Nature Noir : A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra

“A nature book unlike any other...peppered with gritty, anti-romantic, all-too-real tales of cops ’n’ bad guys in the great outdoors.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune Jordan Fisher Smith’s startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat—a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded—brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he both portrays the breathtaking natural world around him and reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands. “Gloriously unlike anything I’ve ever read before...gives entree into a strange, dark, and mesmerizing outdoor world that's absolutely unforgettable.”—The Boston Globe “By turns funny, poignant and surprising...an intimate memoir of the career of a state-park ranger. Not just any ranger, but one with a wicked pen, patrolling a doomed landscape.”—Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer “Compelling...refreshingly unsentimental.”—Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams “Smith offers a fresh perspective on our threatened environment...Nature Noir reflects the spirit of an era as did Desert Solitaire.”—Charlotte Observer “A nature book unlike any other...peppered with gritty, anti-romantic, all-too-real tales of cops ’n’ bad guys in the great outdoors.”— The San Diego Union-Tribune Jordan Fisher Smith’s startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat—a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded—brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he both portrays the breathtaking natural world around him and reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands. “Gloriously unlike anything I’ve ever read before...gives entree into a strange, dark, and mesmerizing outdoor world that's absolutely unforgettable.”— The Boston Globe “By turns funny, poignant and surprising...an intimate memoir of the career of a state-park ranger. Not just any ranger, but one with a wicked pen, patrolling a doomed landscape.”— Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer “Compelling...refreshingly unsentimental.”—Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams “Smith offers a fresh perspective on our threatened environment... Nature Noir reflects the spirit of an era as did Desert Solitaire .”— Charlotte Observer

Nature Noir is the intensely original story—part Edward Abbey, part James Ellroy—of Jordan Fisher Smith's fourteen years as a park ranger on forty-eight miles of Sierra Nevada river canyons. The gorgeous government-owned land along the American River that Fisher Smith and his band of fellow rangers have pledged to protect is (think Catch-22) condemned to be inundated by a huge dam. As Smith learns from his first day on patrol, the provisional quality of life here attracts the marginal and the pure crazy. Ranger work, in this place where wildness tends toward the human kind, includes encounters with armed miners who scour canyons for gold, drug-addled squatters, and extreme recreators who enjoy combining motorcycles, parachutes, and high bridges. Nature Noir reveals some startling truths about park rangering on America's public lands. In one heart-stopping scene, Smith comes across the corpse of a woman runner, killed and partly eaten by a mountain lion—the first Californian to die in that way since the nineteenth century. Elsewhere, the predator on the loose may be human, and Smith goes looking for the bones of a long-missing woman in the surreal landscape around a half-constructed dam slowly reverting to wild.

"Nature Noir is the story -- part Barry Lopez, part James Ellroy -- of Jordan Fisher Smith"s fourteen years as a park ranger on a huge tract of government land in the Sierras. As Fisher Smith learns on his first patrol, the wildness in this place tends toward the human kind: desperate miners who scour canyons for gold, bad guys who look like armed rock-and-roll musicians, extreme recreators who enjoy combining motorcycles, parachutes, and high bridges. This gorgeous land along the American River is destined to be drowned by a huge federal dam, a paradox that colors every day of Fisher Smith"s patrol. The story of life here becomes, among other things, an extraordinary litany of violence and death; dozens of people lost their lives in the canyons of the American River on Fisher Smith"s beat. In one surreal, heart-stopping scene, he comes across the corpse of a woman jogger, killed and partly eaten by a mountain lion -- the first Californian to die in that way since the nineteenth century."--Publisher description. A nature book unlike any other, Jordan Fisher Smith's startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat -- a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded -- brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands. 1 A Day in the Park -- 7 -- 2 It Never Rains in California -- 21 -- 3 Career Development -- 43 -- 4 Occurrence at Yankee Jims Bridge -- 62 -- 5 Rocks and Bones -- 82 -- 6 The Bridge over Purgatory -- 104 -- 7 A Natural Death -- 120 -- 8 Finch Finds His Roots -- 136 -- 9 Crossing the Mekong -- 156 -- 10 As Weak as Water -- 168 -- 11 Eight Mile Curve-- 190.