Jeff Darren Muse

A Fearsome Crest

Featured in Dear Park Ranger: Essays on Manhood, Restlessness, and the Geography of Hope

This selection draws from “SAR Talk,” an essay originally published in The Common. “SAR Talk” grew from a brief entry in my field journal—a gut check of sorts—on August 28, 2008, as I staffed the Wilderness Information Center for North Cascades National Park:

“When I arrived for my shift this morning, a search and rescue operation, a ‘sar,’ was underway. Two climbers on Spire Point are stuck on an eighteen-inch ledge after losing most of their rope and camping gear—and now freezing. It’s the remote tail of the Ptarmigan Traverse, a spot between Sentinel and Dome peaks most people reach only by mountaineering for several days. A fearsome crest. The Pacific Crest. Waters spill east toward the Columbia River or west to Puget Sound. Yet if you get high enough with a straight shot at a cell tower, your phone might work, as it did for those climbers this morning. They called 911, who in turn called us, the Park Service.”

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