May 22, 2015 - How Heath Became a Park Ranger

 As we were walking through the campground in the morning, Andy announced, “One of these mornings I’m going to get up and make bacon and eggs for breakfast, like everyone else here”.

The men in Site 10 asked us yesterday if it would be all right to set up another tent next to their tent pad because the tents were too big for both fit on it. The park rules are that all tents must be on the tent pad, but we don’t call for rangers to come in and enforce it. This morning, they had a huge tent there. I made a big fuss that they did not tell me how big it was going to be, but they could tell I was not serious.

They said they all work at a facility for mentally and physically disabled people and this stay in the woods was just what they needed to relax. 

When we walked around in the afternoon, one of the men from Site 10 was sitting by the fire ring in Site 11. The Site 11 people had gone somewhere and he was keeping an eye on their stuff so they did not have to put it all back in the vehicles.

He was guarding the coolers and drinking beer. Maybe he was drinking beer and guarding the coolers. He also noted that the Site 11 people have some camping gear that he does not and he needs to get that camp kitchen.

The man in Site 12 has illegal firewood that he brought from home. I explained the new firewood regulations and told him to burn it up right away. He is the grandfather who was hovering yesterday for a site here. The six men told him they would be leaving at 0800. He was back here right on time and they were waiting for him to arrive before they took off this morning. The next time we walked through the campground, he told us we are the most conscientious campground hosts he has ever seen. He told us he hardly ever sees the campground hosts. Well, we need the exercise.

We had our first campground vacancy report this morning. About 1100, dispatch calls all the campgrounds in alphabetical order. We respond with the number of vacancies. We had two at that moment, but those sites were soon filled.

It was sunnier today and I got a good picture of the tree that fell next to the campground. When one of the six men in Site 12 told me about it falling, I thought he was joking because I had told them they could not cut down dead trees, but only trees lying on the ground. The tree was small and tall. I was squatting at the base and the top of the (now) log is well beyond Andy. The tree had been even taller; the top was missing.

Andy noticed the scuff it made down one of the trees it fell between.

 

We walked along the creek.

Andy spotted a cable at the base of a tree. Another logging camp artifact.

At 1130 Abram’s Creek Campground called to say that they were officially open for the season and had two sites available. I suppose that means some people set up camp before it was officially open. Cosby Campground only had a few vacancies because they had not opened their B Section. An hour or so later, they called dispatch to say the B Section was now open and they had more vacancies. Later again, they called to say they did not have any more RV sites available.

I saw these springs, all that is left of a mattress, along the horse trail as we walked to the horse camp. This leads to a lot of questions for me. Could they possibly last in the forest from the 1930s when the Civilian Conservation Corps camp was here? Was a mattress dumped here from somewhere else? From where?

We had a lot of confusion in the horse camp. There were six riders on their horses ready to take off up the trail. I had one reservation on my report and there were five sites occupied. One of the men on the horses explained that he had reserved another site, but his trailer would not fit in it. He said Larry had told him to go to Site 6, which is not on the reservation report. Boss Larry had been there half an hour ago. We walked around to the registration board and saw that Larry had filled out registration cards for all the horse campers. Then, we found new reservation reports back at our site. Larry had been by, but we missed him again. He didn’t get any banana pudding for the 78-9/12 birthday.

Two weary backpackers came to our site looking rather lost. I went out to see if I could help them and the man said they were looking for the ranger station. I told them to follow our drive up to the road and turn right. The ranger station is a mile down the hill. He countered, “We parked close to the trailhead, would it be closer to follow that trail?” pointing to the horse trail. It is about the same either way. They headed up the drive to the road.

It was probably an hour or so later when one of the men returned. “We didn’t walk a mile up a road to the trailhead. There was a small parking lot and a brown ranger station building. We got to a one-lane bridge, but we had not crossed a one-lane bridge when we started out.”  I told him that the ranger station is just a few yards beyond the one-lane bridge. Maybe they had parked in the horse-camp day lot and thought the toilet building there was a ranger station. The man was confused and exasperated and asked for a ride back to the ranger station. Andy took him. They got part way down the road when the man remembered that his car keys were in his backpack, which he had left at our site. They came back for the keys. He was so grateful, he wanted to pay Andy, but Andy told him to donate the money to the park. He promised that he would join the Friends of the Smokies. They passed the other man still making his way back up from the bridge. That man told Andy, “This is how we do things in Ohio”. 

Thinking about it a bit, I believe they parked at the ranger station and took the Chestnut Branch trail up to the Appalachian Trail. Then, they returned down the Big Creek trail. That is the only way the trailhead could be close to the parking lot at the ranger station. They must not have read the trailhead sign. Then again, they probably parked in the horse camp day use lot and took the trailhead by the toilet building that they mistook for a ranger station.

Maintenance Tom and Robert from Cosby showed up to clean the toilet buildings. I offered them some banana pudding, but they said they had just eaten lunch. They offered to take a serving back to Richard and Linda so I filled them a container.

The next generation of grass hoppers popped out today. Our little mossy lawn and the leaves on the forest floor are full of them. When we walk by, there is wild hopping in every direction.

I forgot to turn off the voice recorder after noting something heard on the radio. Now I know what it sounds like in my pocket while we are walking around Big Creek. I keep in the same pocket as my lip balm. The recording I made today had a click, click, click recording my stride and the two tap against each other. The park radio chatters in the background. Sometimes there are a few words between Andy and I.

I got another sunshine-through-leaves picture on the drive down to our site. I’m on a theme here.

On the radio

At 1321 there was a lockout at The Sinks. VP1 was called to respond to that. We hear about lockouts nearly every day. VP1 must be very skilled at breaking into cars with no damage.

VP5 called VP2 to say there was a truck at Clingmans’s Dome with the keys and a two-year-old locked inside. VP2 was about 30 miles away. A while later VP5 came on to say the man used his cell phone to call someone who told him how to unlock the truck remotely. Or maybe the person called unlocked the truck remotely. At any rate, VP2 didn’t need to respond.

When rangers call in to dispatch with car tag and driver’s license numbers, they sometimes also ask dispatch to check park records for previous incidents with that person.

Someone called the park to report an overdue hiker who had gone a mile off the Appalachian Trail at Mount Mingus (?) to set up a ham radio tower. He was parked at the Clingman’s Dome parking lot. Later in the day I heard someone report that the vehicle was gone, so the overdue hiker must have found his way out.

About 1600 a third party called the park to report that someone had run into a ditch and would need a wrecker, but I missed the location.

There was a motor vehicle accident between an SUV and a motorcycle at Newfound Gap. The bike rider was shaken up. At 1621 he was up and walking around, but possibly disoriented. At 1630 they called for a stand down as the rider was refusing any help. They were out of the road and only wanted a wrecker for the SUV. Dispatch lifted the “emergency traffic only” restriction. The biker was calling a friend to come pick him up with a pickup truck.

Ranger Heath came on the radio at 1630 asking for a wrecker at the Ramsey Bridge area. A car had driven into a culvert and couldn’t get out. After the car was pulled out, Ranger Heath set traffic cones up to alert other drivers and keep them out of the culvert.

At 1637 a third party called the park to report a vehicle off the road at Metcalf Bottoms. There were no injuries.

Ranger Heath stopped in after he had transported some hikers from Cosby back to Big Creek. I served him some of Andy’s birthday banana pudding and asked him if he wanted to be a park ranger when he grew up. How did he become one?

He and his wife Dana were happy with their seasonal jobs in the park. They had worked a number of different kinds of jobs. When Dana got pregnant, he realized he needed a year-round job. The man who had been his football coach told him to apply for a position as a police officer in Gatlinburg. After a few years, he got tired of arresting drunks and wanted to go back to work for the park. He just happened to be talking to the man who was the head of the dispatch office at the time. He told Heath that they were going to be hiring and Heath should get qualified as a dispatcher, which would give him an advantage. The baby is going to college now and Heath still loves his job as a park ranger.

I think the mouse is under the couch where I store canned goods.