Posted on 08/06/2005 10:42:52 PM PDT by NRA2BFree
Man apparently fell during routine patrol eight days ago.
ESTES PARK, Colo. - A hiker found the body of a missing Rocky Mountain National Park ranger Saturday, eight days after the ranger apparently fell during a routine patrol, park officials said. No further information on where Jeff Christensen was found or how long he might have been dead were immediately released. More than 200 searchers, some in helicopters and others with rescue dogs, had been looking for Christensen, 31, in the vast and rugged Mummy Range for the past week.
He had told co-workers on July 29 that he was planning a routine backcountry patrol to the Lawn Lake trailhead, and visitors told park officials they saw Christensen that afternoon near the summit of Mount Chiquita. But when Christensen didn’t show up for work the next day, search teams were sent out to find him. The area he had been patrolling covers 26 square miles and has few designated trails.
It’s peaks top 13,000 feet, and overnight temperatures dip into the 40s. On Saturday, when the hiker discovered Christensen’s body, searchers were focusing on an area where rangers and park visitors on Wednesday heard gunshots and radio clicks that might have come from the missing ranger. Christensen had been a ranger for four seasons and was an experienced mountaineer who also worked as a ski patroller at the nearby Winter Park resort. Park officials said he was carrying a radio and a backpack equipped with various gear, though he hadn’t planned to spend the night in the backcountry when he left. His parents, Dale and Chris Christensen of Forest Lake, Minn., have been in Colorado since Tuesday waiting for word on their son.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
That is so sad. I hate the waste of it all.
Leni
You make a very valid point. I have known rangers in state and national parks and none of them went on patrol with a partner. Even on military bases in the US, MPs will patrol the perimeter in pairs.
Yep.
Yes, it is very sad. Prayers go out to his loved ones.
Rest in peace.
Also, I want to know if rangers carry an emergency transmitter that sends a signal on a frequency like 121.50.
When they first said he was missing last week, I thought it was kinda funny that he would go out on a patrol like that by himself. It's too bad he did. Had there been a second ranger with him, perhaps he might not have died.
He'd probably be alive. Hiking off into the wilds by yourself, is asking for it.
That's very true, but the other side of the coin is that staffs are relatively small for such huge parks (Denali, for example, is the size of the state of Masachusetts). And backcountry rangers are an even smaller subset of that number. Going in pairs cuts their coverage of remote areas in half. And a backcountry ranger is a different breed of cat than the guy who gives campfire talks. As the article mentions obliquely, most of them are also ski patrollers, fishing guides, etc at other seasons. They pretty much make their home in the wilderness. So it's a risk, but a calculated one.
There are, however, ways to make it safer. Emergency transponders, regular radio check ins, etc, for example. I assume there will be a review of procedures after this tragedy.
"It is" peaks?
Time to flog another editor.
AP's standards have gone *way* downhill in the past couple of years, they've been making these kinds of gradeschool errors for a long time now.
$$
It is cheaper to pay death benefits than to pay another employee.
I got this from www.bettercamper.com.
Mount Chiquita is one of the most easily accesible mountains in the Mummy Range, in Rocky Mountain National Park. From trailhead to the summit, it doesn't take much more than an hour for the average, in shape, hiker. This mountain is climbed 99% of the time from the Chapin Pass trailhead. It is probably the easiest 13er to climb in the entire state, and it often climbed, along with Mt. Chapin (12,454 feet), and Ypsilon Mountain , as the second summit in this popular trio.
Maybe just maybe the writer thought we knew more than we do. Did ;-) Then again probably not ....
That kind of thinking is what keeps Rescue teams occupied(and in danger) and why mountains and wilderness areas claim lives every year.
Going into a wildnerness area is no 'walk in the park' and can take the life of even those with plenty of experience and knowledge. Cocky, seekers of cheap thrills are a danger to themselves and others. Unfortunately, there are way too many of them out there.
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