Seattlest Interview: Eric Blehm
Eric Blehm’s third book, The Last Season, reconstructs the story of Randy Morgenson, a National Park Service backcountry ranger in California's rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains who heads out for a routine 3-day patrol in the summer of 1996, never to be seen again. Exploring numerous theories surrounding the circumstances of Morgenson's disappearance--suicide, accidental death, even starting over with a new anonymous life--Blehm retraces the ranger's steps, weaving together a story that celebrates the juxtaposition of the breathtaking yet unforgiving terrain of the high Sierra backcountry wilderness, and the people dedicated enough to serve it. Seattlest was unable to attend his reading at Elliot Bay a couple weeks ago, but we chatted with him a few days later about the process of writing a book that took eight years to research.
Alden Nash, a backcountry ranger who worked with Randy prior to his vanishing act, had a very compelling theory about what might have happened to Morgenson. It really illustrated the knowledge that backcountry rangers have for this terrain, and how they can construct a natural history of what might have happened. What did you think of his theory?
Despite the fact that I don't ever offer my own conclusion as to what happened, I left Alden Nash’s theory as the last one for that reason. I think [Morgenson] would have known the dangers that were present out there, but in a way he may have also been playing a little bit of the wilderness karma game—it wouldn’t have been such a bad place to die.
One thing that one of the rangers said that didn’t make it into the book is that this story is one of human tragedy, but it’s a celebration of wilderness, too.
Have you talked to people who aren’t familiar with wilderness areas and gotten a sense of what impact the book might have on them?
Yeah—there has only been one review so far where the person just didn’t seem to get it. I’m guessing that anyone who knows anything about the wilderness…or really, about human relations, would. I mean, the book is really about human relationships, community and the rangers. One woman wrote me who had never even been camping, and she was completely hooked after having just read the prologue. And that’s really what I wanted—to tell the story of these backcountry rangers, and the secondary goal was send a message about the wilderness: to tread lightly, leave no trace.
The rangers are unsung heroes to a certain degree, aren’t they?
These people really sacrifice their lives just for their love of the wilderness, and to protect it. They’re certainly not doing it for the money.
Speaking of sacrifice, the book has the sub-text that “Nature always wins” running through it. Does it surprise you at all that these rangers can be out on their own for so long in the backcountry and so few have actually run into trouble? At some point is it just an odds game as to when your number might come up?
Well look at Doug Coombs [ed note: Coombs recently died trying to help a friend who fell off a cliff backcountry skiing], he’s been doing it forever. He pioneered heli-skiing in Alaska and…Alex Lowe, a climber and alpinist who was known for his safety. You spend enough time out there, and that’s the nature of it, your odds increase. It doesn’t matter how smart and wise you are—it’s a testament to the power of wilderness.
Yes, and sadly it seems that Doug Coombs went over that cliff because his friend went first—it was a mistake in judgment that just broke my heart. And similarly, there’s concern in your book that the rescue efforts for Morgenson were flawed, and that the subsequent investigation into the rescue efforts was insufficient.
I think they made a mistake, but I didn’t outright say it because it was so long ago and nobody can remember. I posed all those questions because I really think they should re-open the investigation and get those people together and ask more questions. I went through every single report of every single searcher, and only one searcher felt compelled to put down GPS co-ordinates for a location to revisit. And then to send the same teams back to the location, but a quarter of a mile downstream? I think that was really overlooked. Why not, if someone else felt compelled enough to say “Hey go check this exact spot out again?”
Along those lines, this book reflects 8 years of research. That’s a lot of research—how did you approach that?
Really, I was already following the story from the moment he disappeared. And then, 5 years later, once people thought they knew what happened to him, I felt there was a full circle to the story. And during the first four years of reading tidbits from his logbooks, and learning that he had assisted Ansel Adams for —he carried his tripod around as a kid—and then later when he decided he wanted to do wilderness writing, he met Wallace Stegner literally weeks after he’d won the Pulitzer Prize for Angle of Repose. I knew there was something there. There’s a few letters from Wallace Stegner that he’d written Randy, a few lines of which I included in the book, that is some of the best advice for anyone that wants to write about the outdoors and nature that I’ve ever, ever heard. He said that you have to pick and choose—John Muir was such a whirling dervish, and he recommended that Randy write more like Henry David Thoreau, without cynicism.
One of the really enjoyable parts of the book is being able to read Randy’s writing. Even though he was so melancholy later on, he still seemed so steeped in the beauty of his surroundings. How much did you get to know him through his writing?
Once I decided to do this story, I approached Randy’s wife, Judy Morgenson. I didn’t want to do this story without her. And once she gave me the OK, and she’d heard about my stories exploring the Sierras—knowing the Sierras is half the battle to knowing who Randy was, she said—she invited my wife and myself to her house and we camped out in her attic for many days with a portable photocopier and made thousands of copies. 28 years worth of diaries; the missing log books that I hadn’t been able to find in the archives of the park; letters to Ansel Adams, Wallace Stegner, and various friends. And by interviewing all the park rangers and Judy in particular, that combined to help paint a portrait of the spirit of Randy Morgenson.
So you saw all his personal journals?
The only journal that she [Judy] wouldn’t let me see was his very last. And this one was an allusion to how dark it was—a psychological profiler from the Department of Justice did read it, and from that concluded that he was a potential suicide risk. She wanted to keep it for herself and I figured that was the least I could do.
Tell me a bit more about your experiences in the Sierra, following Randy’s trail.
Yeah, to understand Randy you really have to understand the land. I’d spent some time there before already, but I went back. Alden [Nash] and I figured it out, it was more than 60 days in the backcountry, covering over 300 miles of terrain retracing routes that Randy had taken and going over the various ranger stations that he had been stationed at over the course of his career. You can’t help but absorb a person’s spirit after that, and by reading the letters of his friends. I tried to show the transformation from this extremely gung-ho ranger—by the excerpts I chose, I tried to show how his sense of humor and his love for the wilderness were the only things that were unwavering. But what did change…well, he became jaded. It became personal to him. And he remained an amazing steward and host to people externally; but in his journals he definitely eviscerated.
And over all that time, and even since this happened, it seems that the park system really hasn’t changed all that much, has it? At least, especially not for the backcountry rangers.
Not really. Even to this day, the only thing that the backcountry rangers have to honor each other are events they put on themselves. Permanent rangers get service pins for every 10 years of service; backcountry, or any seasonal, rangers—they don’t get anything. George Durkee [a backcountry ranger who worked with Morgenson] is putting together a program to have ice axes engraved for the ranges recognizing every 7 years of service they’ve provided. I just found out that someone, he lives in Washington D.C., just read the book and was so inspired that he turned around and gave a huge donation to fund the manufacturing of the ice axes. Someone higher up in the park service also read the book, and is now apparently looking into establishing something for formally recognizing seasonal rangers.
To a certain degree, that signifies how little this country understands and values backcountry terrain, doesn’t it?
It does. Throughout history, not just with this administration, the wilderness has never gotten what I think it truly deserves. If you look at it, the backcountry—the National Park System—is a gift we’ve given to the world. We started that model, and it has been followed in dozens of other countries; from Argentina and Patagonia, to the Middle East, I think even they’ve set aside natural land. It is our greatest national treasure, and we should put more into it. And into the people that devote their time and energy to it. Because really what it takes is time. It takes time in the backcountry to understand what kind of effects we as people have as we move through these areas. And you don’t see it unless you’re there for a long period of time.
I’d never realized what a natural historical resource the backcountry ranger’s logbooks really were until I read this book. You were pulling up logs that Randy Morgenson wrote from back in the 1970s, right?
Back as far as 1965 for him, and there’s other rangers’ logs dating back into the 1940s. I even read his father’s journals—he wasn’t a ranger but he was a naturalist in Yosemite. It was kind of sad, because the end-of-season reports that these rangers would write, a lot of times they would never even make it to Washington D.C. In fact, it would be a miracle if someone in Washington considered anything suggested by a backcountry ranger.
You’re an avid outdoors person, a snowboarder and climber, etc. Did writing this book change your perspective?
Yeah, I always thought I stopped to smell the roses, but he [Morgenson] gave me a whole new perspective on appreciating the wilderness. I’d rather travel fewer miles in a day and look around a little more, instead of trying to pack as many miles in as possible.
You had the chance to meet Randy Morgenson and missed it, for that very reason, right?
It is quite the irony—I have to laugh at myself about it. I did, I had the opportunity to meet him but I was in a rush and couldn’t be bothered to wait around for a couple hours in beautiful McClure Meadows. Even though I’d been told that walking with Randy would be like walking with John Muir. I’d just finished reading Muir’s classic “Stickein” and would have really enjoyed talking with him about it, but instead I just had to get my miles in for the day. As I went back through and was reading his writing, there were excerpts in there where he called people like me “trail pounders.” And the more I went through this process, I realized I’d been one of those people that he was making light of.
Was there anyone who didn’t want you to tell his whole story, warts and all—did it ruin the mystery or spoil the “romance” of being a backcountry ranger?
No, 99% of the people really wanted me to tell Randy’s story. Even the woman who he had the affair with; she was willing to talk to me, even if only by email. Maybe she wanted to be sure I quoted her accurately. It was totally common knowledge, everybody knew about the affair. I was as gentle as I could be about that—there was a lot of other stuff I could have put in to try to make it more scandalous, more Danielle Steel…But that’s the amazing thing, here’s this woman that knew the world was going to hear that she had an affair with this man but she still wanted to tell his story to honor him, and the mountains. She said she still grieves every season when she’s not going into the backcountry, and that has a double meaning—she grieves for Randy still, and she grieves because she’s not a backcountry ranger anymore.
It sounds like writing this book has really had an impact on you, too.
It is by far the biggest influence that writing something has had on my life, in part just by the sheer volume of it. And honestly, just the places that it took me. There are places in the backcountry that I never would have seen were it not for Alden Nash, and these other rangers who would set up our interviews in the backcountry wilderness, like “There’s this lake that I like, and can you be there on this date?” and I would literally hike in to interview them. I felt like I was partially being tested, to see if I had what it took. But the research was the icing on the cake; the best part was just getting out in the backcountry as much as possible.
Is there more you'd like to write about that?
I hope so--I'd like to do a follow-up. I have two other books in the works, one of them also has to do with the Sierras.
