Rocky Mountain National Park Finds Change in New Mental Health Program

Thirty-two-year-old Sarah Crosier steps out of her white and green striped truck, the iconic clay-colored arrowhead displayed on both sides of the vehicle as the title of ‘U.S. Park Ranger’ stands out in bold, green, capital letters. She grabs her Hyperlite Dyneema backpack off the front seat, straps on her radio, chatter sporadically bursting from the speaker, and heads out for another day of patrolling in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). Today is her easy day. No climbing, just a hike, but she can never be sure what the future will hold.

Sarah Crosier sitting atop Mt. Ypsilon in Rocky Mountain National Park. Image taken by Diana Boyer.

Finding bodies in the wilderness dead or alive is part of their role as search and rescue team members.

Crosier recounted one of her earlier traumatic experiences as a park ranger. Out on a call, responding to someone who had activated their SPOT GPS device, she stumbled upon a body that’d been missing for a month. “He pretty much had no head left and his skin was blackened.”

Alone, far out in the backcountry, Crosier felt more isolated than ever. Her radio was cutting in and out. Marking a GPS point on her InReach to recall the body’s location, she was told to continue with her initial rescue call.

Later that season, she found another body that’d been missing for eight months. Buried in the snow, she chipped him out of the ice with mountain axes. To add to the weight of such traumatic events, she was informed that her close friend and fellow wilderness ranger, Danny, had passed away. He was climbing a peak in Alaska when unroped on fourth class terrain, he slipped and died. Crosier recounted, “My boyfriend at the time was gone and I was all alone in our cabin. I was having nightmares, not sleeping, and flashbacks.”

As lead climbing ranger, Crosier took on the legacy of Quinn Brett in 2018.

On Oct. 11, 2017 Quinn Brett, an experienced climber, and ranger of Rocky Mountain National Park, took a 100-foot fall in Yosemite National Park. Attempting to speed climb the Nose, an iconic big wall route on the face of the granite monolith El Capitan, in a day with her partner Josie McKee, Brett plummeted past McKee. Her helmet flying off in the process, she landed 20 to 30 feet below McKee in a boulder field, crashing into the rock features of El Cap along the way. Brett suffered a life-altering injury, severing her spine leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.

Brett was an endurance climbing powerhouse. She established a climbing route in Patagonia, climbed seven Yosemite big routes with her partner McKee in seven days, and combined two big walls on El Cap in one day, The Nose and Lurking Fear, finishing in less than 22 hours.

In 2012, she set the female speed record for The Nose with her partner Jes Meiris in 10 hours and 19 minutes. That means she climbed 31 pitches, 2,900 feet of vertical gain, with some pitches graded at 5.13 or higher.

The Yosemite Decimal System is used to help define the level of challenge for each climb in the U.S. It starts as low as Class 1: walking, all the way to Class 5: technical rock climbing on steep terrain requiring ropes, harnesses, a belay device, and other gear. A moderate climbing route would be somewhere in the 5.7 to 5.9 range. A hard climb that would involve technical moves, strength, and endurance could lie somewhere in the 5.11 to 5.15 range.

Today, Brett lives in Estes Park, Colorado, and continues to pursue life through the outdoors, while advocating for spinal cord injury research and accessibility for the disabled.

To fill the shoes of someone who is highly respected and recognized for her climbing achievements, was no small undertaking. “It felt somewhat wrong,” said Crosier. Assigned Brett’s locker for work, Crosier was disturbed to find all of Brett’s gear still hanging. Her harness, gloves, helmet, jackets, and backpack were an ominous reminder of the horrible accident.

“I felt that I needed to do her justice. I need to be the best climber I can be,” said Crosier about the pressure of taking on such a role.

Today, she walks with purpose and speed having developed a resilience to her surroundings and position.  Her objective: Donner Ridge. Starting at 12,000 feet, the ridgeline climbs up to the summit of Mt. Ypislon topping out at 13,520 feet. But before the ridgeline, there are about 5.5 miles of hiking through the forest in order to reach tree line. She uses this time to take in her environs her mind at peace.

Only in the past three years has the park offered mental health services to its employees.

Laura McGladrey, the founder and director of an organization called Responder Alliance checks in with the rangers using a method called “stress resiliency.” She teaches about the concept of making “green choices.” There are always opportunities to work more and help out in rescues, but it can come at a cost. Rather than using free time to help with other rescues, McGladrey explains the importance of taking time for the self. Whether that be going for a bike ride, climbing in the gym, or reading a good book, these are all things that allow the mind to decompress in a healthy way. By making these practices a necessity, employees lead more sustainable lifestyles and are less likely to fall into burnout.

The wind begins to pick up as Crosier gets closer to the ridge. Her frost nipped hands bring her to a halt as she stops to put more layers on. The trees have all but disappeared as big boulders consume the landscape. Hopping delicately from rock to rock, Crosier scopes out the best path up the ridge. Moderate scrambling on steep, rocky terrain that requires handholds for upward movement, also known as “Class 3 scrambling,” is involved in achieving the summit.

Sarah Crosier scrambling up Donner Ridge. Image taken by Diana Boyer.

The lichen-splotched rocks are rough, just like Crosier’s mitt-like hands. They are twice the size of a normal hand, toughened from years of climbing outside. At 5’4”, her small stature is a force to be reckoned with. She pulls herself over a rock face and onto the next ledge. She takes a moment to look out towards the lake below and smiles. The gray chossy rocks contrast with the green forest. The blue sky is rippled with clouds. In the distance, a storm lurks, pushing Crosier to keep moving. As she reaches a plateau, the wind begins to rip through the air. She treks another half mile over the false summit to reach a rock circle where she sits sheltered from the wind. A celebratory “Whoop!” is released into the void below. She eats a packet of fruit snacks and then heads off back down the mountain over the other side of the pass, the storm imminent. She greets other hikers along the way and offers directions to those who ask. When she reaches the end of the trailhead, a fellow ranger is waiting to give her a ride back down to her car. She takes her radio and keys into the mic, “ROMO 261-clear of backcountry travel.”

The national parks system hires many seasonal employees, but few permanent ones. Filling in the gaps as needed, there are far more wilderness rangers during the busy summer months than in the winter. Throughout history, it has been apparent that the park service has favored hiring white men over people of color or the opposing gender. Speaking about females in the wilderness/climbing ranger position Crosier said, “We started with three seasonals this year in Rocky, but my first summer, I was the only one.” Today they have eight seasonal employees, one lead climbing ranger, and one wilderness and climbing supervisor. Achieving a permanent role in the park service is coveted. As winter comes through, activity slows down and fewer employees are needed. 

Being the lead climbing patroller requires a vast set of skills and long hours. It involves knowing the ins and outs of the park and, in even greater detail, the climbing routes. During patrol, they are allowed to go out and climb as long as they have a radio. When first hired, rangers are encouraged to climb the most popular routes, in hopes of familiarizing themselves with the location of anchors and rappels. This allows them to be prepared for the most likely emergency scenarios. If a call were to come up while they are climbing, they would respond directly, leaving their gear behind, rappelling down, and setting out to go help the victim as fast as possible. Rangers are connected to emergency dispatch, which forwards the callers directly to them. The call is either the reporting party or the injured party themselves.

The accidents can vary and, in the backcountry, anything can happen. “I think that probably 60% of the accidents have some degree of unpreparedness and then maybe 40% is just unlucky.” In a recent event, a 25-year-old male got lost on a hike up to Longs Peak and froze to death when he got caught in a snowstorm. Crosier commented on the event saying, “If you just have a flannel and shorts on, you’re in a snowstorm and you have no headlamp and you’re off route because maybe you don’t have a map or GPS either, you’ve made a lot of mistakes.

Crosier started climbing when she was 19, as a sophomore in college. Crosier describes her first moments with climbing saying, “I took a climbing class and was immediately hooked. We did one trip to the Adirondacks and a trip to the Gunks (Shawangunk Mountains).” She found her community. It was a group of people who enjoyed getting outside, camping, and pushing themselves to see how far climbing could take them.

At the time, Crosier was majoring in art and felt frustrated with the program, saying, “Most people were getting into computer art. It was depressing for me because everybody would be going into this dark computer lab and I did not feel a lot of kinship with my classmates.” From there she decided to get a minor in outdoor education and worked in Alaska for four summers, guiding wilderness trips. This eventually led her to work for Alta, a ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. During her time there, she skied often and worked on getting her EMT license in the evenings, attending classes locally. In getting her OEC (Outdoor Emergency Care) certification she became a ski patroller for the resort in the winter and went to Rocky Mountain National Park in the summer working as a wilderness ranger. Her role as a climbing ranger became permanent this year in March.

After last season’s myriad of horrific events, Crosier developed habits and made choices in helping her recover from the everyday stress of the job. Climbing and community are her biggest outlets, but Crosier has found other forms of expression in writing, having written several stories about her PTSD events.

With Responder Alliance now in the picture Crosier has felt more supported by the park service than ever. Adam Barnhart, the SAR task force leader with Responder Alliance describes their organizations as a “grassroots effort.” Before Responder Alliance, most SAR, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and police teams used CISM, Critical Incident Stress Management, as a way to debrief about events. This is a way of breaking down the incident with the team that was present, especially if it was traumatic. In theory, it is a way of allowing the team members to express their feelings and go over what practices went well and what could be improved. CISM does not allow for follow-up. This is where Responder Alliance has become a powerful system in mental health advocacy.

Barnhart describes individuals who work in some sort of rescue capacity as “tough, capable, frequently high performing, and not people who openly or willingly share weakness.” He says, “We’re the ones who save, we’re not the ones who need saving.” This is where Responder Alliance has become a powerful system in mental health advocacy. Their goal is to destigmatize mental health in response fields. They follow an approach labeled the 3:3:3 protocol. A person on the responder task force reaches out to the individual who was on the scene of the rescue three days, three weeks, and three months after the event has happened.

Potentially traumatizing events, sometimes don’t show their effects, until a couple of weeks later. Barnhart, who worked in Alaska and now Flagstaff, Arizona for SAR, said only recently has he seen the true power Responder Alliance can have in the rescue community.

Barnhart and his team were called on scene to Aspen Corner, a notorious leaf-peeping spot outside Flagstaff, to help a sick hiker. Upon arriving on scene, the patient was identified as a 13-year-old boy in cardiac arrest. Hiking down to the incident, Barnhart says, “There was this woman walking down the hill with us. She was stumbling and upset. Pretty soon I figured out it was the mom. That’s when reality started to hit for our team.”

The team did everything they could but were unable to save the boy. Barnhart’s day job as a pastor has become a valuable skill for dealing with the bereft, but it’s never easy.

“The grief of a mother…”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah, and you shouldn’t.”

Barnhart stated he hadn’t seen much change in the SAR community and mental health until this traumatic event. “Part of search and rescue now is checking in and that is amazing because when you get that cultural change you have won on some level.”

A resiliency team member creates a call list of all the individuals who were on scene at the event and thus begins a series of check-ins either over the phone or in person. The purpose of these check-ins are to remind the individual that there is help if they need it. Barnhart says, “They need to know, as do I, as does anybody, that they’re not alone.” These check-ins are deeply personal. Resiliency members are looking for lifestyle or systemic changes in behavior within the individual. Individual changes don’t normally show until around three weeks after the traumatic event. Questions like, “What’s still lingering with you? Is anything keeping you up at night?” are standard. It helps create a community where being vulnerable is okay.

If someone is struggling and needs further assistance, a team member or Barnhart will create a list of resources, usually different therapists, that the individual can reach out to. Because most SAR teams are volunteer-based, they don’t have access to Employee Assistance Programs. Those programs usually offer compensation for such help. Struggling individuals who don’t have the funds to get help for themselves are assured aid through outside means, but not all communities are so lucky.

Bronwyn Burman, a seasonal climbing ranger at RMNP has found Responder Alliance to be effective in the park ranger community, but also in her home life. Burman states, “Your partner doesn’t usually want to hear about the things that you did on a real hairy rescue or the sad things you dealt with. The context of understanding is not there.”

After rescues, the process remains the same. The park service still does a critical incident debrief with those on scene. Then they evaluate the incident itself and give it a score. The score tells the incident commander the likelihood of the event causing a stress injury to the people in the group. If it left a significant impact on the team, that’s when Responder Alliance takes action with its check-ins.

Not only does Rocky Mountain follow up with its rescuers, but they now have an on-call counselor that they can see at a moment’s notice. Just like the pressure Crosier felt when taking on Brett’s role, Burman experienced something similar with being a climbing ranger in itself. She said, “I’m in a position where I can make decisions that could cost somebody their lives.” The thought alone kept Burman up at night for a time, but she has always felt like she can talk to someone.

Although Crosier and Burman have experienced PTSD, their resiliency has grown. Crosier helped rescue an avalanche victim this year, digging him out of the snow, and stated, “I wasn’t really affected by it.” She considered seeing the counselor but never went. “I’ve been fortunate this year to not have felt a lot of stress and that comes from having dealt with it a lot in the past.”

Not all national parks are as progressive as Rocky Mountain. Barnhart said, “They’re by far, as far as I know, one of the most progressive parks.” The hope is to spread and gain funding to make this program accessible to all rescue services. A cultural shift needs to occur to make mental health services an expectation rather than an addition. Creating a shared language around mental health allows for open conversation and understanding.

Crosier heads into the winter excited for the season, knowing there will be moments of intense stress and sadness. It’s the beautiful dichotomy of the job. One minute, she’s finding an avalanche victim buried deep in the snow, and the next, she’s skiing down knee-deep pow enjoying, for the briefest of moments, stillness in the movement.

Feature image description: Crosier posing in her ranger uniform on the trail up to Donner Ridge