4 * * * * ir "OA, Ranger!" 



ing the winter. Just try living alone for a hundred days at a stretch! 

 Strangely enough, these are the months that the rangers love best. 

 Out near the mountain tops, with snows piled from five to forty feet in 

 drifts, they lead their lone existence, patrolling their domains, as large 

 almost as some eastern states, traveling on skiis and snowshoes, repair 

 ing telephone lines, protecting wild animals from poachers, maintaining 

 the peace of the wilderness through storm and blizzard. For as long as 

 six months at a time, winter holds most of the national parks in her icy 

 grip, with weather below zero, with freezing winds, blizzards, and 

 snowstorms alternating around the tiny log fortresses, the cabins, from 

 which the rangers make their patrols. During those long, cold winter 

 months, the higher levels of the parks are closed to travel, and the 

 ranger's main job is to see that his charges in the great wild-life sanctu 

 ary are protected, both from humans and from the elements. It takes 

 men of great courage, stamina, and endurance for this most difficult 

 work. 



On winter patrol, the men must be able to endure such privation as 

 was faced by Ranger Liek, now superintendent of Mount McKinley 

 National Park, in Alaska. Liek was once lost for twenty hours in a 

 raging blizzard while returning on snowshoes from Upper Yellowstone. 

 For hours on end the storm raged, destroying every sign by which the 

 ranger could find his trail. Only by keeping on doggedly could he avoid 

 freezing to death. It was, of course, impossible to build a fire in the 

 blizzard. He crossed his own tracks many times, and was hopelessly lost 

 when he came finally to a shoreline which he recognized as Yellowstone 

 Lake. He must have traveled at least forty miles in covering a distance 

 of twelve miles, before he reached a ranger station, where he could pro 

 vide himself with food, shelter, and warmth. 

 "It's all in the day's work," says the ranger. 



Whenever possible, two rangers patrol together in the deep snow 

 country, so that if one is hurt or taken ill, the other can render aid or go 

 for help. In the northern national parks, great precautions must be 

 taken to protect the rangers during the winter. The ranger stations are 



about twenty miles apart ; in no case more 

 than thirty miles apart. Between each sta 

 tion, there are snowshoe cabins, which are 

 rationed in the fall and are equipped with 

 bedding and wood and kindling. Some 

 times these cabins are completely buried 

 beneath the snow. To provide landmarks 

 by which to locate the cabins, the rangers 

 often put up many extra feet of stovepipe 

 or hang a shovel in a tree top near-by. One 



