Proliferation of propaganda


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Posted by Ballpark Frank (192.88.135.18) on 10:47:34 05/23/20

In Reply to: River Group posted by michael in tucson

Michael,

I first visited the River Group in 1978, as part of an interpretive walk led by a seasonal interp ranger. Over the years, I led family and friends out there countless times. In the early 2000s, I led a Loonion walk out there. Many times, there would be 2 or 3 other groups, most consisting of just 2 or 3 people. There were almost always fishermen along the river. I have vivid memories of the day my ex and I watched a group of young people that we assumed were seasonal employees of Delaware North or Xanterra walk out on the other side of the river. There were at least 8 or 10 of them. They had blankets, coolers, and other picnic paraphernalia. They set up shop on the geyserite formation across the river from Horn Spring. They went down to the river, where there is a small pourover that spans most of the width of the river, just upstream from Horn Spring. They simply sat there, leaning on the rock behind them, facing downstream with the river providing a back massage. On a future trip out there, we tried it, and found it very enjoyable. That ranger you encountered was an absolute, unmitigated JERK, probably an overly self-important clown. The dressing down he gave you will stick with you forever; and now I and any one else that reads this will be aware of it. Having been an NPS volunteer at Rocky Mountain National Park for over a decade, and worn the uniform in Yellowstone, I know how NPS personnel are trained to interact with visitors. I also know from hard experience, once in RMNP and once in Yellowstone, that occasionally the NPS screws up and hires one of these absolute idiots that thinks they are God's gift to the planet, and it is their duty to protect it at all costs. They are myopic in their vision, and have never heard the phrase "one 'aw sh_t' cancels 10 attaboys". They also forget that if they alienate enough tax-paying, voting citizens, the national parks will suffer over time from a loss of support for funding in Congress. Meanwhile, you have all these well-intentioned foundations and visitor education cooperating associations laboring long and hard to help fund all sorts of things in our national parks; and the behavior of these select JERKS just makes their job that much harder.

I have not forgotten the rainy, stormy night, back in 1979 or 1980, when I was lectured and interrogated by a law enforcement clown in an NPS uniform, pretending to be a resource management ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park. My wife and kids, my sister, and I had backpacked to Lawn Lake (prior to the dam disaster). We had reserved one of the campsites for 2 nights, but on the second day, the weather totally collapses. We decided to walk out late in the day, rather than spend the second night in pouring rain. We reached the trailhead right around dark, and this ranger wanted to know what we were doing there, and why we were not at Lawn Lake. He kept badgering me until I just flat told him this was America, land of the free, home of the brave, and not the Soviet Union. I had the right to be wherever I wanted to be, providing I was not violating a closure. He finally backed off in a huff. A few years later, after I started volunteering for the Naturalists Office, one of my mentors told me that idiot was a "bad hire", a former state patrolman from some other state. (He probably got fired from that job.)

I'm sorry you got harrassed by that officious clown. As far as I'm concerned, we should round up his type, put an assault weapon in their hands, and pack them off to a war zone, if they want to fight so much.

Ballpark



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