A long time ago, we did a ranger led snowshoe hike in Yosemite. I don't remember anything the ranger said or exactly where we went. I just remember how magical it felt to be able to be out there. No one else was out and about; it was just 4 of us including the ranger. It was the highlight of the trip. That, and stepping outside the cabin in the morning to see chunks of ice flowing in the creek/river just below one of the falls.

We visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield in 2006 and greatly enjoyed a battle talk given by one the seasonal rangers who also teaches at a college in Texas. Very informative and entertaining. My husband and I still talk about it and would like to hear it again.

We visited Glacier on the same trip and took a hike with a ranger (I think his name was Denver) who introduced us to thimbleberries. My kids loved them and I think they will always remember that hike.

Two summers ago when I was volunteering at the Ranger Museum in Yellowstone, I attended an evening program at the small camground at Norris Junction. The topic for the evening had to do with the history of Yellowstone NP. The seasoal interpretive ranger giving the talk was also a concert violinst and brought his instrument to the campfire circle. At various times throughout his talk, he would say something like this: "During the time the US Army patrolled Yellowstone before the creation of the National Park Service, they always had a fiddler. If you had been a soldier, this is what you might have heard." He then played a fiddle tune on his violin. He did this several times throughout the program, playing music that his audience might have heard when the concession employees put on evening entertainment for visitors or music they might have heard after WWII when parks tried to lure visitors back.

I estimate that I attended 200 or so evening campfire programs during my career with the NPS--even gave some myself. I thought I had seen everything, but this experience proved I hadn't. I had seen guitars at evening programs but never a violin. The audience loved it!! It was a program to remember.

Rick Smith

While visiting Mintue Man in Mass. we went on a tour of the Wayside House. The Ranger (Ed Wilder, I believe) was so passionate about his talk. He made the place come alive. He knew his stuff and shared it with great intensity. If you had not read Alcott and Hawthorne before the tour, you would certainly be reading these authors after the tour. Ed did an absolutely fantastic job.

We also attended a Ranger talk on hiking in the Grand Canyon. The Ranger brought different tents, different water bottles, etc etc all to explain the options of hiking in the canyon. He was extremely informative and interesting to listen to.

One of my most interesting programs wasn't given by an NPS employee, instead it was one of the photographers from the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Valley. She had a great way of not only explaining how to take a great photo but also interpreting the Adams' photo we were trying to duplicate. She really brought the topic to life.

I don't know about fascinating, but I do have some memories that particularly stick out.

I remember an "experienced" ranger leading a cave tour at Timpanagos Cave National Monument. He said something about how he'd been monitoring the growth of a piece of limestone since the 1940s, so I asked him how long he'd been working there. The said that he'd been a seasonal ranger there for every year since 1944 or 1945, and I took the tour in 2006.

Once I went on a walk on the subject of trees in Yosemite. The ranger was talking about mutations, and pointing to his red hair he noted that red hair was a mutation.

Of course talking about bears is always fascinating, especially when it's Shelton Johnson with a bear skill and complete bear skin:

And those Yosemite snowshoe walks are quite fun too:

Has anyone encountered Stewart Fritts at the Grand Canyon?

I still remember a talk he gave to our group more than 22 years ago. It was a brilliant presentation with rapid transitions of scenic mood slides shown while reciting a long thread of pertinent quotes from the works of Shakespear interspersed with interesting fables, outright lies, and tall tales, entitled "William Shakespear comes to the Grand Canyon." The talk was a sensation. I remember it well to this very day, including the mule-like body language mimicked by Mr. Fritts when describing the uncanny preference of Grand Canyon mules to walk on the outer edge of the switchbacks of the South Kaibab Trail. Mr. Fritts dedicated his talk to improving literacy in the USA.

Then, on New Years Day 2008, I had a chance encounter with Mr. Fritts in front of the Bright Angle Lodge on the South Rim. He was leading a hike on the rim discussing the legend and legacy of the pioneering female architect, Mary Jane Colter. The attendance of his guided walk increased as he walked from structure to structure describing Ms. Colter's influence and attention to architectual detail, including the Bright Angel stone fire place made with rock from each geological formation of the Grand Canyon, and the Bright Angel guest cabins that were intentionally designed as architectual hybrids of wood and stone rustics and New Mexico pueblo. I recall that he mentioned that Mary Colter never married. Supposedly she had extremely very high standards in all aspects of work and life, but no man was interesting nor intelligent enough to be suitable as her soul mate. Stewart Fritts concluded his walk by telling everyone his dream and his wish: To be reincarnated to a former time so that he could ask Ms. Colter out on a date!

Other special interpretive events that come to mind worth mentioning here are:

(a) A campfire program at Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite under the stars with just fire, smoke, song, and stories for entertainment and enlightenment conducted by the duo leadership of legendary NPS park ranger-naturalists Dr. Carl W. Sharsmith and Will Neely.

(b) A 7-day loop hike through the High Sierra Camps with Dr. Sharsmith in the lead.

(c) A geology talk presented by a 25-year veteran interpreter at Bryce Canyon who gave an outdoor presentation early last month about the formation of hoodoos. She used multiple displays with rock samples, maps, graphs, and sugar cubes to demonstrate how the complex ingredients of rock chemistry, faults, uplift, jointing, freezing and thawing have made Bryce unique among all other landscapes in the desert southwest and why it is that Powell Point, although made of the same rock formation, does not have the same density and abundance of hoodoos that exist at Bryce Canyon. She distinguished the hoodoos by age, concluding that the rim of the canyon that we were standing on contained hoodoo fetuses yet to be born!

(d) Listening to the curator of Hubbell Trading Post, Ed Chamberlain, give a special one-time evening campfire presentation to campers at Canyon De Chelly National Monument in 2006. His presentation was on his experience as a park service anglo-American living among the Navajo. During this talk he told many stories, including one joke in the Navajo language. I distinctly remember that as he approached the end of his joke, the Navajo in the audience broke out in laughter, but the rest of us remained silent until he stopped to interpret what he had just said in English.

Owen Hoffman
Oak Ridge, TN 37830