Valentine's Day: A Grand Canyon Romance —BTS Podcast 9

• Valentine's Day: A Grand Canyon Romance … Times Three — Behind the Scenery Podcast #9

  
  

  At age 17, future park ranger Doug’s parents dropped him off at the South Rim of Grand Canyon. He got a job with Fred Harvey working as a bus boy at El Tovar Hotel. How did this experience shape his life, and what are his three distinctive canyon-influenced loves and romances?

  Credit / Author:

  Doug Crispin

  Date created:

  02/14/2021

  Audio Transcript

  Good day, and welcome. My name is Becca. I am a National Park Service ranger, working at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.

  Today I would like to share with you a Canyon Cut brought to us by Ranger Doug.

  Ranger Doug has a story to share … a story of love, romance, and the Grand Canyon. The title is: CANYON CONNECTIONS A Canyon Romance … Times Three!

  I will let ranger Doug introduce himself. This … is his story.

  My name is Doug Crispin. I’m 68 years old and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

  This is a story of my first visit to the Grand Canyon. I was 17. This was like the Chevy Chase classic station wagon family visit to the Grand Canyon. We left Southern Calif there actually three generations of us including our Grandma. She didn’t ride on the roof! She actually rode in the passenger compartment. The family ended up at Mather Point for the first time. We walked out. I can specifically remember looking down into the abyss and thinking “wow, This is awesome, this is great. The Grand Canyon is just really really cool.

  So I asked my parents … just drop me off and leave me. Which they did!

  But the back story is I went into the employment office and Fred Harvey, the park concessionaire, and I got a job working as a Bus Boy at the famous El Tovar hotel. Then I asked my parents to “drop me off and leave me”, which they did! And I spent the rest of my summer living and working at the Grand Canyon. How cool is that?

  Now, the job itself, you know, wasn’t very good: busing tables, and working six days a week, split shifts, take home pay 93 cents an hour.

  But, I got to live and work at the Grand Canyon so I told my roommate, Elmer, I said, we get off work at 10 o’clock tonight. And we have one day. Let’s hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

  We loaded up our packs, and we headed straight down the Canyon when we got off work. Got down to the river maybe 2, 3, 4 in the morning, something like that. Had a quick snooze on the beach and then continued all the way down to Phantom Ranch. I can remember stripping off our clothes and jumping into the swimming pool located at Phantom Ranch.

  Looking all the way back up to the rim and thinking “wow, this is great, this is the life. Swimming at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.”

  Now we couldn’t enjoy it for too long, because we had to hike all the way back up and go to work the next day, which we did. But after my summer work season ended, I stayed on for another four days. And this time I took a more leisurely trip, all the way down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Camping the night at Indian Gardens, as well as Phantom Ranch. And more swimming in the Phantom Ranch swimming pool. Loving life!

  After … when it was time for me to go back home, I handed my camera to a tourist along the canyon rim. And I said, now watch … I’ll give you a signal and I want you to take my picture.

  Then I carefully climbed over the rim, which you are not supposed to do these days, I had found a little limestone opening, a natural rock arch and I crawled down over the rim, sat crossed-legged in this opening and I waved at the tourist and he took a couple pictures of me.

  Because I had a plan.

  I wanted to use that picture of me at the rim of the Grand Canyon for my senior Yearbook picture. It didn’t make the scrutiny, unfortunately, of my Yearbook Committee. But nevertheless, I didn’t care. It was my senior class picture taken at the Grand Canyon.

  I made small little copies, wrote corny sentiments on the back like seniors do, and handed it out to all my high school friend.

  That introduced me to the idea of living and working in the Grand Canyon which I thought … or in any national park, which I thought was pretty cool at the time. Now a few months later, on Veterans Day, I talked a few of my friends into driving all the way out, in November, to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time for three of my buddies. Now we needed a place to stay, and again, don’t do this today, it’s not legal, but I found a small, abandoned miner’s tunnel just below the rim, not too far from the El Tovar Hotel … maybe a mile away. And that’s where the four of us rolled out our sleeping bags. And for Veterans Day weekend in 1969, we slept in an abandoned miner’s tunnel. Had a great time. All my friends loved the Grand Canyon. And were very envious of me getting to spend the summer there in the park.

  Two years later I talked a friend of mine into hiking rim to rim to rim, which we did. And on our way up from the South Rim headed towards the North Rim, we camped at Cottonwood Campground. I was 19, my friend was 18 which put us at prime draft age as the Vietnam War was still raging in 1971. I was politically opposed to the Vietnam War, but, you know, if my draft number came up, then I would be faced a very important life decision. What’s going to happen? As luck would have it, the draft lottery selection occurred while we were at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. And spending a night in Cottonwood Campground, we met some hikers who had just hiked down from the North Rim. And they had a current newspaper with them that they were getting ready to burn in their campfire. We snagged that newspaper from them and we were able to look up our draft numbers as they had printed the draft lottery results. And that is where I found out, that my name would probably NOT going to show up on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington DC, which today contains over 58,000 names. So I have a very close attachment and affinity to Cottonwood Campground, in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, cause in a way, that kind of saved… may have saved my life, and saved me from going to Vietnam.

  I was starting to acquire and … an affection and a love for the Grand Canyon at a very early age.

  On that rim to rim to rim hike, I collected a small bottle of Colorado River, dirty, muddy, water as we crossed over it the second time. I took that back and had it for all these years at my college desk. Occasionally I would shake up this bottle and turn it all muddy. And a day or two later, I would see all that Colorado River sediment had settled out at the bottom. And that’s how I kind of remained connected to the Grand Canyon during my college years.

  Now when I graduated from college, I still on my mind, on the idea of working for parks as a possible career. I worked in another park concession job, I worked as a volunteer national park ranger, I worked park maintenance jobs, and eventually worked my way up to a permanent national park ranger job, which was, you know, a childhood dream of mine. In 1979 I started dating a former Grand Canyon National Park summertime ranger who had worked at Desert View as a fee collector. I met her working in parks in South East Utah. We started dating. And we started building a romance.

  A couple months after we started dating in ‘79, I got accepted in 1980, to go to the National Park Ranger school located at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I was so impressed, my girlfriend would drive 250 miles, one way, from SE Utah, to visit me on her weekend. I thought that was a very special women that would do something that … just to see her new boyfriend. We continued to grow spiritually together, we started to have a spiritual connection to the lands of the American Southwest, the peoples, and the stories. And two years after my Grand Canyon ranger school, my friend contacted me and said “hey, I have permit to take rafts through the Grand Canyon. I am planning a 23-day trip. I would like to know if you and your girlfriend would to join me? I am only taking seven people, and six of the seven or either current or former national park rangers?” I said “heck, yea man, let’s go.”

  So that was a wonderful time to spend together, my girlfriend and I. Twenty-three days sleeping on a tent on sand bars, doing day hikes, fighting the rapids, and enjoying the Grand Canyon as only the way that rafters can.

  And two years after that I proposed to my wife and we actually got married, standing right on the rim of the Grand Canyon. A place called Shoshone Point. I can truthfully say that was one of the happiest days of my life.

  After getting married on the South Rim, we drove all the way to the North Rim spent our first honeymoon night together in a cabin at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. And we continued to spiritually connect with each other and the Grand Canyon.

  A short time after that, I did leave the National Park Service, I moved to Oregon, and we bought a house. We had a child and we started a family life. Eventually I retired from my State of Oregon job. My wife recently retired from her career in education and we started making plans together like retired couples do. My wife remained healthy for about three weeks, and then she got sick and suddenly died about four months later. And that happened last year, which, you now, obviously, completely turned my whole life upside down.

  So … people have different ways of dealing with grief and loss. How do I deal with it? Well the first thing I did was I shaved off all of the hair on my head. I couldn’t look in the mirror and picture myself as the same person again. I wanted everybody to know whenever they looked at me that I wasn’t the same person again. I had suffered too serious a loss. Grief, kind of like your hair slowly growing back … maybe it could help get through this loss and grief, you know, about as fast as your hair grows, which isn’t very fast. And then last year, on the Anniversary of our wedding, I made a pilgrimage to Shoshone Point. And walked out there. Sat quietly by myself on the very end, had a quiet moment. I said a prayer for my wife and thought of those 40 great years that we had together.

  But, I was facing an uncertain future. Or, you know, some people said no future. You know, you lost … I lost my life partner. My whole life had been turned upside down. So I was contemplating: what should I do with my life?”

  Grief counselors usually say don’t make any radical or sudden decisions after you suffer a loss. I had made the decision that I did not want to lose my national park career. That’s my third love in life. Let me backtrack a little bit. You know, I had an early exposure to the Grand Canyon and what park work may be. I started at the very bottom working my way up, and eventually, you know, served in five different national parks in five different Western states. And I was a career national park ranger in two separate national parks. When I left the National Park Service and moved to Oregon, I continued in my park career. I was an Oregon State Park ranger. I stayed in the profession. A total of 25 years I worked as an Oregon State Park ranger. And I retired … when I retired from that job, with my wife’s blessings, I returned to working as a summertime ranger for the national parks.

  And since I retired, it was 11 summers ago, I’ve worked in eight different national parks. So if you put all that together, my career has taken me to about a dozen Oregon State Parks, 13 national parks. I have been in the park profession for a total of 48 years. I did not want to lose that profession. I had already lost my life.

  I love working as a park ranger because I am helping to preserve the best of America. Some people call national park rangers “America’s Storytellers”. They’re guardians of nature, and of history, and of culture. You know, there are many great professions in the world … you can go into medicine, you can go into education, but I like to call park rangering one of the last great American professions. And I did not want to lose that.

  I made the drastic decision after my wife died, I’m going to sell our family house, which we had lived in for 25 years, and devest myself of all of my worldly possessions. I took some duct tape, I measured off a 4’ by 7’ rectangle in the garage, which is the size of my pickup truck bed, and whatever I wanted to keep in my life after my wife died, I put it in that little rectangle. If it didn’t fit in my truck, I ether sold it or gave it away or otherwise got rid of it.

  I worked with my supervisors … my old national park. They wanted me back. They said, you know, “take whatever time you need for grieving.” I said “the sooner I could get back, the better, cause that will be a measure of normalcy in my life.” Because I like doing the ranger walks, I like giving the ranger talks, leading the tours, giving the campfire programs in the campground. Giving out hiking advice to people in the visitor center. Helping the park visitors being connected to the parks. I was very anxious to get back to that national park lifestyle.

  This year is 51 years since I worked as a bus boy at the Grand Canyon. So in a way, you know, I have come full circle with my life. Bookends. Started my career now I am working as a summertime park ranger here at the North Rim of Grand Canyon. In a way, I feel I am honoring the memory of my wife. And, I am rekindling, and keeping alive my park connections by wearing my ranger hat every day.

  Some people say “ranger Doug, you know, why do you keep doing this? You’re Age 68, you have Social Security, you’re on Medicare, you don’t need this for finances. Why do you keep coming back? And I tell them, because, you know, I’m surrounded every day by inspirational scenery. There are very powerful stories in the national parks concerning the people, and the places, and the times. And I want to be part of sharing that story with the American public.

  And, let me just give you an example of how special national parks are and how they have been so special in my life.

  I have witnessed Old Faithful geyser erupt 350 times. I have hiked to see Rainbow Natural Bridge 91 times, hidden in a remote corner of Southeast Utah. I have seen wolves, grizzly bears and moose, sometimes in the same week, at Grand Teton National Park. And for a whole month as a volunteer ranger, I fell asleep every night in my tent, to the sound of Yosemite Falls, off in the distance. And I’ve climbed wooden ladders, stone steps, and I’ve entered Cliff Palace cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park, a total of 142 times. And sat there and admired this ancient village and the story represented by these folks. And today, I enjoy a Grand Canyon sunset every day. It is a part of my life. The park ranger profession is my third love and it allows me to have these and many other unique and special experiences.

  What would I say to the person contemplating coming out to visit the Grand Canyon, or any national park for the first time? You know, I would say Go for It. Give the Grand Canyon a chance. Or any other national park. You know, the Grand Canyon doesn’t care about your race, your age, your gender, your economic situation. It doesn’t care what your immigration status is, your sexual orientation. You know, just stand by the rim of the Grand Canyon and gaze into it. Watch the sunset on the rim.

  Be inspired. Be wowed. You know, be humbled. We need places like this in America, where, I like to say, you can recharge your emotional and your spiritual batteries. Will visiting the Grand Canyon for the first time change your life? Probably not. But it could! You know it happened to me.

  My name is ranger Doug, I’m a park ranger at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and I approve this story and message.

  Before we go, we have a final invitation for you. Think about somebody you know. Somebody in your life. When the time is right, set aside a moment with that person. And ask. Ask them to share a story about their life. Then listen.

  This has been a Grand Canyon National Park micro podcast. A Canyon Cut

  Entitled CANYON CONNECTIONS A Canyon Romance … Times Three!

  I’m ranger Becca. Ranger Doug, thank you for sharing your story and your voice. And to all those listening, near and far, thank you for your time.

Behind the Scenery Podcast

Hidden forces shape our ideas, beliefs, and experiences of Grand Canyon. Join us, as we uncover the stories between the canyon’s colorful walls. Probe the depths, and add your voice for what happens next at Grand Canyon!

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