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The disturbing death of Ranger Randy Morgenson in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

Randy Morgenson Sequoia and Kings Canyon national park disappearance

Randy Morgenson, disappeared July 21, 1996. Remains found July 2001, Window Peak drainage, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, California.

Revised July 2024

Randy Morgenson, 64, was midway through his 28th season as a backcountry ranger at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. He was the most senior ranger in the High Sierra and had unparalleled experience in the wilderness.

On July 21, 1996, he left a note on his tent (the date he'd written was June 21st, even though it was July) to say he would be away for two or three days. Randy departed his station near Bench Lake, leaving behind his Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. Randy was never seen alive again.

Randy was sick and tired of what he called "Swinus Americanus”, the species of backpacking tourist whose litter he had to pick up and whose foul temper could be the bane of his existence.

This is a case of adultery and death in the High Sierra wilderness involving one of the most experienced seasonal park rangers that has ever worked in the National Park Service. A tale that would ultimately lead to a sad end.

What are the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks?

Kings Canyon National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada in California. It includes Kings Canyon, a glacier-carved valley more than a mile (1,600 m) deep, several 14,000-foot (4,300 m) peaks, high mountain meadows, fast-flowing rivers, and some of the world's largest stands of giant sequoia trees.

Kings Canyon is to the north and adjacent to Sequoia National Park, and the National Park Service jointly administers the two as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Sequoia National Park is in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California and has 404,064 acres, with Mount Whitney at 14,505 feet (4,421 m) above sea level within its boundary. The park is famous for its giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree on Earth. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five of the ten largest trees in the world.

The combined Pacific Crest Trail/John Muir Trail, a popular backpacking route, traverses the park's entire length from north to south. It is estimated that 99 per cent of the park’s backcountry visitors stay on designated trails, which means that most of the park's landscape is left to backcountry rangers.

Who was Randy Morgenson?

Randy Morgenson Sequoia and Kings Canyon national park disappearance and death

Randy Morgenson was a seasonal ranger for the National Park Service (NPS), which meant he had to reapply for his job every season with no medical benefits or retirement plan. Out of fourteen backcountry rangers, more than half who reported for duty in 1996 had been coming back every summer for more than a decade, many for two decades. They, indeed, weren't in it for the money, and it is often said that Rangers like Randy were paid in sunsets. In the event of death in service, their families were eligible for a one-off $100,000 payment but no pension.

Gordon Wallace, one of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ earliest backcountry rangers during the 1930s, had summed up the dilemma by warning future rangers, “Do not come and roam here unless you are willing to be enslaved by its charms. Its beauty, peace and harmony will entrance you. Once it has you in its power, it will never release you for the rest of your days.”

Randy hated garbage discarded by visitors to the park's pristine wilderness, dubbed “backpacker detritus” by Morgenson. He would haul gunny-sacks full of it out of the backcountry on regular occasions while checking out the backcountry.

In his 1973 McClure Meadow log, he wrote, “All of your life, someone is pointing the way, directing you this way and that, determining for you which road is best traveled. Here is your chance to . . . be adventuresome. Don’t forever seek the easiest way. Take the way you find. Don’t demand trail signs and sturdy bridges. Don’t demand we show you the mountains. Seek them and find them yourself. . . This is your birthright as an animal, most commonly denied you. Be free enough from intentions to find goodness wherever you are and in whatever is happening. Here for once in your life you . . . can now live by whim. . . Here’s your one chance to get lost, fall in the creek, find a beautiful place.”

The 1996 Season at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park

Before the start of the 1996 season, Randy seemed depressed to colleagues, saying, "You know, after all these years of being a ranger, I wonder if it's been worth it." This was not surprising since Randy had recently received divorce papers from his wife, Judi. For many years, she had joined him in the backcountry, but in recent years, she had decided not to accompany him. Randy had recently had an affair with a fellow ranger, Lo Lyness, and this was the consequence.

He had told a close friend and fellow ranger that, at times, he felt suicidal. On July 20, 1996, he had radioed the same colleague and his wife to ask some mundane questions that they interpreted as "Randy just wanting somebody to talk to." The short conversation ended when Randy abruptly said, "I won't be bothering you two anymore." Randy left his camp the next day, never to be seen alive again.

Morgenson at Tyndall Creek Ranger Station in 1988

The disappearance of Randy Morgenson and search

Bench Lake Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park with Arrow Peak

Randy was always known to have a low impact on the environment, but the rain during that period in late July meant that his exact direction and destination were unknown.

Ranger Rick Sanger was just a second-year backcountry ranger when he failed to check in by radio for several days; Rick hiked through the night to his mentor’s duty station at Bench Lake and discovered a note confirming he was overdue from a cross-country patrol. He was reported missing on July 25, 1996.

The news spurred one of the most intense and emotionally draining search-and-rescue operations in National Park Service history, mainly because the rangers were searching for one of their own.

The incident commander, Randy Coffman, instructed the Rangers to search for Randy and read Morgenson's logbook to gather hints about where he had gone. He also conducted a secret ballot amongst them to assign each segment of the search area a POA (Probability of Area) and then a ROW (Rest of World) probability if Randy was outside the designated search area. The percentage points assigned by each ranger for 16 segments plus the ROW segment had to add up to 100 points. Nobody could assign a zero for any area.

The Bench Lake Basin area had the highest percentage POA at 26.2%, while Marion Lake and its surrounding cirque had the second highest at 19.2%. The ROW option was voted as the lowest POA by everybody except Ranger George Durkee, a close friend, who assigned that choice a high percentage, knowing Randy’s depressive thoughts at the time. Each segment was between 500 and 7000 acres, making the operation difficult and hazardous for rescuers. What if Randy didn't want to be found?

Nearly 100 rescue personnel searched in 80 square miles of wilderness. They hoped his radio was not working because it was in a dead zone on the mountain or had broken. A short time before his disappearance, Randy's radio had stopped working, and he was forced to hike to another station to pick up a replacement.

A Special Investor employed by the park service found out that Randy had been threatened with violence on two separate recent occasions, but both of these individuals had alibis. Some speculated he had just left the park to start a new life, but Randy's car was found where he'd parked it. Bank records showed no withdrawals, and his credit cards were unused.

The computer program CASIE (Computer-Aided Search Information Exchange) was used and designed to simplify most of the calculations involved in managing a search emergency. A computer printout provides basic information about how each segment has been searched (air, foot, dog, horse) and how effective the searchers believe they were in clearing that area. Using this method, the search leader can cross off search segments once they have been cleared. However, the system presumes the missing person is not on the move and has not re-entered an area already cleared. In addition, segment searches are generally limited to surface areas–meaning they don't factor in locations underwater, underground, or under a rockslide.

Over the following days, there was plenty of frustration as dogs followed scents that seemed to stop abruptly, and random pieces of gear were found in several different locations. Still, none could be positively linked to Randy. A FLIR helicopter equipped with an infrared camera picked up a campfire burning on a hillside but with no one in sight tending it. Eventually, the search was called off with no sign of Randy or a body.

Then, a letter arrived at Randy and Judi's Morgenson's home in Sedona, Arizona. Surprisingly, it was from Randy. Judy opened the letter and noted it had been postmarked two days after his apparent disappearance. Since there is no postal service in the national park, she couldn't understand how Randy could have mailed this letter. That added to the suspicions that had left the area to start a new life away from the NPS.

Thirteen days after Randy was reported missing in early August 1996, the official search, which included helicopters, dog teams, and dozens of volunteers, was called off. No trace of Randy had been found, not even a footprint.

Remains found in 2001

The snow cave where Randy Morgenson’s radio was found

Finally, in July 2001, five years after the search for Randy was called off, a 19-year-old California Conservation Corps trail-building crew member ventured off the trail and found some remains.

The worker found some new evidence near a creek in a gorge in the Window Peak drainage, near the outermost borders of the search area, below the pools of a waterfall.

Rangers were called in and soon discovered a tattered shirt with Morgenson's badge, a backpack with the buckle fastened, and a boot. On close examination of the boot, half-submerged in water, something white protruded from it—a leg bone. The boot and pack seemed to match the description of gear that Randy reportedly had been using.

Investigation and recovery teams were flown in. Shortly after, a functioning, park-issue radio was discovered resting on top of the falls, not at the bottom like the other evidence. It was turned to the on position. This discovery confused matters even more. Although these remains seemed to confirm Randy had been in the mountains the whole time, investigators weren't sure whether this was where Randy had died. Rangers had remembered searching this gorge and crossing at the exact spot where the radio was found.

Retired Sierra subdistrict ranger Alden Nash believes Morgenson had fallen through a snow bridge and broken his leg, and his body had been hidden beneath ice throughout the search. Weirdly, during the rescue attempt in 1996, Judi had dreamed of a dead man floating in a lake.

"I don't think it was an accident," says Eric Blehm, author of The Last Season, a book about the disappearance of Randy Morgenson (well worth a read). Blehm says Randy may have wanted to appear to have died on the job to make sure Judi, his wife at the time, got her $100,000 benefit from the government, a policy not honored in the case of suicide. "If he wanted to throw off the dogs or sucker people into believing something happened, he did a great job," Blehm says. "After so many years, with the bones gnawed, there's no way to say exactly what happened."

In memory of Randy Morgenson- Mt. Morgenson

In memory of Randy, the unofficial Mt. Morgenson is the first peak west of Mt. Russell, 0.5 miles away, and just north of Mt. Whitney. Mt. Morgenson should be distinguished from the West Peak of Mt. Russell (the higher of Russell’s twin summits, separated by only 0.1 miles).

Two park veterans took a summit register named “Mount Randy Morgenson, 13,920’” to the top in 2007.

A peak bagger named Richard Piotrowski found the original register missing when he climbed Mt. Morgenson on September 20, 2008. He placed a temporary one that day and made a huge effort to return to the summit one week later with a weatherproof ammo can and a replacement journal. Barely a handful of people, if any, sign it each year.

Before these registers, the peak was referenced only by its height on USGS maps: “Peak 4245 m (13,920+ ft).”

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