National Park After Dark - People of the Parks: Kevin Grange

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

In this segment, we will be having conversations with people of all kinds who are involved with the NPS. As we have gotten deeper into research for the show, our love and appreciation for those who dedicate their time, expertise and passion to the park system as grown deeper as well. For our first guest, we spoke with Kevin Grange. He is a wilderness first responder who has spent seasons in Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Yosemite. His newest book Wild Rescues gives an in depth and intimate look into some of the calls he has responded to within the parks and does an amazing job of underlining his love and appreciation of these wild places. You can find Kevin’s book at your local bookstore or follow this link https://amzn.to/2ZmDsleFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Magic Mind: Get 20% off of your order when you use our link www.magicmind.co/nationalpark and our code NATIONALPARK20Beam: Get 35% off your first month when you use our link beamorganics.com/npad , pause or cancel anytime.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Listen to Monday.com. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes, go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally, breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night And you've had enough of shopping from your couch Done hoping it looks anything like the picture When you tear open that envelope It's time for a little in-person spring treat It's time for a trip to Ross Work your magic

Standing proudly at the north entrance To the world's first national park Sits an arch Rising 50 feet high And constructed with hundreds of tons of stone This structure can be spotted from miles away It serves as a gateway to Yellowstone National Park, but its inscription holds true to all parks for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. Hundreds of thousands of us pass under this arch and drive through the gates of national parks around the globe, eagerly anticipating the natural wonders that lie beyond them.

But what about the people behind the scenes? The people who keep us safe, haze bears, guide you to the best trail, arrange educational displays in the visitor center, or present ranger talks. In this special segment of National Park After Dark, we talk to the people under the flatbrim hats who have lent their skills, passions, and careers to the national park system, and in turn, to all of us. Welcome to People of the Parks. Hi, everybody. My name's Cassie. And I'm Danielle. Welcome back to our show. We have a new surprise.

If you've been listening long enough, you know that every week we have a different story every Monday bringing us to a different national park and for spooky season we decided to give you all a treat and that is an introduction to our little segment that we created called people of the parks and this is our very first episode we're really excited about this our goal for this is we want an in-depth look at the people who actually work in these parks that we love and respect so much and we want to get firsthand experiences of the people who are the ones who are making us safe or working towards conservation or historians in the park, the people that really know what's going on there because we think that's so interesting. So to be able to talk to them and interview them and then have all of you be able to

be here with us and talk to them with us is just something that we thought would be really cool. So today, for our very first people of the parks episode, we are speaking with Kevin Grange. He is an award-winning freelance writer with an emphasis on the medical field, adventure, and travel. He has extensive experience living and working in some of our favorite places, the national parks, and although he's a very skilled wilderness paramedic, he is also a phenomenal writer. His newest book is called Wild Rescues, a paramedic's extreme adventures in Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton, and that book caught our attention very quickly. We both read it and just knew we had to speak with him.

Inside this book, he has stories of all these different calls that he's been on. in Yellowstone National Park, Yosemiteeon, he's responding to bear calls, bison goarings. He talks about this all. He even works with the Jenny Lake Rangers that we talked about in one of our episodes. So we are extremely excited. Welcome to the show, Kevin. We're really excited you're here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm super excited about this episode. Can you tell us a little bit about your role and where you're from? Sure. Well, I grew up in New Hampshire. I can. in the White Mountains and just love it back there. And then ended up going to college in Seattle. And after Seattle, I moved down to California and was interested in like the screenwriting world.

So I was kind of living near Los Angeles and working in real estate. Very different than where you've ended up. Yeah, exactly. But after a few years, I realized like my heart wasn't really into it. You know, I met a friend who had taken an EMT class and, you know, it sounded super exciting. and one of my first jobs was a lifeguard at Water Country in Port Smith, New Hampshire. Oh, yeah, we've been there. That theme song is just blaring in my mind right now. Yeah.

You've probably been down to Geronimo. So that was kind of like the seeds of my, I guess, interest in being a first responder, but no one in my family had really pursued it. So I was a lifeguard there and I enjoyed it. But it took many years to me to sort of find my path that, hey, this is something I really want to do. And so once I knew that, I took an EMT class and then I went to paramedic school in Los Angeles and eventually got hired by the National Park Service and was lucky enough to work in Yellowstone,

Yosemitee and Grand Teton. Great places to work. I mean, a beautiful place to end up for sure. Definitely, yeah. And I'm currently a full-time firefighter paramedic with Jackson Hole. And then I'll work in Grand Teton as a summer seasonal paramedic on a part-time basis. Very cool. Can I ask, what made you decide to write a book about your experiences as a paramedic in the Park Service? Great question. For me, writing is like an act of celebration. And so when I have a great experience and when I meet amazing people, I really want to share that with others.

And so I love the mission of the National Park Service, which is to celebrate and conserve these special places that, you know, we hear about Zion and, you know, Grand Teton and Mount Rainier and all those places. but there's actually over 400 park units, and some of them are, you know, historical places or, you know, national seashores. So the mission of, like, keeping those unimpaired and protected for future generations I love. And the writer and me, once I started running all these crazy calls in the national parks, was like, hey, there's a lot of drama here, and there's a lot of exciting and entertaining things. So I knew it sort of had the material for a book. And then I guess lastly, I wanted to sort of inspire people to visit our national parks and maybe consider working there as a summer seasonal or a volunteer. Speaking of that, we have so many listeners that are super interested in either going to school to become law enforcement, going for paramedic, or want to become a ranger and be involved in the park service in some way.

And you said you got your foot in the door by doing seasonal work. Do you think that that is the best recommendation for getting into work with the park service? Definitely. One thing that I guess people who know is, you know, under the flat hat of the National Park Ranger, there's many different types of rangers. And so there's people who work kind of like the, you know, the guard checks when you come in and handle entrance fees. And then there's interpretation rangers who give presentations and fireside chats. there's wildland firefighters, maintenance, and then I was working in the visitor and resource

protection division. And so that's like your law enforcement park ranger along with your paramedics. And yeah, most jobs typically start as a summer seasonal. That's just because one of the parks are all super busy. Some of the parks, higher seasonals in the winter, like Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, some of those summer parks where the visitation goes up in the winter. So yeah, typically you start as a seasonal and for someone coming out of high school or college, it's just like an amazing life because you can kind of jump from park to park and you can, you know, pick your parks like, hey, I want to work in Mount Rainier this summer. I want to work in Acadia.

And, you know, some are able to work in the winter, but some will just travel, you know, for the winter maybe in South America or Mexico and then come back for the summer season. It's a great life. And then if you want to make it a permanent position, there are those jobs. just start applying for them. It certainly is a good way to see the whole world and see or see the whole country and see all the most beautiful parts of our country. And I know that you started seasonally, but before you even got into the park service in your book, you mentioned that you actually started working as a paramedic in Compton. Yes. So how was that experience? That's a very

widely different experience from where you are now. Yeah, I think you can't really go from one extreme to the other, like going from like Compton to working at the old faithful district of Yellowstone. So during that time when I was in Los Angeles and working in Compton, I was trying to get hired by the fire departments. But it's very competitive all across the country and Los Angeles Fire Department. You know, they're having like 10,000 applicants and another. So I took a job with a private ambulance and working in Compton. And it's similar to like what you hear on the rap songs, but, you know, a lot of that was coming out of like the 90s with the crack epidemic. And so it's toned down a little bit, but it is great experience just because you see a lot of like complicated medical cases.

And you sort of like earn your wings as a paramedic there just because it's kind of like anything goes and you never know what you're walking into. Right. So a lot of your experience in Compton kind of shaped how you became a paramedic in the national park systems. Yeah, because a lot of being a paramedic has seen something once. So I was able to see a lot of different types of calls and just get that experience. Whereas in sort of these like rural areas, you know, the call volume's a lot lower. So you don't see as much. But then there's other challenges, you know, which I talk about in the book as far as like the long transport times of the hospitals and different types of calls such as, you know, bison gorns and bear mullins and all of that.

Stuff you don't see in Compton. Right. Well, let's get into that. Of course, the book is broken into the three different parks. Yellowstone is my favorite park. I think a lot of people feel that way as well. It was the first park I ever visited back in 2011. That's where I picked up the death in Yellowstone book and a little seed was planted. And I think a lot of people are very taken by the park for a lot of reasons. And of course, it's one of the most visited parks. My question, as far as your experience there, we have seen obviously a huge influx of visitors. in the national park system, I think, over the last few years in general. Have you seen a change in the types of calls or number of calls that you've gotten in the park system that correlates with that change? Definitely. With COVID, suddenly, like, camping trips and, you know, sprinter vans,

and that just exploded in popularity. And so all the parks around here last summer and this summer are just breaking their attendance records. And we're seeing, like, different types of travelers, maybe people who aren't. aren't that familiar with the outdoors. And I love that and I welcome that because, you know, I think people need to fall in love with a place before they want to save and conserve it. So I think getting people out there is very important on the conservation side. I guess the numbers get hard because these parks, a lot of them were developed. I think in the

50s there was a big sort of like Sea America push as far as building roads. But we didn't really plan for these type of numbers. On the EMS side, like the number of calls is like double or tripled. I wouldn't say there's necessarily different calls, but they're a lot more of the same calls, such as, you know, people hiking when they're not prepared or, you know, without a map or without sort of like the 10 essentials, like flashlight or, you know, maybe more search and rescues and that type of thing. One thing I'd just like to tell everyone as far as like safety is whenever you hike, carry the 10 essentials. And then a huge one. which is saved more than a few lives is put your itinerary in your windshield.

So if you like don't come back, we can know where to look for you. We can say like, oh, you know, she went to do the paintbrush divide and she was going to spend a night up there. So we know where to begin the search if someone is ever overdue. Wow, that's a really good idea that I, no one had ever told me before. Yeah. And people think like, oh, if someone walks by your car and they see like a note, on the windshield that says itinerary, they're going to like break in, but it's not really the case. Like, we don't hardly have any break-ins in the national parks, you know? Yeah.

You obviously probably want to take your wallet with you. But yeah, a woman wrote to me recently who read the book and she was involved in a rescue in Death Valley. And she was out there, I think, five or six days. And the whole reason the Rangers found her was because they left their itinerary in their car. So. I think that's one thing that. that rings true for a lot of the stories, not only that we've researched or covered, but just that we see in the news is I think a lot of people are like, well, I'm just going for the day or a couple hours, or I've been here before and I'm familiar with the area and don't think

to do that. Like, I mean, maybe if you were going on a backpacking trip for days that you weren't familiar with and maybe by yourself, that would cross your mind to leave an itinerary, but I think it's really underrated for a lot of journeys and tracks that people take. So that's a really great piece of advice that I think everyone can utilize all the time. Great. Yeah. A lot of people have the question of like, what can I do to be safer? And so I just thought I'd add that because that's an easy thing to do that helps out a lot. Yeah. I know you talked about it a lot in your book, but just for everyone listening, what are the kind of calls that you go on in the national parks? A lot of them is complicated medical calls. And so when people come to the national parks, they don't like leave their preexisting conditions at home. So if they have high cholesterol or if they have asthma or that all comes with them. And then a lot of times when people are on vacation, they want to take a vacation from everything. So maybe they're sleeping less because they're traveling and they don't want to drink water because then you've got to pull over and use the restroom and they stop taking their meds. So a lot of times,

that sort of stress on the body and their pre-existing conditions kind of merge and then we're getting calls for, you know, shortness of breath, chest pain in the middle of the night. That's sort of like, I would say, the older population. So there's a lot of these medical calls. And then there's like the trauma of people just being active in the outdoors, whether it's climbers falling at Yosemite or people just breaking an ankle, you know, as they're hiking. And then there's also like the whole search and rescue side of things, which is. people go out and they get lost and just trying to find them. And you participate in that too.

You participate in the search and rescues along with everything else that you're doing as well. I do, yeah. All three parks and pretty much most of the big parks have a search and rescue division. And so most of my experience was at Yosemite, just because it's close to like San Francisco and Sacramento. So they have over 200, 250 search and rescue operations every year. And so generally I'm on the ambulance, but if there's a missing hiker or someone who's hurt, they'll send us up the trail to get to them. And then it's kind of a matter of getting them out of there. So there's this idea that like transportation is a form of treatment.

When you're working in that country setting, it's like, hey, we got to get them towards the hospital. So are you going to try to hike them out or maybe use like a wheeled litter? Or are they very critical and you need to call in a helicopter? And what's the weather doing? Is that a possibility? So that's sort of the challenge, but also part of the adventure of working as a wilderness paramedic. Yeah, it's certainly not boring. Every single time you get a call, it has to be so much different depending on, like, what you said, weather changes everything and where they are and their conditions and all of that.

And then just as you probably read in the book, it's just some of the calls that you hear, you know, like motorcyclist versus bison or one call. You know, this driver hit a pronghorn antelope and it flew over the car and then hit a motorcyclist or like people trying to take selfies with the bison and getting gourd. Right. Even a scuba diver at Yellowstone, which was like they were scuba diving in the firehole river and, you know, we get the call like, hey, you have an unresponsive scuba diver. And it's just like you never even consider that people might scuba dive in Yellowstone, let alone in the river, you know? Right. Yeah. Some of these calls when you get them, I can't even imagine what must go through your head before you even get to the scene.

As far as the various calls that you've gotten throughout all of your experiences in the park, would you say there are a couple that resonate with you most for either the person touched you or their situation or the outcome? Are there particular calls that have remained with you and changed you as a paramedic and how you practice emergency medicine? Yeah, definitely. there's one call at Yosemite where this woman was ice skating and hit her head and she ended up having a brain bleed and we were able to recognize it and call for a helicopter and the hard part with being a paramedic is a lot of times you don't know what the outcome is where is that one she ended up having a skull fracture and a couple different brain bleeds but she came back you know a couple months later and brought us a gift basket and that was just amazing just because we a lot of times don't know what the outcome is, whereas she came back and thanked me.

Another search and rescue one. This one I like to tell because I think there's a lot of lessons learned where this young man was missing for a couple days. We found him and he'd been out in like the pouring rain and it was cold. He was kind of hypothermic. And when we got to him, he was kind of standing and could open his eyes. But as we got him in the ambulance, he just like crashed. And his vital signs tanked.

And that was really interesting to me. and was a great learning moment that you would think the moment the rescuers got there, he would improve. But what happens is someone's out there and their kind of sympathetic nervous system, their fight or flight response is kind of keeping them alive. It's like contracting the vessels to keep the blood pressure up and keeping the heart rate up. So you get them in a warm ambulance and then they kind of almost like give up and then everything

starts taken. So it's actually a very dangerous part of like a rescue mission. So from that I learned that, you know, once we get to the patients, the call isn't over and you got to say, you got to keep the patient involved in their own care. It's like, hey, we're here. The worst is over, but you can't give up now. You know, you got to keep fighting with us. And, you know, hopefully you don't have that. They kind of call it the after drop phenomenon.

Physiologically, there's also some truth to like the cooler blood and the extremities. You know, once you warm up, it comes back to the heart, kind of this like bad blood. So I say that if anyone listening is ever on a rescue mission or thinking of like talking as a treatment and, you know, keeping the patients positive and involved in their own care. So that was a good one. And then I guess another one that the book touches on is the hard part of just seeing some of these tragedies in the outdoors. And to me, they hit home harder because, you know, I grew up camping with my family in the White Mountains. And it's just everyone's having these amazing family memories. And then to have a tragedy like cardiac arrest.

or a very bad injury. It seems to hit harder just because you're in such a beautiful setting. Yeah. Part of what I really loved about your book was how honest you were about how much some of these situations affect you and how much these are real people that you're working with and kind of what you just said, these tragedies that are happening in such a beautiful setting and sometimes unexpected. I really liked how honest you were about talking about your side of things from seeing it

and trying to help these people that are there. Yeah, well, I appreciate that. And another thing is in a city, you know, you'll pick a patient up on the ambulance and it's like a five minute transport to the hospital. Whereas here in the national parks, it could be 45 minutes to like three hours. So you're really spending a lot more time with the patient. And, you know, the medicine tends to be over fairly quickly as far as like, you know, you splint that arm, you get that IV. And then you have an hour or two with the patient. So it's a really good time to connect with them and, you know, get to meet them. And, you know, you know, you What I find is when people have an accident or injury on these trips, they've had this dream of, say, visiting Yellowstone for years. And there's this disruption. They're kind of mourning that, hey, this dream is over. Maybe they have to get off that bus tour. So the dream really is over. So just kind of being there for them and showing like compassion and just saying like, hey, you know, Yellowstone will be here next year. So, you know, it's important you get to the hospital. And so there's just that whole human side of, you know, being a paramedic in a national park that was interesting for me. One of my favorite parts of your book was, I believe you called it the bucket listers.

Oh, yes, yeah. Because when we're researching and reading and especially circulation of different headlines of poor choices that people make in national parks, that is very easy from our perspective to say, you know, like, well, they weren't prepared or they made the wrong choice or they weren't experienced. And I think through your perspective of writing about the bucket listers and just what you said, the communication and the relationship that you form with people, you're bringing a different perspective that I think is important for everyone to keep in mind. When you're at a national park, it may have been your third, fourth trip to Yellowstone, or to the Grand Teton's, or you live nearby, or whatever. But for some people and a lot of people, it's a dream. And maybe the first and only time they're going to be there. And I think we should keep in mind that there are people that even though

they aren't the most experienced or something terrible happens, whether it's an accident, or they just weren't properly prepared and it was because of their own negligence, it's important to keep in mind that these are people that are there for the same exact reasons you are, because they love the outdoors and they want to see these beautiful places and help conserve them. So I think that I really, really appreciated that perspective in your book. And we know what the bucket listers are, but could you explain a little bit for everyone listening? Sure. The bucket listers, a lot of times when people come through here, you know, they're on these bus tours that maybe start in Salt Lake and they hit Zion and Bryce and then they go up to, you know, Yellowstone and then they come

down through Grand Teton into Jackson. And a lot of it is like an older population. People who maybe haven't had that experience in the outdoors and it's their dream to just see all these national parks. You know, many times they know it's their last chance because they are old and they have a lot of preexisting medical conditions. And so it's kind of on their bucket list. And I guess when I first started working there in Yellowstone, we would get the calls at like 2 a.m. You know, one guy, he'd had seven heart attacks. And I was just kind of like, you've had seven heart attacks and, you know, old faithfuls over 7,000 feet above sea level. And, you know, Like, why are you here, you know?

But then as I met these people and talked to them, I realized that there was kind of like great, like, affirmation of living. And I know for me, it's like, if you can't go see the national parks, like, you know, kind of what's the point? They could be safer in their nursing homes or, but would they, like, truly be alive? So I came to, like, love their spirit. And we definitely got a lot more medical calls,

but they were just kind of like out there living their best life. And they knew the risk, but it was so important to see Old Faithful or like, you know, half dome at Yosemite. So I really like that attitude. And I was my perspective switched. And I was a lot more welcoming to them. I'm like, hey, you know, that's awesome. I hope I'm 95 and, you know, going to check out El Capitan or you know what I mean? Absolutely.

And I mean, get out here. I can, you know, and I think I agree when I read that. I really appreciated that perspective of it, too, just from not judging people so much, too, when you see them in the park, especially if you're walking down the boardwalks in Yellowstone and they're moving really slowly or something like that. You know, like, you don't know what people are going through and the fact that people are going out to these national parks as a, hey, I might not be around much longer. Let's go see some of the most beautiful parts of our country. And again, another thing. like, you know, the bison traffic jams or there's a bear and try to stay, like, compassionate,

because, you know, some of these people have never seen an elk or a deer. And we all grew up in New Hampshire, so we've probably seen, but to them, it's just like their minds are blown. So, you know, when they stop in the middle of the road, try to be polite to encourage them to keep driving, you know. I've definitely had a few handful experiences myself in Yellowstone. I've been there a couple times and I have seen quite a few people who try to get very, very close to the wildlife there. I think it's probably from watching a lot of Disney shows and there's just this thought that they're friendly and we've had people try to put their like little kids on top of a bison for like a bison ride and you know.

Oh my gosh. The whole like selfie thing. People will climb over the rails at Yosemite stand right next to the waterfall. and unfortunately a few have like tumbled over. The rules are in place for a reason. Yeah, it's just kind of trying to educate them. And a lot of these parks when you go in the entrance station, they're giving you handouts about like not taking selfies with the bison

and just like, you know, keeping your distance and that type of thing. And that's part of something that we like to talk about on here too is just being mindful and respectful of wildlife. For your own safety and also for the safety of the wildlife, One of the things in your book that you mentioned, you were talking about how you are in the ambulance by yourself sometimes. And you were talking one of your stories in particular that you went on a call and there was no one else available. And part of that was because they were responding to visitors who were interacting with wildlife. Is that something that is pretty common that you don't have other rangers available to come help because they're dealing with visitors who are interacting with wildlife or doing something that they shouldn't.

be doing inside the park. It's pretty common, especially like Yellowstone, because there's the thermal areas for the hot springs and the geysers. And we obviously don't want to put up a bunch of fences. Yeah. Because visually, but when there's no fence, you know, a lot of the rangers there are dealing with people like walking on thermal areas, which are very fragile and people have fallen through. It's kind of like a thin crust. And then these bison jams, you know, they'll be out there directing traffic for eight hours, the park rangers. So I guess, yeah, a lot of the response on the ambulance is affected by rangers kind of dealing with some of these things. I think that that's something really important for people to know because I know as myself as a visitor, if I knew that me

breaking the rules was hindering someone being saved in a dire situation, that would definitely make me think twice about walking out to these thermal areas or trying to take a with a bison, or even I've seen park rangers yelling at, not yelling, but like instructing visitors to step away from animals and then continuing to take photos, like, hold on one more minute, one more minute, one more minute. And if I knew this background story of like, hey, we actually have really important places that we need to be that's not right here, that would motivate me to be a little bit more respectful of that.

You know, we understand people want to stop, but if they could just like pull off the road so then traffic can continue, you know, just kind of simple things like that. Right. Like we don't want to hinder your experience, but we also want you to be safe and responsible while you're here as well. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want.

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ski areas have done. And so we might see more of that in the future at different parks. Yeah, with the influx of visitors. And like you said, I don't think that originally the park system was prepared for that. And there has to be some sort of guidelines in place to keep everyone safe and, of course, can serve the parks themselves. Because I think a good point that you said mentioned earlier in our conversation was, yeah, there's a lot of visitors and there's a huge influx. But you have to. see something to love it and to care about it. And I think a lot of people form a relationship with things they care about and causes they care about through personal experience. And how are you going to get that if you never visit? So I think it's very important that people have the opportunity

to get their dream park wherever that may be, but there needs to be some sort of system in place to make that safe for everybody or as safe as possible for everybody while also keeping the integrity of the park and the wildlife and flora and fauna in mind as well. For sure. And I'm always curious. It seems like you both have a lot of travel experience. And maybe you can let us know what your favorite parks are. And, you know, I think listeners love to hear that.

And I love to hear your thoughts and, you know, some of that. Well, you're actually in my favorite park right now, the Teton's. I actually, I lived in Jackson for a little bit. Oh, nice. Yeah, I worked over at a spotted horse ranch. Do you know where that is? Yeah, I worked there for a summer a couple of years ago. So I hung out there for a little while.

I think it's just beautiful up there. I would say just because of nostalgia, Yellowstone is definitely mine. But, I mean, combined, I think we visited over 50 of them or so, not including smaller park units or monuments, but I think a close second for me would be Mount St. Helen's National Monument. And we just got back from the Badlands together. on a trip to the Badlands. Your pictures looked amazing.

Thank you. It's so fun. It was so fun. Of course, our home park is Acadia. Right. So. Yeah. Acadia is a very cool place.

Yeah, I think like each park does something unique and different than the others, you know. So some of the ones you've mentioned and then I love like Joshua Tree. You can get there in like the fall or winter when it's not so hot. Yeah. Joshua Tree is very cool. It's very unique to everywhere else you guys. Right. Danielle, you're up in Washington? I am. Yeah. I love all those parks. Yeah, Olympic, North Cascades and Mount Rainier. Yeah, North Cascades is definitely my favorite out of the three up here. Surprisingly, obviously one of the least visited national parks. I don't know if it's location-wise or what, but it's so beautiful, especially in the fall. I went to Death Valley last year. Like you said, go to Joshua Tree in the fall in the winter. And I was in,

Death Valley in the fall. And that was a, that was probably the most unique park I've been to if you've ever been. It's just so different. And I feel like I could count the number of people I saw in a day on one hand. It's just was vastly different from any other park I've been to. Yeah, definitely. And yeah, there's a lot I haven't been to like Everglades or Glacier. And hopefully we'll hit them all, you know. It's a dream. Yeah. There's so many and they're awesome. Speaking about going forward. Obviously, you just published this book on Wild Rescues just came out in March. But what is next for you? Yeah, I'd love to write another one.

I'm kind of waiting for that next good idea. And my three books have been like memoirs. And part of that's just been out of like the convenience of having to work full time and write a book. I'm like, you know, if I write my own story, it's the story I know. I don't need a lot of research. But I'd love to like tell someone else's story. One story I've been following, which you might have, is Grandma Joy's Road Trip.

Yes. I love her. Yes. I've been following her on Instagram, and I love what she's doing and what her grandson is doing to help her get to all these places. Yeah. So it's this grandmother who's hitting all the national parks with her grandson. So it was something like that. I would love to tell someone else's story and maybe work with them or similar idea.

Or maybe tell about like a wildland fire that, you know, maybe something. something like one big event that happens in the outdoors. So I'm always looking for ideas, but right now I'm just kind of like enjoying reading a bunch and then getting out and hiking and kind of enjoying the outdoors. Because when you are writing a book, it's, you know, I work full time at the fire department and then writing a book on top of that. It takes a lot of time. We'll see. Hopefully start another book in the next year or two. Very cool. Well, I'm excited to see that one come out. I'm sure you'll find some very cool and interesting ideas for that. Yeah. If it's something we've learned through this podcast is there,

there are so many stories out there. And, you know, you think you know something about a particular subject or an event. And then as you're doing research on it, you uncover more and more in different perspectives. And we joke every time that we have an episode idea or a subject idea, we're like, well, of course there's a book about it. So we just now have to read that. Like our bookshelves just keep growing. And we're not complaining because we love to read, but it's just funny because there's just so much to learn and there's so many stories that are just begging to be told. I think you raise a good point. It's just like the national parks are full of stories, whether it's how they were created or the people who visit or even like structures, you know,

like, hey, it's the old faithful inn. It's haunted, you know. Just everywhere you look, there's stories. And that's the exciting thing. One of the reasons that like keeps me going back for sure. Yeah, there's so much history there. And like you said, the people who visit there have so many different stories. You can meet so many different types of people with so much different experience whenever you go. And of course, working there, the people that you work with as well. Yeah. And then I love kind of you guys are looking for some of those unique stories that haven't been told, you know? Yeah. There's definitely a lot of them. And one I had in my book is that I think we edited out just because of the word count was this one guy.

he's certain that all these people have been missing from the national parks. And he doesn't know if it's like aliens. So he's doing all this research. And in Yosemite, there was a airplane. I think it was like the 70s. That was just like full of marijuana and crashed way in the middle of Yosemite. And there was kind of like this gold rush by just random people to get to the plane. To get this one down.

Yeah, to get marijuana. Just funny stories like that, you know. Yeah. But you wouldn't think, but yeah, they happen. Speaking of just like a weird thing that you wouldn't totally know happens, you mentioned something in your book that just stuck out a lot to me because I had never heard of it before. And you said it's a top secret location and it's the compost dumping station in Yellowstone

and it's extremely dangerous to go there. Can you tell us slash me more about that? Because I was really interested when I read that. Yeah, it's the carcass dump. So it's where park rangers will dump the carcasses. Maybe it's because of road kill or like winter kill or the animal just dies. So what happens with Yellowstone because there's tons of grizzlies is if a lot of these carcasses will end up near like hiking trails or like scenic overlooks. So if we just leave the carcasses there, the bears are going to come and then you're going to have that human animal conflict.

So they like proactively move the carcasses to this one. dump site and I guess the grizzlies know it now so you know when they hear the truck coming and the engine I guess the grizzlies gather there because they know an elk is going to get dropped off or a bison and I still don't know where the location is but the rangers have to be armed because they say you can just like feel these eyes watching you and it's terrifying yeah so like one group unloads the carcass but the other is like standing watch like with their guns ready and so they'll come right out they won't even wait for your people people to leave. Well, I think they wait, but, you know, there's always the threat of like the

grizzly charging. Because it has to be sort of remote so people won't find it. Yeah. Yeah, I know. There was an elk that like died in this shallow river section near hiking trail and I went out with one of the law enforcement rangers to find out where it was and, you know, help put it on the truck. And just walking there is like very terrifying because you could smell the elk, quarter mile before you get there. And you know all the bears can smell. And it's been there for a couple days. So you're just ready for like a grizzly.

Because one of the reasons they attack is they're guarding a carcass. So that was definitely like terrifying for me. But luckily there was no bear on that carcass that day. Did you have any bear interactions in any of the parks that you've worked in? I did. Yeah. Luckily I didn't run into any grislies when I was hiking. But right when I got to Yellowstone, there was a grizzly on.

path to morning glory, which is a hot spring. And it was in between like a family. And so we had to sort of move the bear. And then another time a grizzly, old faithful is about to go off. And this juvenile grizzly just decided to run towards the crowd. So that was kind of crazy. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yosemite, there's a ton of black bears. And they're almost like friendly squirrels there. I mean, they're so like habituated to humans. There's a whole like bear brigade. team that they kind of just haze or move the black bears. Okay. Yeah, but luckily, they're not like that dangerous.

I mean, people should still, like, keep their distance. Yeah, like, don't try and touch them, but they're not as aggressive as grizzly bears. Yeah, and then here in the Teton's, there's definitely some grizzlies, most famously, like $3.99. She's over 20 years old and probably like the most famous grizzly in the world. And she gave birth to poor cubs, which is. like very unique and they all survived and now she's still you know running around with her four cubs and she'll probably like kick him out in the next year or so i had a grisly experience kind of

in the teetons when i was visiting i was camping over in the jenny lake campground and i was sleeping in just a tent out there and i woke up in the middle of the night and there was a grizzly right outside my tent and i could hear we didn't have any food thankfully it was just kind of going through the campsites, but it woke me up because I heard like the grunting and the, and it was not the most pleasant thing to wake up to, that is for sure. Yeah. So how did you handle that? Did you?

I stayed completely still and I didn't breathe and I just waited for it to leave. Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah. It left, thankfully, it just, because we didn't have anything. I don't even think we had taken food out because we had gotten in late and we literally just parked, set our tent up and went to bed. So I think it was just kind of walking.

and then it went into the next campsite and kept going. Sure. But it was definitely a scary thing to pick up to. Definitely would have been terrified. But good for you for like, you know, not having food in there. And at the parks out here, you can't even like leave food on your picnic table. Like say you have lunch and then you're going to go for a hike. It's just no food can be out in the open unless you're with it, which makes sense because of the bears.

And I did notice that everywhere they have those bear containers too, for your food. So you can keep everything there. We know you're short on sleep. We don't want to take up too much more of your time. But we do want you to tell everyone where they can find your book, follow you, follow your journeys and keep up with you. Yeah. Well, again, thanks so much for having me. I've had a great time. And as she alluded to, I just got off a 48-hour shift and we had a bunch of night calls. So yeah, I'm on like Instagram and Facebook. And my books, you can find them on Amazon or I really encourage people to like support the their local bookstore so they can order them. My first book is called Beneath Blossom Rain, and that's

about a trek I did in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. I kind of described that as like Bill Bryson's. I walk in the woods, set in the Himalayas. Obviously, it's not as good because he's an amazing writer, but it's a similar type of narrative style. And then my next book is about going to a paramedic school at UCLA in Los Angeles. So that's kind of just urban, a lot of action. And then, as you guys mentioned, And the most recent one is Wild Rescues about working as a paramedic in the National Park Service. Thank you so much for talking to us. And we really both enjoyed your book a lot. And it's been a lot of fun getting more of an insight from the author himself. Awesome. Thanks for all you guys are doing to keep people excited about the national parks. And yeah, I had a great time today. So thanks so much.

Thank you so much, Kevin, for talking to us today. That was awesome. That was so informative. And I feel like I learned a lot today. That was such a great conversation from someone who knows the park so intimately and see so many things that are going on all around us, but just as visitors, we're kind of blind to. Yeah, while we're hiking out or we're watching Old Faithful explode or whatever, we're having a good time. And in the background, we have paramedics that are saving lives a mile down the road from us and we don't even know.

So to talk to Kevin, who's inside these parks and doing all these great things, was just so much fun. And we just have such a huge respect for our first responders. and we just love the opportunity to be able to talk to them and to bring them to the forefront of how important they really are. If you enjoyed our conversation with Kevin today and want to learn more about his adventures as a paramedic in Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Teton's, be sure to go pick up his book, Wild Rescues, at your local bookstore or snag it on Amazon. Yeah, we had a really great time reading his book. It is so incredibly interesting, just listening to his story of how he got into being.

a paramedic to the experience that he got in the learning curve from his first job to going into the national park system. And then all of these calls that he goes on are so interesting and he does such a good job of making you feel like you're there with him and painting a really good picture of exactly what's going on. We'll add a link to buy it into the show notes and we'll add it to our book recommendation page on our website. So that's our entire first episode of People of the Parks. This is something that we do want to continue doing. How often we We don't have a set plan yet, but we will be doing another episode in the future. This is really fun and we definitely are planning to do more episodes like this.

And speaking of fun, so we started spooky season with a very fun giveaway. And we're going to end spooky season with another giveaway. Treats for everyone. So Kevin has been gracious enough to donate 10 of his books, Wild Rescues, for this giveaway. We are so, so thrilled to be partnering with him and a couple other really cool outdoor brands. We have a combination of food and outdoor gear, but starting with the food, yummy stuff. Fernway Food Company is first up. Fernway Food Company makes thoughtfully produced and packaged outdoor meals.

Trail butter, who makes perfectly spreadable calorie-dense trail food. And then we have food for the soul who makes delicious, vegan, backpacking meals. We even have a coffee company. They're called Hikers Brew, and they have Adventure Ready Trail Coffee with a sustainable mission, always a plus. And then lastly for the food, we have, if, you know, coffee's not your thing, you need as something with a little bit more of an edge. We've got Trail Tottie. So you can enjoy a delicious hot toddy wherever the trail may lead you. And then we have all our outdoor gear that also is part of this giveaway. So we have our friends over at Arcteric in Portland, Oregon. And we have three different ultra-light minimalist outdoor gear

companies that are giving special things away. We have Six Moon Designs, Chicken Tramper, Ultralight Gear, and Knawark Outdoors. And last but not least, we have Kula Cloth, which is the original antimicropial pee cloth for anyone who squats when they pee. So ladies, that's you. And guys, I mean, no judgment, but. Everyone could use a cloth. Everyone could use a cloth. Guys should use a cloth. Everyone use a cooler cloth.

Anyway. Get that out of there. Get that out of there. Anyway, all of this stuff is being given away in this giveaway. There's a bunch of rules and different tiers that we're not going to go fully into on this podcast because it'll get confusing. We are posting it on our Instagram. Everything that you need. Don't be there.

So go on to our Instagram National Park After Dark. If you are interested in being one of the winners, one of the many winners of the many winners of this giveaway. Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff that all of these companies are giving away. So if you want all the details, the breakdown of what each company is donating to this giveaway, please go on to the link in our bio, go check it out. And we wish the best of luck to everyone that enters, because this is a, this is the biggest giveaway. I think we've ever, I know what we've ever done. Yeah, there is up to almost $2,000 in merch and prizes, prizes, merch in this giveaway. And And it's all outdoor related.

So we're super stoked. Thank you. All of these cool companies. We're going to tag them all. You can go check them out, go follow them, go support them. They're a really good way to end our People of the Parks episode. So thanks for hanging in there. Like we said, we are very excited to get this segment going.

Kevin was an awesome guest. Many thanks again for coming on with us. That almost wraps up spooky season. Almost. Almost. We have maybe one more thing. One more spooky thing. All right, everybody. Well, we'll see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

But watch your back. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion of your own, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Come hang out with us on Patreon for monthly bonus episodes and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For exclusive discount codes, along with source information from today's episode, check out our show notes. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more, visit our website at npaddpodcast.com. And please

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