Ranger Stranger Danger

South Guard Lake

11,630 feet

near Brewer Basin

Kings Canyon National Park

My brother Jay, Turkey Tetrazzini Pete and I were happy to see a national park ranger on that afternoon we meandered cross country through the boulder field bordering Brewer Basin. We weren't lost, per se, and we could certainly point to our Mt. Brewer quadrangle map and say, "We are here," but we couldn't find our way through a robust moraine in order to descend toward South Guard Lake. We were like Sam and Frodo and Gollum lost and walking in circles in the rocky wilderness before heading into the Dead Marshes. (I was Frodo and my brother was Sam and Turkey Tetrazzini Pete, well, nevermind).

We hailed the ranger by raising our hiking poles and calling out "Hellooooo!" in Seinfeldian fashion. He was a stone's throw yonder and dressed in his park fatigues and ranger hat. He paused and turned toward us. He was a welcome site and a comfort of sorts, the first person we had seen in days. We walked toward him briskly. We stopped abruptly, however, when he bellowed, "That's close enough!" He held his right hand aloft in the "stop-right-there-position" as if he were Diana Ross.

"What do you want?" he demanded. Even from this distance we noted his haggard beard, sunken eyes and diminutive backpack. This was not the ranger who would be strumming his guitar, tossing logs on the fire and leading the campfire program back in Cedar Grove. We kept our distance.

"I asked you what do you want?" he repeated impatiently.

Turkey Tetrazinni Pete spoke like the lion answering the Wizard of Oz: "Um, we were just up here backpacking, you know, and enjoying ourselves, and hiking and stuff, and were wondering if you knew if we get down to South Guard Lake by going to the East or the West of this big old boulder field. Yes or no?"

The ranger paused. He looked at us as if we were the most inane creatures he had ever met. It was the same look attending physicians in medical school would give me when I answered their questions during morning rounds.

"Yes." he finally said.

"Uh," Jay asked. "Yes, we go East, or yes we go West? Meaning, what you're saying is that we go to the left of this boulder field?"

The ranger paused again. Finally he answered, "I didn't say that." He then unceremoniously skidaddled through some boulders and over a crest. He was gone. Gone forever.

For several moments we stood there with our mouths open and our hiking poles slack in our hands. It was oh so very quiet.

Finally, I spoke. "That was, quite possibly, the most bizarre conversation I've ever had."

Jay and Turkey Tetrazzini Pete agreed. We spent several moments discussing whether "Yes, go East" was the same as "No, don't go West." In the end we shrugged, hoisted our packs, gripped our poles and veered East. By dusk we were sitting at South Guard Lake enjoying salami and tortillas, while miles away, the campers at Cedar Grove were singing My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean at the campfire program.