The mountains are bigger than Trump. No matter how many park passes he defiles with his hideous mug, our National Parks are far greater than the morally corrupt senile fool currently sitting in the Oval Office.

But there have been some changes in the park. And not for the better. International travelers now pay $100 per person for everyone over sixteen to enter the park (or $250 for an annual park pass that covers the entire family). It only cost $35 for a US family to enter the park and $80 for the annual pass. In a little while Corey and I plan on visiting a few parks in Canada where we will pay, and maybe even drink, like the locals. Same in Iceland. Same actually for every international park we have ever visited.

There are fewer rangers too. Across the way from our site a tourist chopped away at the trees for his campfire (I might have said something but he was cutting away dead branches which I guess is actually a good thing). The seven young guys camping nearby (all from the Chicago suburbs) last night loudly regaled each other with stores from their high school football days. Some loud cussing too. It was nothing that we hadn’t heard but there was a family camping next to them. Those loud kids from Chicago, plus Paul Bunyan, desperately needed a ranger to remind them of the rules. All it would take would be a periodic drive by. Just something to let them know they weren’t the only ones camping there.

Much more serious was the hiker who had to be airlifted off a trail. The day after Corey was attacked by a grouse, we half-heartedly hiked to Delta Lake before turning away from a boulder scramble. Delta Lake is off an unofficial trail. Like Fight Club, the official hiking maps don’t talk about Delta Lake. It was at the cut-off to the unmarked trail that we witnessed a man, with some help from his friends, attempt to army crawl his way over boulders and back to the main trail. When we left the group he was trying to limp down the trail with a makeshift walking stick. Later we saw his friends trying to carry him like a large sack, four men to each corner. He was not a small guy. The windy three mile down hill trail must have been a bit too much. Maybe forty-five minutes later a helicopter swept up the mountain. After another ten minutes or so it flew north with a red basket fixed tightly to its underside (which is where we think the hiker rode).

Before the helicopter rescue, a group of rangers passed us going up on the trail with a wheeled stretcher. The stretcher probably was what was hoisted up to the helicopter. They were actually the first rangers we had seen in the park. None previously in the campground, or at the trail head or on any of the trails. Would an informal conversation with that group have made a difference in their decision making? Or would more immediate care have possibly resulted in him having made his way back to the car without helicopter assistance? Maybe not. But we will never know for sure.

Our tattoos were by Bethanie Hart at Paintbrush Tattoo. Highly recommend her services. She was incredibly patient (with me) and had a lot of great ideas.