A Ranger's Life

CANYON RANGER

TEXT BY ROSE HOUK PHOTOGRAPHS BY KERRICK JAMES BACKCOUNTRY MEDIC, EDUCATOR, COP AND PSYCHOLOGIST GOES TO EXTREMES

“About the only thing I've mas-tered in my life is walking,” Bryan Wisher said. Although anyone who knows the lanky 44-year-old would laugh at this statement, walk he does. Wisher's job as a backcountry ranger at Phantom Ranch requires an 8-mile commute on foot between the South Rim and the bottom of the Grand Can-yon, a hike he's made hundreds of times during the 16 years he's worked in the national park. His normal hiking time out of the Canyon is two and a half hours if he doesn't have to deal with a medical emergency or spend extra time talking to people struggling along the trail. In fact, Wisher has walked every named trail and many unimproved routes in the million-acre Grand Canyon National Park.

Wisher's “tour of duty” is eight days on and six days off, which means he spends more than half his life down in the Canyon. The only major interruption to that schedule was the birth of his first child, a son named Cale, in January 2001. After tak-ing seven weeks off so he and his wife, Kim, could get used to their new jobs as parents, Wisher was back to work.

When photographer Kerrick James and I joined Wisher for a hike down the Canyon's South Kaibab Trail, he was busy with the tasks that fill a typical day in the life of a Grand Canyon backcountry ranger. He made the rounds of offices and warehouses on the South Rim, checking medical supplies and equipment and packing items to be shuttled down by mule or helicopter. With errands nearly complete, Wisher hurried home to gobble lunch, stuff his backpack and locate a lost badge. Sheepishly, he admitted to being a little absentminded. Before departing, he paused to rock his son to sleep and bid Kim goodbye.

A radio strapped to his belt crackled with constant chatter. Whenever he hears his call sign—“Canyon 14”—or the special emergency code, he's on full alert. Wisher is responsible for coordinating first aid and medical response along the Canyon's “corridor” trails—the South and North Kaibab and Bright Angel—the most heavily used in the park. Trained as a park medic, he also can administer advanced life-support medications and procedures.

Wisher carries a loaded gun, too. “Most of my law enforcement duties entail warnings or tickets to people camped out of bounds, but I've made several arrests and disarmed a few people,” he said.

The three of us finally started down the South Kaibab Trail at about 3 P.M. Each trudging hiker we passed got a salutation from the ranger, while he studied their faces to see how they were faring. The Grand Canyon can deceive even the hardiest hikers with its extreme elevation changes and desert heat that commonly teeters around 120 degrees. Dehydration and a condition known as hyponatremia, caused by drinking water but not eating, are frequent occurrences on sizzling summer days.

It was pitch black, with no moon, as I stumbled down the final 2 miles of the trail. Thankfully, Wisher fished a flashlight out of his pack and stuffed it into my hand. No matter how many times he's hiked in and out of the Canyon, he religiously observes certain rituals. We stopped midway on the suspension bridge that spans the Colorado River, listening to the mysterious sound of swirling water in the darkness far below. Once across, we headed down to the “boat beach,” shed our packs and stretched out our legs in the soft sand, philosophizing to the stars. Then we walked the last half-mile up the trail to the Phantom Ranger Station, arriving around 9 P.M.

Inside the ranger station, Wisher's parttime home and office, we found a wooden desk and a gurney spread with clean white sheets and a blanket. The “run pack” hangs on the wall, stocked with medical equipment that can be grabbed in a hurry in an emergency. Rooms off each side of the office serve as living quarters for Wisher and the two or three other rangers who share the space. The big picture window frames an awesome view.

Green cottonwood trees arching over Bright Angel Creek soften the inner gorge's burned red rocks. A bald eagle overwinters in a snag, while mule deer munch grass in the front yard. Daily, Wisher patrols trails, calls in weather reports, gathers up trash, cleans irrigation ditches, removes graffiti from rocks and makes rounds at Bright Angel Campground, home to 100 hikers each night. (Rangers also are responsible for the 90 guests in the cabins and dorm at the concessionaire-run Phantom Ranch.) He visits each campsite. If people are not there, he leaves them a note; if they are, he joins them at the brown picnic tables, advising them to stash all their food in the metal boxes to discourage squirrels and skunks from foraging on their Dinty Moore Beef Stew. He also warns campers about scorpions“Shake out your shoes and clothes at night and in the morning before you put them on”-and insists that children always wear shoes. Living and working in the fishbowl of Phantom Ranch permits little private life. Although the rangers change out of their green-and-gray uniforms around 6 P.M. each evening, they know it's really a 24-hour job. Still, Wisher advises campers that if the light's off in the ranger station at night, it better be an emergency if they wake him.

“Canyon toe” and “Canyon knee” are the most common hiker ailments, Wisher said, although he must always be ready to deal with more serious problems. Physician Thomas Myers, co-author with Michael Ghiglieri of the 2001 book Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, recounts several stories that Wisher himself is too modest to relate. One March night in 1996, Wisher received a call at Indian Garden Campground that a 14-year-old boy had fallen from a cliff on the north side of the Canyon. With a full pack, Wisher ran 5 miles to the river in 45 minutes and then up another mile and a half on the Clear Creek Trail. In the rain, he climbed up to the boy, while Ranger Mary Litell rappelled down from the top of the cliff. The boy was near death, with no detectable pulse or blood pressure, a core body temperature of 83 degrees, and spine and leg injuries. Wisher administered oxygen, started an intravenous drip of saline and snuggled bottles of warm water against the boy. A helicoper flew the injured hiker out in the morning, and he eventually recovered fully.

Another night, in September 1992, rain was falling like Wisher had not experienced before in the Canyon. Bright Angel Creek swelled, and Cottonwood Campground began to flood. Realizing the danger, Wisher crossed and recrossed the roaring creek, making sure all the campers moved to higher ground. One man, though, could not be persuaded to leave his tent, even as the. floodwaters stranded him. Wisher braved the stream again, bodily dragging the stubborn camper and his tent back across and out of harm's way. For saving 28 lives that night, Wisher received the National Park Service Valor Award.

Inner-Canyon rangers must also practice psychology. Hiking down with her husband and daughter, a woman was hobbling badly and having great anxiety about hiking out of the Canyon. Tension was thick between the couple when Wisher stopped to chat. He advised them that extra mules were not available and that the helicopter is summoned only in true emergencies. The man revealed that they decided to make the hikeafter he was laid off from his software job in Phoenix. Wisher commiserated; then he assured them that if they would follow his advice, she would make it out just fine. He urged her as he urges every Grand Canyon hikerto eat much more food than normal, especially salty foods; to balance that extra food with increased water and electrolyte drinks; and to rest often. In summer's withering heat, hikers should only move about in the earliest morning and latest afternoon. Wisher wraps up all his efforts in a single word: “education.” He knows how easy it is for people to get in over their heads in the Canyon. He has been known to carry ice cream down the trail to campers and river runners, and he prepares nourishing anddelicious vegetarian meals for fellow rangers on duty.

Wisher's penchant for caring and feeding goes back to his days of hitchhiking around the country. Born in western New York, son of a steelworker, a teen-age Bryan read Henry David Thoreau's Walden, hitchhiked to see Walden Pond, then thumbed his way across the United States. When he arrivedin California, he recalled, he had 13 cents in his pocket. Though he wore a shaggy beard and long hair, people unfailingly gave him food and shelter.

After returning home to New York, he vacillated between studying nursing and doing outdoor work in the Adirondack Mountains. Also during those indecisive years, Wisher was recovering from injuries and complications he suffered from a bicycle accident.

Another event, Wisher's first trip to Grand Canyon National Park, eventually made up his mind. He and a buddy took a long hike, "and we did everything wrong," he confessed. But that started his love affair with the place. Wisher came back in 1981 as a student volunteer, working three months

[LEFT] Admitting that his rigorous duties in the Canyon keep him from spending enough time with his family, the native New Yorker still can head down the South Kaibab Trail and declare, "It's the best job in the world."

[ABOVE] Visitors enjoy a shady respite at Phantom Ranch, where Ranger Pam Cox lectures about Canyon geology.

[RIGHT] Wisher and author Rose Houk enjoy the profusion of wildflowers on their return to Phantom Ranch after patrolling the North Kaibab Trail.

down at Phantom Ranch. He returned in 1987 as a seasonal employee for the Park Service, loved the work and decided to stay. He then paid his dues as a clerk in the backcountry office on the South Rim to gain permanent status before he was sent back down into his beloved Canyon.

Another love affair happened in 1987. Wisher met Kim Besom, also a seasonal employee. "She was the girl in the trailer next door," he quipped. According to Kim, "We ran away to Flagstaff to get married." Kim now works for the park as a museum technician, assisting with inventory and research.

Unlike most national parks, Grand Canyon has a school, bank, clinic and grocery store, although "real" shopping is 90 miles away in Flagstaff. The Canyon's community numbers about 1,500 full-time residents, so social opportunities are limited. Of course, with close to 5 million visitors a year coming into the park, there's plenty of opportunity to meet new people.

Mostly, rangers entertain themselves with plenty of potluck suppers and casual gettogethers. And there are all the Grand Canyon sunsets a person could ever want. Still, backcountry rangers live with fewer trappings of civilization. Some say they miss public radio, movies or magazines. Wisher said what he misses most is his family when he's down in the Canyon, "but that's part of the territory." On days off, he spends time with them, does woodwork and goes on "killer hikes" with pals. At every opportunity, he pulls out a telescope and invites people over to look at the star-speckled dark sky.

The burnout rate among inner-Canyon rangers is high-the job requires constant dealing with the public, often under extreme conditions, with little sleep and time for recovery. "At Phantom Ranch, the stress is so thick in summer, you can cut it with a knife," Wisher noted. So, how does he do it? "A sense of humor," he said, his dimples creasing, "and empathy."

"That's one thing I want to teach my son," he added. "That, and making sure he spends many nights out under the stars." Although