By Gwendolyn Craig
The Adirondack Park’s forest rangers had a difficult year with some challenging search and rescues, overtime grievances, pension disparities and the loss of a trailblazing colleague.
In March, rangers rescued hikers on four High Peaks in three consecutive days, leading to one of the most manpower-intensive weekends in 2024. The year bookended with a rigorous and unsuccessful search for a 22-year-old Canadian hiker on Allen Mountain in the southern Adirondacks. After a week of looking for Leo DuFour, rangers stationed in the backcountry for three-day stretches switched the rescue effort to a recovery mission. DuFour had yet to be found as of publication.
The Explorer took a deep dive into rangers’ overtime hours, which often accumulate on these intensive search and rescue missions. The Explorer found the state spends more than $1.6 million a year on average to rangers in overtime pay, with Adirondack Park rangers generally earning the most. Lawmakers and park stakeholders have called for a larger ranger force.
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Many rangers the Explorer spoke to rely on overtime pay to boost their salaries, though how overtime is distributed remains a frustration. An overtime grievance is heading to arbitration in early 2025. There are additional tensions between the ranger union and management over a transition in medical training. Rangers are concerned about the state’s requirement switching them to Department of Health protocols from backcountry wilderness medical training.
Rangers also faced setbacks in their effort for pension parity with state police and other law enforcement. Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have given rangers, park and SUNY police the same retirement benefit at 20 years instead of their current 25 years. This is the fifth time a governor has vetoed the bill.
Rangers also lost one of their most experienced and dedicated colleagues, Robbi Mecus, who died in April. The 52-year-old forest ranger, who patrolled the Adirondacks for 24 years, was approaching retirement when she fell nearly 1,000 feet on the east face of Mount Johnson at the Ruth Gorge in Alaska. Mecus was a trans woman and was instrumental in providing education, awareness and inclusivity for the LGBTQ community in the Adirondacks.
Top photo: In February 2024, DEC Forest Rangers move an ice climber rescued from the North Face of Pitchoff to a snowmobile for transport to a waiting ambulance. Photo by Eric Teed
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Kudos to Gwen Craig and the Adk. Explorer for several excellent stories that continue to remind readers (and voters) about the vital work that forest rangers perform to keep people safe.
Your stories also underscore the need for political leaders to correct the glaring inequities which are compounding stress on the rangers and burdening taxpayers with excessive overtime costs that are a bandaid that hides the glaring fact that WE NEED MORE FOREST RANGERS!
“Adirondack Wild” and many other environmental and outdoor organizations support the concept of “Double and Diversify”, which I also support, based on my nearly 40 years with the forest ranger force.
As this new year of 2025 begins, I urge you to please read my AJES report (see below), and add your voice to help our rangers – and have a safe and happy new Year!
https://digitalworks.union.edu/ajes/vol25/iss1/13/
What do you expect when the ADK pushes the biggest scam of the century that the Adirondacks is for everyone. It’s not and just wait until a downstater gets seriously hurt or dies and someone gets sued for not saving their life. And don’t get me started on not feeling safe anymore leaving anything in plain view in our cars while at a trailhead. The break-ins now at trailheads is out of hand and so is the trash on the trails.