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Show THE ZEPHYR/DECEMBER 2006-JANUARY 2007 LOST A History of Lost Hikers at Arches National Park...and the Rangers who Reluctantly Found Them By Jim Stiles : Arches National Park is often called a frontcountry park, because many of its most celebrated natural features are within sight of the paved park road. The Arches highway winds its way from Moab Canyon and US 191 to its terminus at the Devils Garden. Asa seasonal ranger, it was always my pleasure to tell the windshield tourists, “Yes it’s true! You can actually drive to the Windows Section of Arches and see FOUR MAJOR ARCHES WITHOUT EVER GETTING OUT OF YOUR CAR!” (I always wanted to please people, even then!) While my tone might have sounded a tad sarcastic from time to time, I came to believe that inside their motorhomes and trailers was the safest place they could be. It didn’t occur to me then that someday bright young enviropreneurs would invent ways to lead helpless, inept tourists who couldn’ find their way out of a shower enclosure into the once remote backcountry of national parks on a daily basis and at price sure to make any easy to follow him, but after a while, Otto left the sandy dry wash and struck out across the slickrock, where footprints go to die. Ihave to say, however, that I was always a damn good tracker. My beside manner with the tourists may have needed work but I could spot the most insignificant of signs. And often, I’d put myself in the victim’s shoes, following his moves by instinct alone. Otto came off the rock and found another dirt road and I was right on top of his tracks. I radioed my boss, Chief Ranger Charlie Peterson, who met me 20 minutes later. Together we followed Otto until we came to a wide spot and the tracks became a muddled confusion—it looked as if he was walking in circles. Charlie and I were puzzled. He stopped and scratched his head. capitalist smile. But twenty years ago, before Greens were spelled Green$, tourists who found their way into the backcountry either got there because they wanted to be there and had the skills to survive and flourish or...they got lost there on their way to the toilet. It was my job, from time to time, to find them. — I lived at the Devils Garden trailer, 18 miles from park headquarters, at the campground entrance. My duties varied —I had to tell the visitor center when the campground was full, collect the fees, unclog the “comfort station” toilets, patrol the roads and trails, move rattlesnakes from the middle of the highway, and answer a wide variety of questions that could range from the scientific... “How early does the Chrypthantha bloom at the higher elevations of the park?” to the inane.. “Ranger, how come there’s no full moon walk tonight?” “Because there’s only one full moon every 28 days?” “Anh?” There are only a couple of major trails at Arches; the longest is the five mile Devils Garden Loop. From the trailhead to Landscape Arch, it’s more like a small road. You can drive a golf cart out there and we did, in fact, use a Cushman cart a few times to recover injured and sick hikers. Some visitors found the hiking experience too intimidating from the get-go. A woman once stopped me to ask if there were “facilities” on the trail. “Facilities?” I asked. “Do you think I could hike all the way to Landscape Arch without use of the facili- Millie and her rescuers at Arches. ties?” I suggested a catheter and she left. Despite the “wide road” to Landscape, people’still got lost; most of the time we found our victims quickly, within an hour, and more often than not, they weren't lost at all, but simply misplaced. One missing person turned up at his own campsite, sipping a cold beer, while his frantic family verged on apoplexy, a few hundred yards away. Children were lost from time to time, but often I knew it before the parents. In the spring when large Utah families venture south from Salt Lake in their motorhomes, it was not uncommon for one of the brood to.be inadvertently left behind. The kids (this happened many times more than once) took it all in stride. I’d often find them waiting patiently on the steps of my trailer. “Excuse me, Ranger, my parents forgot me. Could I wait here until they realize I’m not in the Winnebago?” It usually took about an hour. I made them as comfortable as possible and sometimes, if I really trusted the kid, gave him access to my comic book collection. In my decade at Arches, I participated in five major searches—and consider this for synchronicity. In four of those cases, the missing person, was a septugenarian, of German descent, got lost trying to find Landscape Arch, and wound up in the Mancos badlands of the Yellow Cat mining district, east of the park. Otto, Gunther, Werner and Millie. If they’re not Arches Legends, they should be. Otto was the first to go. He was last seen on the eight foot wide semi-paved trail to Landscape Arch, had somehow stepped into the bushes for a moment, and never came back. It seemed unlikely that he wasn’t simply misplaced , but as darkness fell, we had to take his disappearance seriously. At dawn the’ next day, I walked east from the campground and checked the washes that flowed toward Salt Creek. Sure enough, there were his footprints descending and moving rapidly away from the park. It would have been Moab's Oldest Legal Brewery! aii Meet me at Restaurant &7 Microbrewery Main “ don't get it Stiles...where in the hell did he go?” An accented voice declared, “I am here waiting for you!” It was Otto. With tears in his eyes, he ran to us both, hugged us and immediately offered us a one hundred dollar bill (U.S.). We declined, knowing that he’d have to shell out much more than that for the helicopter we'd rented. As the chopper landed nearby, Otto began shaking the pant legs of his trousers and gobs of dry grass fell onto the ground. “It was my insulation!” he exclaimed. “To keep me warm.” Otto was dumb enough to get lost on a very wide trail but smart enough to keep warm on a cold night in a most inventive way. Gunther followed a couple years later. Same M.O. Then Werner. Finally Millie, a German-born school teacher from Illinois, she missed the same trail, headed cross-country and set off a massive 26 hour search with all the trimmings. Again, we found her track going east away from the park and into the Yellowcat. “Of course,” somebody shrugged. “Where else would a 70 year old German who got lost on the Landscape Arch trail go?” Four of us were leapfrogging her tracks—as one tracker picked up a footprint, the rest of us moved in that direction. As one of us spotted her track, he’d call out, “There she is.” We offer WIRELESS INTERNET Si oi a461 McSitiff's..... EDDIE FCSTIFF SS 5/8. But twenty years ago, before Greens were spelled Green$, tourists who found their way into the backcountry either got there because they wanted to be there and had the skills to survive and flourish or...they got lost there on their way to the toilet. It was my job, from time to time, to find them. in the McStiff's Plaza 259.BEER www.eddiemcstiffs.com Like DUDE... Me & Brando are...like... part of the LOST GENERATION |
