By Martha Craig

In most American homes, the hall closet is filled with umbrellas, overcoats and holiday decorations. But in Alex Brun’s childhood home, it was packed with his dad’s climbing gear. Like his parents, the Vancouver, Washington native has always been an enthusiastic outdoorsman. He spent his early years sailing, hiking and car-camping in such magnificent spaces as Glacier National Park and Angels Landing in Zion National Park. When he was just 16, Alex took his first climbing class with the Mazamas, a Portland climbing club, and embarked on a winding path that would one day lead to the back country and soaring peaks of North Cascades National Park.

While still a student at Western Washington University, Alex first volunteered at North Cascades and fell in love with the park. After graduating in 2003 with a degree in natural resource management, he entered the Park Ranger Law Enforcement Academy at Skagit Valley Community College, one of only six National Park Service(NPS)-approved academies in the U.S. offering a Seasonal Law Enforcement Training Program (SLETP), and he earned his certification in 2006. After a stint as a seasonal law enforcement ranger, Alex transitioned out of law enforcement in 2017 and now works as a non-commissioned park ranger. Alex completed the NPS park medic course 2013 at the University of California at Fresno, where he learned many advanced medical techniques beyond what typical EMTs do, including starting IVs and giving medications. There are approximately 200 park medics working across the NPS, often working in austere and remote park areas where advanced EMT’s play a critical role in patient outcomes.

Alex has had the rare privilege of working in some of America’s most spectacular National Parks, including Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Yosemite and Grand Teton. He served seven seasons as a wilderness ranger in the North Cascades before becoming a permanent mountaineering ranger there in 2017.

As a mountaineering ranger, Alex has three basic areas of responsibility: climbing patrols, search and rescue operations and staffing the Wilderness Information Center in Marblemount.

During regular two- and three-day climbing patrols, Alex and a fellow mountaineering ranger hike out to monitor the high-use climbing areas of the Park. They get to know the routes, check wilderness permits, monitor and stir composting toilets, check climbing conditions and post them on the park’s website, and see what kinds of impacts visitors are having on the resource. (You can follow the mountaineering rangers on their blog at https://www.nps.gov/noca/blogs/climbing-conditions-for-boston-basin-area.htm) These activities are important, not only in providing climbers with the up-to-date information they need to enjoy the park safely, but to ensure that mountaineering rangers maintain their climbing skills and optimal fitness levels, as well as know what to expect, how to prepare and what route to choose when they’re called upon to undertake search and rescue operations.

These operations come in a wide range of forms, including wheeled litter carry outs, technical rope rescues, overdue reports, ground searches, helicopter evacuations and swift water rescues, and providing emergency medical care in remote and austere locations. The number of search and rescue operations varies from year to year, but in recent years they’ve increased as attendance in the park has grown. Despite the North Cascades’ short summer season, Alex and his colleagues may see as many as 50 rescues per season. “Our management policies say that the saving of human life will take precedence over all other management actions,” says Alex. “The Park Service strives to protect human lives and provide for injury-free visits.” All the Mountaineering Rangers are EMTs or advanced EMTs, and there is no charge for rescue.

In a medical emergency in which those advanced skills are required, whether a climbing injury, heart attack or other health crisis, the team works closely with their medical advisor, Dr. Don Slack, ER physician at Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon, Washington, for guidance. This is especially important in deciding when to move and evacuate an injured visitor to Marblemount, where in a critical situation they can be met by the Air Ambulance and flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Finally, Alex helps staff the Wilderness Information Center in Marblemount. His duties there include issuing permits, providing climbers with information (particularly on the conditions they’re likely to face on their climb), help with trip planning and administrative tasks, such as purchasing and managing supplies.

Typically, Alex works eight days in a row, bookended by two- and three-day climbing patrols, and then has six days off with his wife, Michelle Blank, and their daughters, Julia, age six, and Claire, age three, already budding rock-climbers! Of the six months a year Alex works in North Cascades National Park approximately one month is spent in some kind of specialized training, from advanced EMS skills to search and rescue techniques. “Training is the foundation of everything we do,” says Alex. “We get to do helicopter short-haul rescues, where the rescuer is attached to a 200-foot line suspended below the helicopter to extract or evacuate a climber or hiker who is injured or stranded in steep terrain. We do these with the Mount Rainier Climbing Rangers, who manage the helicopter program at Mount Rainier. Only eight or nine national parks have a short-haul program. We’re lucky we can team up with the rangers at Mount Rainier.”

When asked how Washington’s National Park Fund has impacted North Cascades National Park and the safety of its visitors, Alex replies, “Our funding is limited, so their hard work and generosity are having a direct impact on operations on the ground, which is really cool to see. We were able to take a swift water rescue course, which came in handy soon after when Skagit County called on us to assist with a water rescue. Because of WNPF, we had the trained personnel and dry suits to do a water rescue. They helped fund a partial remodel of our search and rescue cache, resulting in a better, more functional space. They funded a preventive search and rescue program. And they enabled us to hire more seasonal rangers, which means more rangers are on hand to help people plan safer, more enjoyable hikes and climbs. WNPF has helped keep people safe in the North Cascades. I really want to thank them.”

Photos courtesy of Will Tarantino.