Leadville – Forest ranger Jeff Thompson had crawled into his tent for the night when he heard the noise, a kind of snort or whuff that got his attention.
Bolting outside, he stood face to face with a full-grown mountain lion, with three more staring at him from the background.
“I knew I had to make myself look big, so I reached down and grabbed my sleeping bag and raised it in the air,” the veteran Pike-San Isabel National Forest wilderness ranger said in his official report.
Thompson backed up about 5 feet, grabbed a shovel he had left leaning against a fallen tree and started banging it on a rock.
“Two of the lions slowly walked away, and another one came running toward me,” he reported. “The lion that ran at me grabbed my sleeping bag out of my hand. … I took my shovel and struck the lion on the back.”
Thompson’s encounter late last month in the Rich Creek drainage near Weston Pass is an example of the hazards facing backcountry rangers who often travel alone.
In light of last month’s death of a ranger who fell while working alone in Rocky Mountain National Park, federal agencies are reviewing their procedures for solo patrols, while managers and rangers themselves defend the practice as practical and relatively safe.
While figures on the number of federal backcountry rangers weren’t available, experts agree that a small number of them patrol vast stretches of public land. The Associated Press recently reported that fewer than 1,400 rangers patrol 84 million acres in 387 national parks, monuments and historic sites.
“We don’t necessarily have the staffing to accommodate two rangers per backcountry patrol shift,” said Mark Magnuson, chief ranger for Rocky Mountain National Park, adding that rangers almost universally seem at ease being in the woods alone.
Officials note that Jeff Christensen’s death was the first involving a ranger on backcountry patrol in the 90-year history of the national park and one of only 10 in history throughout the nation.
Nonetheless, the agency is reviewing the wisdom of solo patrols as part of the investigation into Christensen’s death and considering changes such as whether to equip rangers with personal-locator beacons, which transmit signals tracked by satellites.
Randall Kendrick, a retired national park ranger and executive director of the Park Rangers Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, said the relatively inexpensive beacons – some retail for less than $600 – should be mandatory for backcountry patrols, noting that a beacon may have helped save Christensen’s life and at the least would have sped up the search for him, which lasted eight days.
Although Kendrick recommends dual patrols for any “front-country” rangers, who face dangers similar to any other law-enforcement officers, he said solo backcountry patrols might be appropriate for heavily used trails or in other relatively safe situations.
“But if it’s one of those cross-country, high-altitude areas” such as the off-trail trek through the rugged Mummy Range that Christensen embarked upon, “… then it probably should be a dual patrol,” Kendrick said.
The very nature of being alone on patrol violates conventional backcountry wisdom and safe practices, Magnuson acknowledged.
“I would concur that one of the stated messages to backcountry travelers at large that we would recommend is (to) not travel alone,” he said. “That is primarily because if something does happen, an accident or an injury or whatever, then you’re not out there by yourself.”
The difference between the general public and a ranger, though, is the level of experience, preparation and equipment and the fact that every ranger carries a radio and has continuous contact with dispatchers, he said.
Christensen was equipped with a radio, but he never contacted park officials after he disappeared July 29.
Thompson said his encounter with the mountain lion while working in the national forest spurred discussions among his peers about safety and reinforced their practice of always radioing in at the beginning and end of each backcountry shift.
After he fought off the lion, Thomp son radioed a colleague, packed up and headed out.
“I was planning on just moving my camp and getting out of where they were,” Thompson said. “But once I got on the trail, they started following me.”
Banging his shovel on rocks and making radio contact with the other ranger every five minutes, Thompson made his way down the trail with the cats in tow for a couple of miles before they turned back.
“At that point, I just took off running toward the trailhead,” the 28-year-old Thompson said.
But he said he doesn’t fear being alone in the backcountry.
“I actually went out the very next day and went hiking by myself in the Collegiates,” a high mountain range on the west side of the Arkansas Valley. “… That was the first time I’ve seen a mountain lion in the backcountry. I’ve gone camping by myself a couple of times since then and been fine with it.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
