It’s becoming a disturbing trend. Whenever I talk to rangers they provide misleading information. In the summer they tried to scary me away from Big Arroyo saying that the rivers were impassible, when in fact in was lower than knee high crossing even in the afternoon.
This weekend it just got ridiculous. Rangers in Lone Pine insisted that the Onion Valley road to is closed. I figured couple of extra miles is Ok and went there anyway. To my astonishment, not only there was no road block, but there was a NP Service vehicle at the trailhead! Seriously, do they know what their own people doing?

Were these desk rangers or ones that you happened to get ahold of that had been up there?

The most reliable places to talk to for conditions on the ground are often gear shops. That is where most folks wind up wandering through while in town. The nice folks at Wilson's and Mammoth Mountaineering have been very insightful in the past...

This has been an issue for quite some time. Rangers are more than useless for backcountry information, even counterproductive, destructive and dangerous with the level of false and misleading information they provide. This applies to both desk and backcountry staff.

We discussed this some time ago, I mentioned a backcountry ranger I can across in the Tetons that advised one of the passes would not be doable without an ice ax- they were even supposedly mandated the week before. We prompty ignored him, as I do anything that comes out of their mouths, and when we arrived I found a 50 foot wide snowfield that had a level boot track across it, a non issue. If that wasn't enough for you the field was easily bypassed altogether by wraping 100 feet below it on the talus.

Similar experiences in Inyo NF and the CA national parks. Years ago before I realized how invcompetent they were I asked one about the crossing of Bubb's Creek below East Lake in SEKI one May. He told us it was impassable and horses couldn't even do the crossing. We decided to make our own decisions, and turns out it was just over knee deep, freezing cold, but not anything that would turn back someone over 3 feet tall.

During the discussion a while back a few folks completely missed the point, saying the rangers were good people. No one said they were bad people though, we just said they were incompetent and completely useless with respect to getting accurate information. There are of course some areas where there are exceptions, such as those on Mount Shasta, but those are few and far between.

The "You can't go there....you'll die!" tactic really gets annoying. The rangers should assume that someone spending the time to contact rangers or FS is probably competent, not the other way around. We all see the yahoos out there so I understand what they have to through but give me a break. It would really be nice to have one of these staff at least pretend, one time, to be happy or excited for me.

It isn't complicated. They could just accurately say what the conditions are. No need to make bogus recommendations about advisable gear... just say how it is and then they would be of some use regardless of your skill level.

As it is they aren't useful for anyone. On that pass in the Tetons we encountered a girl that was complaining about the ice ax recommendation. She had ignored the advice too, in her case because she didn't know how to use one anyway.

I went to Tenaya Canyon in Yosemite last fall and just for fun decided to go ahead and get the permit (since I had the afternoon free- otherwise I'd have ignored it). The ranger had a concerned look on her face, but I made a point not to ask anything at all about the water levels. Nothing good would have come of that!

It isn't that they are too conservative, it is that they are flat out wrong and misleading.

FWIW, I have found the rangers at the North Cascades and Mount Rainier National parks to be generally very knowledgeable and helpful, as well as the rangers on Mt Shasta. If you want to improve the system, many National Parks have volunteer ranger programs. It may be a good education to see just how clueless many of the Parks' vistors are.

ExcitableBoy wrote:It may be a good education to see just how clueless many of the Parks' vistors are.

Clueless visitors doesn't create waist deep water in a stream where it is only knee deep for experienced visitors.

The desk rangers have to rely on people reporting conditions back to them. Conditions change quickly. If they had one report of high flow 2 weeks back, and no reports since, that's the report they will repeat. So if you encounter different conditions, report back to them, at least by phone.

MoapaPk wrote:The desk rangers have to rely on people reporting conditions back to them. Conditions change quickly. If they had one report of high flow 2 weeks back, and no reports since, that's the report they will repeat. So if you encounter different conditions, report back to them, at least by phone.

This is a point I am glad you made. Unless the rangers rotate BC and and desk duty, all they have to go on is visitor reports and reports from the last patrol. Some parks are vast and rugged with relatively few rangers to patrol to provide first person accounts. Certainly short and long term weather can change the flow of a river dramatically and quickly.

Still doesn't explain why the backcountry ranger in the Tetons I encountered on the trail was unaware of the conditions on the pass he had just been over, but still...

and how do we justify the experiences in the OP?

Are we at least all in agreement they provide unreliable information? So far that's how it appears.

mrchad9 wrote:Still doesn't explain why the backcountry ranger in the Tetons I encountered on the trail was unaware of the conditions on the pass he had just been over, but still...

and how do we justify the experiences in the OP?

Are we at least all in agreement they provide unreliable information? So far that's how it appears.

Agreed, the information is not always perfectly reliable, but from my experience some parks do a better job than others. North Cascades and Mount Rainier National parks and the Talkeetna Rangers run really good programs.

I agree with you there EB. As I mentioned they have a good crew on Shasta. My limited experience on Rainier was the same.

What confounds me is why those in the other parks and forests can't have the same level of performance. I suspect those on Shasta have to deal with a lot of incompetent visitors, but still they manage to provide worthwhile beta... even those behind a desk.

This thread was started as a result of bad info from Inyo NF, and I can confirm that they and those in Yosemite and SEKI are amongst the worst around. Oh the pains of living in California!

mrchad9 wrote:Are we at least all in agreement they provide unreliable information? So far that's how it appears.

Generally speaking, yes. However, because that is my general impression and because I usually tend to avoid employees while in parks, forests, and wilderness, I don't often test the theory. It is also rare that I attempt to help the situation by providing information to employees and volunteers, but some would pass on reliable information if given it. As mentioned there are areas that have very knowledgeable and helpful folks. Some even post reliable information on the website for their area. The type, reliability, and relevance of easily available information varies from place to place. There's a guy who makes a good attempt at providing information for the Trinity Alps who appreciates updates from wilderness visitors.

The solution to everything, especially hot air, is carbon offsets:

I personally haven't worked the front desk at all, but I have worked for the Forest Service in Bishop, CA and know people who have worked front desk.

MoapaPK is right, the front desk people are information only. They aren't paid to go out and do foot patrols, they don't have access to information about all road conditions brought in to them on a daily basis. Often times they're getting their information about trail conditions about people who actually take the time to come back in and let them know how things were on the trip. This is pretty rare (who wants to go back to the visitors center after your week long Sierra trip?) so they're often pretty well in the dark as to day to day conditions.

Another problem is the areas that they're covering are huge! Imagine trying to hike every single trail in the Inyo National Forest every week. Not only are we talking about your favorite trail but people come in asking about road conditions for obscure parts of the Forest. To be quite honest there are areas of the National Forests and Parks that might get traveled by a federal employee once every decade or less.

Yet another issue causing poor information would be that there's a jurisdictional issue. I know as a Forest Service employee I never stepped foot in SEKI, except for recreational purposes. So any information about SEKI comes from the two SEKI trailhead rangers who work in the east side visitor centers. They actually do get paid to go out and do foot patrols but again, with only a couple of days out in the park they have a limited vision of what's going on.

The SEKI trailhead rangers on the east side are seasonal employees and as a result the turnover is fairly high. It's pretty difficult for them to orient visitors and know conditions at a given time of year when they're still getting to know the area.

You'll find the backcountry rangers in SEKI to be extremely helpful. They've been there for years (decades sometimes) and essentially get paid to know the current conditions. Cuts in the Forest Service budget mean there are a lot fewer eyes and ears on public land than there used to be.

In reference to artirms post:
The NPS is a completely separate entity from the Forest Service (DOI vs USDA). They may have opened the gate up for a few days and not told any of the Forest Service employees. The front desk people are rarely kept abreast of what a particular department might be doing, especially if it's in SEKI.

Gafoto wrote:I personally haven't worked the front desk at all, but I have worked for the Forest Service in Bishop, CA and know people who have worked front desk.

Trust me, the problems these people are facing are fully appreciated. Never I expected them to be intimately familiar with every little corner of the wilderness. So if they just told me that they did not know what the conditions were, I'd been absolutely fine with that. Guys at Whitney Portal Hostel did exactly that: just shrugged and said they hadn't been up there for about two weeks.

As for the info from hikers, in my experience little attention is paid to the news brought to front desk by people coming back from wilderness. Best I saw was a nod an a vague "aha.." I just assumed they have other means of collecting info.

And, like many people pointed out, that does not seem to be a universal problem for all National and State parks. Excellent job done in Baxter SP in Main comes to my mind.