March In Our National Parks

March is when most National Parks start to swing into full gear preparing for the coming visitor season. Even though the ground may still be covered with snow and ice and roads closed, employees in the parks have lots of work to do on facilities and staffing to be ready for busy spring visitation. And this spring promises to be a busy one considering the epidemic of cabin fever in the East and the promise of a well watered wildflower bloom.

Even though the fiscal year officially starts in October, it is this time of year that field offices get a better picture of what their operating budgets will be for the season. In some years we were not informed of our bottom line for funds until June. Supervisors should have received their registers of job applicants from those who applied back in January to work this coming summer. So the laborious assignment of completing the hiring of seasonal staffs is in full swing. This process keeps supervisors in offices glued to the phones making contacts, checking availability, and eventually making offers. So if you applied for a National Park Service seasonal position, stay by the phone or in reach of one.

As the weather starts to break Park Rangers and maintenance staff are able to get out to facilities and roads to assess what damage there may be to park infrastructure. The most common damage found is from fallen trees and limbs. Many times roads may be blocked or structures will have roof damage. This can result in planning for minor cleanups to major repair projects. Under the ground and harder to locate there may be water lines and sewage systems cracked due to age by the shifting of earth and rock from the freezing and thawing of ice. Leaks in water systems may not be found until they are activated just days before facilities are opened for the visitor season.

Another important work force will be out this month. Volunteers who maintain trail systems through the region will be scouting and monitoring for damage on the Appalachian and Mountains to Sea Trails among many others. These volunteers spend thousands of hours each year clearing, marking, maintaining, and building trails for the public to enjoy.

A lot of work begins now so you can enjoy our National Parks later this spring.

Patience – Spring Will Come Some Day

Snow and ice continues to melt and break up in the lower elevations leading up to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The mountains themselves remain locked in winter’s icy grasp with melting involved in a much slower process. The higher elevations where temperatures are significantly lower, received more snow than below in the valleys. That snow was then pushed and sculpted by high winds to produce drifts that stood in excess of seven feet in depth at many locations. Limited daily radiant sunlight then started to melt on the surface of the drifts on those few clear days that allowed the rays to peak through. That melting then refroze turning the snow drifts into ice bergs blocking roads.

These conditions will take longer to disappear as spring approaches. The now rock solid ice cannot be plowed with equipment. As a park ranger I remember using a heavy sledge hammer in attempts to break ice that had formed across the road surfaces from water seeping from springs and melting snows. This was ineffective and normally resulted in the road remaining impassable and my back being sore.
The slopes and aspect of mountain sides and road cuts also contribute to the slowing of thawing and melting. That legendary location “where the sun don’t shine” can be found all along the Blue Ridge Parkway. These constantly shaded areas are always the last to warm up enough to melt.

So even if you have a beautiful day at your house, do not be surprised if you visit the Blue Ridge Parkway and find sections still closed to traffic. The road may not be safe for vehicle travel until there are several days of warm rain that will help break up the stubborn ice.

The reward for our patience promises to be a delayed but spectacular spring. Trees, shrubs, and wildflowers of the Southern Appalachians are being well watered by the slow melting of natures white carpet.

Read Digital Books On Your PC

You can now download Amazon's Kindle Software for free to your PC. The download is quick and free. Once the software is downloaded, you have access all the Kindle digital books without having to own a Kindle Reader.

It is free and now another way you can read "A Park Ranger's Life."

"A Park Ranger's Life" Now Available on Kindle

My book, "A Park Ranger's Life" is now available in digital format for the Amazon Kindle. You can order the book by going to Amazon.com, searching for the book by title, and then clicking on the Kindle version.

Book Events Update

Today I will be interviewed by the Staunton News Leader. This paper is based out of Staunton, Virginia. They are preparing a Sunday edition story on my book, "A Park Ranger's Life."

Other upcoming events.

March 6 Book Signing at Bookworks in Staunton, Virginia 1pm

March 13 Book Signing at the Tanglewood Barnes and Noble Book Store in Roanoke, Va. 1pm

March 20 Book signing and sales at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, Va. 9-4pm

Review for "A Park Ranger's Life"

The following review appeared in the Winter 2009-10 edition of "RANGER: The Journal of the Association of National Park Rangers" on page 27. The following are excerpts from that review.

Reviewed by Warren Bielenberg

His book chronicles interesting supervisors and park visitors, adventures in training and travel, intriguing cases, searches, fires, and the joys and frustrations of being a National Park Ranger. Through his stories you can see how the job of a ranger has evolved since the mid-70s.

...some well-told stories of rangering that some of us could only imagine.

Much of the book reads as if Bruce were telling his stories to you over hot coffee or a cold beer. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in seeing how varied a national park ranger's job can be, or for you old rangers to compare Bruce's stories with your own.

Park Rangers and Technology

Technology has improved our world bringing information to our fingertips and communications within the blink of an eye. When I started with the National Park Service in 1975 a lot of the technology that we take for granted today did not exist. There were no cell phones, fax machines, computers, CD’s, DVD’s, and radios were large suitcase size units in the trunks of cars and handheld radios were larger than and as heavy as a brick.

One of the side effects of technology is the taking of Park Rangers from the field in order to spend time meeting the requirements of our technological world. As a District Ranger I once counted approximately twenty different software programs that I needed to be conversant with to do my job. These programs were used to manage budgets, order supplies and equipment, produce work schedules, email communications, write and review incident reports, maintain inventories, track training needs and accomplishments, file personnel actions, payroll, and more. No two programs were alike, used different passwords, and would not cross communicate or share information.

Today’s Park Ranger can spend several hours a day in the office writing reports, tracking duties, completing required on line training in equal opportunity and cyber security, training nominations, keeping up with email, etc. etc.

With the advent of the computer age there has been a decline in patience from administrators for reports and forms that do not directly apply to a field ranger’s job to preserve and protect the park.

Today’s Park Rangers need to be well versed in computers and their applications. Gone are the days of supervisors as I had that would become angry if they caught you in the office. A Park Ranger’s place was in the field. Today supervisors can be under more pressure from higher level managers to ensure their staff members get online administrative training done than protecting our parks and visitors.

Drug Gangs on Public Lands

This morning National Public Radio ran a report on the increase of drug gang activities on public lands. The major impacts are on areas such as National Parks and Forests. What officials are finding is large marijuana growing operations. These are on a scale of commercial farms with plants in the thousands. The resource damage as the result of these illegal operations is extensive. The criminals introduce chemical fertilizers, animal poisons, reroute water courses, and leave hundreds of pounds of trash and debris in remote sensitive habitats. Most sites are in isolated areas away from places frequented by visitors or established trails. The criminals’ plan is to keep their plants hidden.

These grow operations are being organized and managed by criminal gangs out of Mexico. Crime organizations are bringing undocumented aliens across the border from Mexico specifically to work these marijuana operations.

You can read the details at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124189816

The criminal activity that is described in this article took place in California, but these same grow operations are being found on public lands in the East and more specifically the Southern Appalachians. In 2005 marijuana grow operation was discovered on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. Over 8,900 plants were removed as well as hundreds of feet of hose for irrigation, large amounts of camp trash, fencing to keep out deer, chemicals, and sleeping bags. Although no arrests were made, evidence at the scene indicated that Mexican Nationals had been occupying the site for an extended period.

Should you be hiking off the beaten path and come across what looks like a garden with hoses for irrigation and cleared canopy, leave the area immediately and report your observations to authorities.

Reader Review for "A Park Ranger's Life"

If you love our national parks and are concerned about the future of the "best idea we ever had", read this book. The author provides the reader with an outstanding peak into the life of a park ranger through entertaining recounts of memoriable experiences but more importantly reveals that our extremely dedicated national park rangers are not being adequately staffed, often provided with substandard housing, and placed in dangerous situations unnecessarily. It also reveals that the NPS needs to fully review its hiring policy of park management and promote people that actually understand the job of their subordinates. Hats off to a true professional who is willing to stand up for the existing and future park rangers serving to protect our national treasures and visitors.

William O.

The Gorilla Rescue

It was a winter and the Blue Ridge Parkway was coated with ice and snow. Most of the roads within the park were closed with snow gates. At mid morning a call came into my office reporting that a car was off the road near mile post 16. This was within a three mile section of road that was not closed off by gates. The report through our dispatcher included the information that the car had a gorilla in it. My first thought was that this was quite an unusual situation since for those of you who are not zoologists; gorillas are not native to the Southern Appalachians.

Ranger Allan Morris and I both responded and searched up and down the Parkway for several miles north and south of mile post 16 with no sign of a vehicle or gorilla. Dispatch called back and said a second call had come in reporting the vehicle still stuck on the icy road and that the gorilla was in the driver’s seat of the car.

We decided to start checking the several side roads that intersected with the Parkway in the Love, Virginia area. At the bottom of a steep ice covered hill on a dirt surfaced road we could see a small sedan sitting off to the side of the narrow road. We eased our four wheel drive SUV down the slope keeping the driver’s side wheels in the right hand ditch to give us some traction. As we got closer to the car we could see that the rear seat was filled with shiny anemic helium filled balloons. We both had to look twice as we noted a gorilla behind the wheel.

As we turned our vehicle around the driver took off the head of a gorilla costume and stepped out of the vehicle. The woman worked for a florist shop in Waynesboro and was trying to find the Wintergreen Resort to deliver birthday greetings for a resident. She had gotten lost and ended up in her present predicament. She had donned her gorilla costume to keep warm.

We were able to push her car out of the ditch and Allan was able to drive it back up the hill to the Parkway. I am sure that the two vehicles that she said passed her while she was stuck did not stop due to the gorilla costume. I admit it did look at bit odd if not dangerous.

This is just one more example of how National Park Rangers never know what they will run into even during the winter on the Blue Ridge Parkway.