The One Where I Only Mention Books 33 and 34 in Passing (Book 35 of 52)

- Randy Morgenson

Eric Blehm's The Last Season tells the story of Randy Morgenson, a legendary ranger who patrolled the backcountry of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park for 28 seasons, and the intense search and rescue operation that followed his mysterious disappearance in July of 1996. It's the story of a man who was passionate about the mountains and nature, who made it his personal mission to "protect the people from the park and the park from the people", and who loved the wilderness and the isolation it offered to the detriment of his wife and friends.

Blehm intersperses accounts of the search and rescue operation with the story of Morgenson's life. We learn about his childhood in Yosemite and his friendship with Ansel Adams and Wallace Stegner. We see his love for nature develop while in the High Sierras and the Himalayas. We see him find his calling as a backcountry ranger and see him become a legend. We see him romance and marry the woman of his dreams, build a life with her, and then slowly and regretfully lose it all.

The details of his life are critical to understanding the mystery surrounding his disappearance and the frame of mind of the people leading the search. Some believed he was alive and missing. Some believed he was alive, but on the run. Others had theories ranging from fatal accident to suicide to foul play.

Like any good mystery, every possibility seems viable until clues are revealed and pieced together. Blehm does a good job of maintaining the suspense until the very end.

Besides giving us a deeper understanding of Morgenson, Blehm gives the reader a glimpse at the inner workings of the National Park Service. We get to see how it operates and how it treats (and undervalues) its seasonal rangers. Backcountry rangers have one of the most difficult jobs in the service, yet they are treated like second-class workers compared to their "frontcountry" counterparts.

This book was an engaging read and is another contender for my top five books of the year.

I'll finish with two quotes from Randy Morgenson. The first is from page 63 of the book. Morgenson wrote it in the peak register of Mt. Solomon in 1971...

"We are the greatest bulldozers to walk erect. Will we ever permit, in as small place as here, Mother Nature - truly our Mother - to do her thing, undisturbed and unmarred? Will we ever be content to play a passively observant role in the universe, and leave off this unceasing activity? I don't wish man in control of the universe. I wish nature in control, and man playing only his just role as one of its inhabitants. I want every blade of grass standing naturally, as it was when pushed through the soil with Spring vigor. I want the stones and gravel left in the Autumn as Spring meltwater left them. Only these natural places, apart from my tracks, give me joy, exhilaration, understanding. What humanity I have has come from my relations with these mountains."

The other is from page 324 of the book and was recorded in one of Randy's many journals...

"I wish only to be alive and to experience this living to the fullest. To feel deeply about my days, to feel the goodness of life and the beauty of my world, this is my preference... To be thoroughly aware each day that I'm alive, to be deeply sensitive to the world I inhabit and the world that I am, not to roam roughshod over the broad surface of this planet for achievement but to know where I step, and to tread lightly."

(By the way, books 33 and 34 were Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse and Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser, respectively.)