morning and loaded up for the day travelling around the park, taking short hikes and seeing plenty of wildlife, mostly bison. We also saw plenty of prairie dogs, and for the first time in my life wild horses. Theodore Roosevelt reminded me of the Badlands with more grass, and after finishing the drive of the scenic loop we decided to begin the long trip back to Badlands.
Note for visitors please remain a safe distance from bison, they have been known to attack visitors.


      Wind Cave National Park
      What originally had started as a day off trip to Rapid City for groceries and lunch turned into a long excursion to Wind Cave National Park. Wind Cave is surrounded by the Black Hills National Forest, and Custer State Park setting up the scene for a beautiful park. Arriving at the park we went to the visitor center and got tickets for the 4:40 cave tour. After meandering around the visitor center we embarked on our journey through the cave. The cave has over 140 miles of surveyed area and is the seventh longest cave in the world. If you ever find yourself in the Rapid City area in South Dakota make sure to come and visit this natural wonder.

Back To Badlands
Campsite in the Backcountry
      During my free time spent at Badlands I have been able to see a lot of new things for the first time, including my first rodeo held in Interior, a Fourth of July fireworks show, and plenty of volleyball (the unofficial sport of Badlands). I also was able to go on a hike with a paleontologist into the backcountry where he was able to show me fossils that had yet to be excavated, helping me to identify fossils in the future whether for visitor information or identifying possible poaching. Most recently I was able to go on a long backcountry excursion hiking over 14 miles through buttes, dried up gorges, and across the plains to camp and head out at 4am before coming onto shift that day. It was a long trip, there were bumps and scrapes, but the views in the Badlands seem to put all the aches and pains out of thought. 





Fossils in the wild
Bighorn sheep watching over his canyon

Fighting Crime and Family Fun

I kicked off this last week by spending a day in the Communications Center with the dispatchers.  Much like last summer at the C&O Canal, the comms center here at Denali is responsible for dispatching for the whole Alaska Region (it is the Alaska Regional Communications Center).  There are 15 National Parks, Preserves, and Monuments in the Alaska region that they communicate with.  They also do flight (and boat) following throughout the state for small aircraft in uncontrolled airspace. Compared to the lower 48, there is a significant amount of uncontrolled airspace in Alaska, where pilots fly under Visual Flight Rules rather than the direction of an Air Traffic Controller.  The dispatchers maintain contact with the crafts with regular checkins from takeoff to landing.  The purpose of flight following is to ensure that people get to their destination and to keep the search area as narrow as possible in the event of an emergency.  Again, I got to see the other side of the Rangers radio communication, how their incidents are recorded, and what the dispatchers are seeing when they are relaying information during stops.  All of this was super helpful in understanding the important relationship between officer and dispatcher and why radio communication is structured a certain way (mainly to keep lines of communication open and to gel with the dispatchers' Computer Assisted Dispatcher programs). Dispatcher Brian also gave me a radio crash course and explained to me how the system they have set up here in the park works, which had previously been rather mysterious.

Dispatcher Brian hard at work
Base Radios, a hardwired Satphone, call recording
system, and other things beyond my comprehension 





















My parents came to visit me this week, so after spending most of the day in the comms center, I headed over to the train depot to great them as they arrived from Anchorage.  After saying hello and catching up I let them head to their hotel to settle in, and I finished out the day with Ranger Page.  We had one contact, a vehicle drove past the Savage box after they were explicitly told they would have to park there or turn around.  We caught up the vehicle, but after Ranger Page spoke to the occupants she determined that the reason for their disregard was a language barrier and did her best to explain the rules of the park to them.  That night, my parents and I went to the Cabin Night Dinner Theatre, where we had a family style meal and were entertained by historical figures of the area.

Harry Karstens, first Superintendent of Mount McKinley NP, tells us his tale

Fannie Quigley, Charles Sheldon, Joe Quigley, Harry Karstens,
and a person whose name I cannot recall join together in song

Mushing after the sled dog demo



I switched up my schedule to have the next few days off to spend with my parents.  On Tuesday, I gave them a tour of the front country area, very similar to the one I gave to Ranger Fernandez and Dr. McGarvey during their site visit.  We visited all the points of interest, checked out some trails, and had a nice private moose viewing.

We checked out the historic Savage Cabin, which I had yet to see
My dad inspects the nails bear proofing the cabin windows

Denali Bus Depot, formerly the Wilderness Access Center




On Wednesday, we took a bus out to the Eilson Visitor center.  We had a gorgeous day with near perfect views of Mt. Denali in the beginning of the trip.






By the time we got to the visitor center there were some clouds but it was still a beautiful and sunshiny day.  My parents were much luckier with the weather than Ranger Fernandez and Dr. McGarvery, especially considering July is normally one of the rainiest months here.






















My parents seemed to be enjoying the sites at Polychrome overlook.















After checking out the visitor center we took a short hike up the Eilson Alpine trail.
Two moose skulls, found locked together
Cast of a dinosaur foot print, found up Tattler Creek



















During the bus ride we had a wildlife grandslam, seeing the main four large animals in the park, moose, caribou, grizzly bear, and dall sheep, but we saw even more than that.

Caribou and fawn
Here is the grand total:
5 Black Billed Magpie
2 Gyrfalcons
1 Willow Ptarmigan
4 Grizzly Bears with 5 cubs
2 Moose
9 Caribou and 1 fawn
A whole mess of ground squirrels
9 Dall Sheep
A bunch of Snowshoe Hare
1 Porcupine

Porcupine
7 Dall Sheep, photo taken through binoculars

When we got back, we went to 49th State for dinner, where it happened to be trivia night.  With limited help from my parents, we came in third place, only four points out from winning.  They better expect me next week.








Thursday my parents had to catch a train to Fairbanks in the afternoon.  Before they left we went out to the Savage area, where we did part of the Savage Alpine trail and walked the Mountain Vista loop.









Then we headed back to the train depot and said our goodbyes.  Just like last summer, it was nice having my family come out to visit.  My being here was a good excuse for them to visit the last frontier.







I took care of a few things and went to the gym.  As I was coming out of the gym, one of the dispatchers told me I was missing out on a contact, one I would be hearing about for the next few days.  The rangers had received word from the state troopers about a man who had been stealing things from shops nearby in the canyon.  That evening Rangers Shore and Nick Beheller contacted the man, who refused to obey a lawful order and ended up being arrested and turned over to the troopers.

Because I switched my days for my my parents visits, I worked a few days while Ranger Page was off.  I was supposed to spend Friday morning with Ranger Syvertsen, but due to getting called out the night before he came in a little later.  I ended up spending the day with his wife, Ranger Ellison.  We went on a foot patrol looking for a potential out of bounds camp that the man who was arrested the night before might have been using for the last few days.  This took us on and around the Jonesville Trail, which I hadn't been to yet.  


Not the campsite we were looking for,
the remains of a much older one
The remains of a rabbit left by a bird of prey,
found during our search


Chief Ranger Erika Jostad enjoys some time in the field
searching for the campsite as well



































Ranger Ellison and I had planned to go on a bicycle patrol before we were diverted by the search, so we readied the bikes and I had to take a short bicycle competency test.











Then we were off, patrolling from Sanctuary Campground to Teklanika Campground, a 14 or 15 mile round trip.  It was another very nice day, and it was nice to mix up the activity for the day.  We didn't run into any issues.  We talked to some visitors, including a few who were cycling the whole park road.






On Saturday, I did get to spend the morning with Ranger Syvertsen again.  Due to a pretty interesting contact, the morning turned into most of the day.  We gave a warning for out of bounds camping at mile 231 of the Parks Highway. We made a stop at the post office.  We gave a warning for improper food storage, about an unattended cooler, which turned into a contact for expired registration.  I learned about 36 CFR 4.2(b), allowing rangers to adopt state code, usually more relevant for that kind of vehicle related violation.




Then we made a traffic stop for speed on the Parks Highway.  Ranger Syvertsen smelled marijuana and saw bb gun in the vehicle.  He requested backup and removed the driver and passenger.  Ranger Larson and Ranger Beheller came out to support, and Ranger Syvertsen began searching the vehicle.  During the search he found a case with a freebase pipe used to smoke methamphetamine, many small plastic baggies containing trace amounts of what the subject admitted was methamphetamine, many empty vials, and many hypodermic needles. 



Ranger Syvertsen cuffed the subject and placed him in one of the vehicles.  The substance tested positive for methamphetamine, but since there were only trace amounts, and the rangers would have to drive the subject 2.5 hours each way to the jail in fairbanks, and would have to return to fairbanks to escort him to his initial court appearance, the rangers called the Assistant US Attorney for guidance.  He said that it was okay to issue a mandatory citation for possession of a controlled substance, as well as several other citations.  The driver was issued a citation for speed.

Blood Bank of Alaska Life Mobile receives donations

In the afternoon I went to donate blood with Chief Ranger Jostad.











Sunday, Ranger Page was back, and I worked my first evening shift, from 1pm to 10:30pm.  We did a patrol of the Riley Creek Campsite.  We returned to the Shaffer building for the 2 o'clock briefing.  She had some office work to catch up on, so I went on patrol with Ranger Dave Stack.  First, we went over his vehicle.







Ranger Stack is very meticulous and puts a great deal of thought into even the smallest details (which is not to say that the other rangers are not on top of their game, they are).  We spent most of our time on the highway and made several traffic stops.

The first stop we made was for no seat belts.  When Ranger Stack asked if there were any weapons in the vehicle one of the passengers informed him of a handgun, so he removed the driver and two passengers.  They also informed him that they had marijuana in the vehicle.  Being that marijuana is recreationally legal in Alaska, a lot of people end up having it on them.  Many do not realize that they are in a national park and on federal land when they drive this stretch of the George Parks Highway. And even if they were aware, this is one of the only roads in the area and pretty much the only road between Anchorage and Fairbanks, the first and third largest cities in the state.  As you can see, the situation regarding marijuana is rather strange.  The rangers understand the complexity and confusing nature of this issue and utilize a wide range of discretion.  Nevertheless, they are wary of those who drive under the influence/while impaired and will perform field sobriety tests if they deem necessary, and they are acutely aware that small traffic violations can lead to the discovery of more serious violations.  Ranger Stack conducted a search of the vehicle and did not find any other issues.  It turned out that the passenger had a suspended license for DUI, so he was not driving.  He was also under the influence of marijuana and so had his girlfriend hold his gun for him, since you are a prohibited possessor if you are under the influence of illicit substances.  Since they were very compliant and seemed to be making a concerted effort to follow the law, Ranger Stack let them go with verbal warnings.

While patrolling in Riley Creek Campground, we received a call about a blue Subaru that was on the wrong side of the road and obstructing a lane during a moose jam.  When we checked it out the jam had mostly cleared up, but the car was right at the entrance to the campground.  We ran the drivers plate and ID and gave them a warning.  This will be interestingly related to something in my next post.

We made another stop for speed that was also the same make, model, and color of a vehicle that we had received a BOLO for because it was involved in a shooting in Fairbanks.  Ranger Stack treated the situation with great caution, but there were no other indicators that it was the same vehicle.



We made another traffic stop for speed and Ranger Stack believed that the driver may have been intoxicated or under the influence of marijuana.  Ranger Stack called for support and Ranger Page came out.











He performed a standardized field sobriety test for the driver and had him take a preliminary breath test.  He blew a zero on the test but had some indicators of impairment, leading Rangers Stack and Page to believe he was tired, which can be as dangerous as driving while intoxicated.  They performed an SFST on the passenger, who showed no signs of impairment.  A speed citation was issued to the driver, and they were advised that the passenger should drive thereafter.