Veteran Park Ranger Disappears

FRESNO —  For 28 summers, ranger Randy Morgenson has worked the treacherous high country of Kings Canyon National Park, clearing rocks from trails, instructing hikers on the beauty and hazards of its alpine lakes and rescuing those inevitable few who misjudge their skills.

On July 21, Morgenson tacked a short note to the door of his solitary one-room cabin near Bench Lake at the 9,500-foot elevation: “I’m going on patrol. Back on the 24th.” He hasn’t been heard from since.

On Wednesday, 60 searchers crisscrossed the granite bowls and treeless scarps along the John Muir Trail beneath Mt. Whitney, looking for the veteran back-country ranger. With helicopters scanning from above and trained dogs sniffing the ground, they failed for the seventh consecutive day to turn up any hint of Morgenson. They now fear the worst.

“For a high-country ranger to disappear, especially one like Randy who’s so experienced, it’s very unusual,” Kings Canyon spokeswoman Malinee Crapsey said Wednesday. “We’ve had rangers with radio problems who lose contact for a day or two. But I cannot recall a search of this magnitude. Because Randy knows the countryside so well, he could be in any part of it and be in trouble.”

National Park Service officials said they could recall only one other instance when a ranger disappeared for an extended period of time. Paul Fugate, a ranger in Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona, was reported missing in the late 1970s and was never found.

For park rangers who have come to Kings Canyon from throughout the state, urgently trying to find the part of the mountain that might hold Morgenson, it is not unlike a police manhunt for a cop killer. The mystery strikes a bit too close to home.

And it is a mystery deepened by the knowledge that Morgenson had recently separated from his wife in Arizona and may have been depressed.

“We are looking at the separation as a big trauma in Randy’s life that may have had an effect on his state of mind,” said Randy Coffman, the park ranger heading the search. “But it’s also likely that it has no relevance at all.”

Morgenson’s service revolver, a .357 magnum, was found locked in a drawer in his cabin, Coffman said. Two hikers encountered the lean 54-year-old ranger with longish hair and a mountain-man beard on the John Muir Trail the day of his disappearance. They said he seemed to be in good spirits and encouraged them to continue their trek over the next daunting pass.

“We know one thing, for sure--this isn’t a search for a lost person,” Coffman said. “Randy knows this back country as well as anyone. He isn’t lost, he’s missing. And it’s either injury or something else that is keeping us from finding him, or him from finding us.”

Over the last three decades, Morgenson has built a solid reputation in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks as a friendly back-country ranger who could hold forth on the geologic origins of the cliffs above him, as well as on the scientific names of the flora that blossomed every spring.

For the past few years, his perch has been a small steel-framed and canvas-topped cabin two miles east of Bench Lake. A photographer by profession, Morgenson is one of 16 high-country rangers who work from July through October.

“I’ve been his supervisor since 1991,” Coffman said, “and I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard from visitors that they met a very nice and knowledgeable ranger in the back country, and they were describing Randy.”

Twice a day, the high-country rangers check in by radio with headquarters. On July 20, Morgenson called in and reported nothing unusual. For the next two days, he failed to check in and supervisors chalked it up to his practice of exploring the upper reaches of the high country, too high for radio contact.

Three days later, with still no word from Morgenson, the Park Service initiated a cursory search of the area. It was then that rangers found the short note tacked to the door that said he would be back July 24th. When he didn’t return, a more extensive search was launched.

“We are patrolling a 50-square mile area with elevations in the 12,000- and 13,000-foot range,” Crapsey said. “It is not an area crisscrossed with trails so you have to be nimble.”

A helicopter equipped with an infrared light spotted a campfire near the trail, but hopes were dashed when it proved to be that of a hiker.

“We go full out in any search but there is an added emotional aspect to this one,” Crapsey said. “Randy is one of us and he’s well liked. People are emotionally invested in finding him.”

The High Sierra weather has not been friendly, with two nights of thunderstorms and hail. Although the overnight temperatures have stayed above freezing, searchers said Morgenson might have suffered hypothermia if an injury caused him to lose body heat.

They said the area has plenty of creeks and lakes where he can get drinking water, provided that he is able to walk. “We haven’t given up hope on Randy but it’s apparent that he’s not moving around,” Coffman said. “We’ll continue for a while and hope to turn up a clue that will help.”

Morgenson’s wife, who lives in Cornville, Ariz., could not be reached for comment. The couple have no children, according to park officials.

Times environmental writer Frank Clifford contributed to this story.