Ranger Confidential by Andrea Lankford: book review

Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks (2010) is a collection of true stories based on 12 years working in America’s most famous parks, such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite.

Everyday life for rangers includes firefighting, law enforcement, search and rescue, saving people’s lives, protecting flora and fauna, fending off assaults, and identifying hikers’ distress symptoms (what’s the difference between heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat syncope, heat stroke, dehydration and hyponatremia?).

The tales are funny, sad, tragic, and extraordinary. The park rangers are dedicated, loyal, calm, honest, courageous, flabbergasted, disillusioned, and tired. Who knew so much happened in the parks?

A ranger’s life is not a walk in the park, especially when dealing with alcoholic hikers, people undertaking illegal activities, criminals hiding out, people using the park as a garbage dump, and people who don’t want to be saved. And dealing with scorpions, snakes, bears and other wild animals.

Lankford doesn’t beat about the bush when she narrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of park ranging. It’s an interesting read.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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