A Riddle Tragically Solved
“There is a tenaciousness in life, and in that as much as anything must lie the hope of this world. “
Ranger Randy Morgenson
More than one infamous disappearance has taken place to vex us over the years. The famous Lost Colony of Roanoke Island in the 1500’s continues to absorb the attentions of archeologists and historians. Nearer to our own time, the disappearance of famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart over the Pacific in 1940 still inspires searches for the wreckage of her aircraft. The swallowing up without explanation of humanitarian and holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg by the Soviets toward the end of World War II troubles the consciences of many. The resting place of famous aviator Amelia Earhart remains undiscovered. The fate of former Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, whose remains have been reputed to lie in such disparate locations as beneath a junk yard in New Jersey or out on Lake Erie’s West Sister Island remains a mystery. The disappearance of popular journalist Ambrose Bierce at the time of Pancho Villa’s uprising has fueled speculation that he was shot by the rebels or that he sought an anonymous grave somewhere in the vastness of the Grand Canyon. More recently, the vanished Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 somewhere over the Indian Ocean remains an unsolved riddle.
National Park Service ranger Randy Morgenson should have been the last person to have vanished without a trace in his beloved High Sierras. At the time of his disappearance, Randy had served as a search and rescue ranger for 28 years in the high country of Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. He knew the Sierras better than most of the rest of us know the streets and alleys of our old hometown. Whenever a hiker came up missing, all Randy needed was their last location. He would locate and rescue the person forthwith.
Randy was made for the high country of the American West, and the mountains were made for him. He was even born in Yosemite National Park, where his father, an expert on the region’s wildflowers, served as a ranger. As Randy wrote in his journal, “Mountains are my life. Without them, I am nothing. They are perhaps the only reality I know.”
Randy enlisted in the Peace Corps and spent two years attempting to persuade recalcitrant Indian farmers to increase their crop yield by converting to modern western agricultural methods. When his service ended, he spent a year and a half trekking among the towering Himalayas and saturating himself in eastern spirituality. He only returned to the US after graduating from a mountaineering school instructed by Sherpa professionals.
He devoted his career to saving people from the mountains and the mountains from people. He railed against litterbugs and polluters, giving them the designation “Swinus Americanus.” He was almost as disdainful of those he called “trail pounders,” people who move too quickly over land or turn wilderness time into a competition. He asked of such types, “Have you tried meadow sitting or cloud watching?”
Spending up to six months each year in his beloved mountains certainly caused stress to his marriage, resulting in a divorce. Toward the end of his life, he even speculated about whether it had all been worth it. However, reading The Last Season, Eric Blehm’s biography of Randy, one cannot escape the conclusion that he would never have been happy living any other kind of life. Many of us would have craved the sort of life that Randy lived.
All that was known for sure, according to Blehm, is that Randy arose on that fateful day, July 21, 1996, gobbled down what he called a gut bomb, consisting of a huge stack of buckwheat cakes saturated in maple syrup, and set out on patrol. He stuffed his usual gear into his backpack – his sleeping bag, an old cook pot, a single propane bottle, a bivy sack that could serve as a tent in an emergency, his first aid kit, Head lamp, radio, and the usual backpacker’s rations.
Randy sent out one final radio communication before departing, ending with the portentous words, “I won’t be bothering you two anymore.”
After three days of no contact, authorities suspected that something was wrong and launched a search effort.
Search and rescue teams scoured the mountains for weeks with no result. Randy, who had so successfully saved so many others who became lost in the alpine fastness, was gone. One individual came close to solving the mystery, a giant Schnauzer search and rescue dog named Seeker, who behaved uncharacteristically troubled near the spot where Randy’s remains were eventually to be discovered. After weeks of tireless efforts, the search was reluctantly called off. For five years, Randy’s fate remained a mystery. While Randy’s friends and fellow rangers never quite gave up hope, there was no reason to suspect that he was alive anywhere.
On July 14, 2001, Peter Martinez, leading a California Conservation Corps group of young people near a stream, came across a backpack, a pair of shorts, a coffee mug, a water bottle, a granola bar wrapper and finally a hiking boot with a human leg bone protruding from it. Inside the boot were the skeletal remains of a human foot. With the passage of time, it was affirmed that the leg bone and 16 other bone fragments were the earthly remains of Randy Morgenson.
What exactly led to Randy’s death may never be determined. He may have broken a leg crossing the stream and died a long slow painful death. He may have been knocked unconscious and drowned. He who had rescued so many died alone. His end seems anticlimactic.
His many writings reveal a complex man and a deep thinker. In the spirit of Thoreau and Muir, he refers to his lengthy periods of solitude in the high country as a theology not found elsewhere. It is hoped that his writings may someday be collected and published.
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My enthusiasms include fly fishing, natural history and wilderness backpacking. In 1996, I published privately a memoir, Trails of Laughter/ Trails of Tears, featuring my wilderness adventures and misadventures.I serve when needed as a Licensed Eucharistic Minister in the Episcopal Church.
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