MAKE EVERY DAY A KENNEDAY, GOOD NIGHT.
exploring one of America’s national parks.
I have been blessed and really lucky over the years
to have seen my fair share:
Yosemite, Yellowstone,
Grand Canyon, Grand Tetons, Bryce, Zion,
Joshua Tree, Smoky Mountains, Acadia.
I’ve probably been to two or three dozen,
but I know I’m just scratching the surface
and I know I’m not alone.
This year,
like the year before and the year before that,
Americans will spend over 1 billion combined hours
camping, hiking, exploring,
and just sightseeing through our national park system.
If you’re not among them, you should be,
because no TV show
even one as spectacular as this one
can hope to capture the majesty or the grandeur
of our national parks.
All I can tell you is that their existence is a big part
of what makes our country great.
And their accessibility,
the fact that you and I are welcome there,
well, that’s a critical part of "How America Works".
(steady music)
Since the first of them was founded
a century and a half ago,
that’s Yellowstone, by the way,
America’s national parks have grown more critical
to modern society than we ever imagined.
And I don’t just mean for outdoor enthusiasts, no.
Everyone, and I mean everyone,
whether they’ve stepped foot into a park or not,
owes more to these places than they might think.
And it’s because their benefits stretch far
beyond their boundaries
with such national perks as economic growth,
fresh water, clean air.
They even keep our weather in check.
All from some 400-plus federally protected parks
that together make up an area larger than Colorado.
But keeping all that country safely intact
and open to the public is no small endeavor.
It takes dedicated workers toiling
in some of the toughest environments America has to offer,
and few come tougher than Joshua Tree National Park.
(brisk music)
Here, in the summer months,
temperatures can easily exceed triple digits on a cool day,
which might also explain
why park attendance takes a bit of a dip right about now.
But for the park’s 140 employees,
it’s about the only time they have to prepare
for the busy season ahead.
Even in the midst of a crippling staff shortage
infrastructures need man hours,
wildlife needs management
and as always,
so do the park patrons bold enough to be here.
So for the latter of those jobs,
Joshua Tree counts on a mere four rangers
to patrol the grounds on a regular basis,
rangers like Frank Klein.
- This job is particularly interesting
because it’s a very multifaceted job.
I am the search and rescue coordinator
and the emergency medical services coordinator.
I also do normal law enforcement patrol as well.
So I guess that’s a lot of stuff.
(Frank laughs)
- [Narrator] Indeed it is.
But all those skills are essential
for not only making do with the staff they’ve got,
but also responding to
on average about 20 emergencies every week
wherever and however they might occur.
- You can find yourself in trouble with heat illness
way faster than most people expect.
There’s also all kinds
of other environmental hazards in the park,
things like rattlesnakes, you can get lost.
So honestly,
when we have unprepared visitors,
it’s kind of hard to know
what kind trouble they’re going to get into.
- [Narrator] And speak of the devil.
- Go ahead.
- [Narrator] Sounds like Frank might just have
his first wayward patron of the day.
- I’ll be en route.
(tense music)
We got a stranded climber.
A lot of times when we get a report like this
we don’t get a lot of details.
We generally want to talk to the reporting party
face to face,
so we can figure out everything we need to know
as quick as we can.
- [Narrator] And on arriving at the scene,
it appears the reporting party is already waiting
to shed some light on the situation.
- As I understand it,
it sounds like you’ve got a friend
who’s stuck on a ledge.
- You can see him; he’s way up there.
We were scrambling like under there,
and he just kept going up,
but he can’t get down from where he is right now.
(unsettling music)
- We’re going to go get your friend down, alright?
- Okay, thank you.
- [Narrator] For Frank, that means he’ll have to go up
and gather the climber himself,
but not before a quick pre-rescue consultation.
- I’m going to come down to you with a rope.
We’re going to get you down to the ground.
I need you to just sit,
put your back up against the steep part of the wall,
and then just sit there, alright.
He’s listening to commands which is great,
but we still want to get him down as quick as possible.
It’s a hot day.
He’s in a precarious spot.
So I want to get up there pretty quick.
(unsettling music continues)
- [Narrator] Keeping patrons safe is a top priority
for any park.
I mean, not to sound too macabre,
but aside from the obvious reasons,
it’s also their money that makes all this possible
from the 11 campgrounds that dot the desert
to the 100-plus miles of road
that connect every corner of the park.
And keeping the latter of those in top form
can be an uphill battle.
And judging by the state of this road,
there’s still some work to be done.
But that’s precisely why Joshua Tree has people
like road supervisor Alex Snay,
whose first job today
will be adding some much needed shoulder
to this two-mile stretch of pavement.
- Visitors, when they come through the park,
they might not be paying attention.
We don’t want them to drive off the road
into an unsafe condition.
We want to have an area where they can park safely
without having to drive off the edge
with a 6"-plus lateral drop-off.
- [Narrator] To remove that drop-off,
all Alex will need is one dump truck,
a 20-ton grader,
a smaller rig known as a sweeper,
and three colleagues to keep all that equipment moving.
- We have Brandon on the grader,
Max on the sweeper,
and then Zach on the dump.
I’m going to do far-side flagging,
do the side flagging,
since you’ll be on the side with a sweeper.
Let’s get on the road and start dumping.
(urgent music)
- [Narrator] And with all parties in position
including Alex on traffic control,
it’s time to lay down some shoulder.
(truck rumbling)
- Now that the dump is out of the way,
what the grader’s going to do
it’s going to move all that material the dump just dropped
off the side of the road into the shoulder.
He’s going to form the shoulder,
and then he’s going to continually move forward.
- [Narrator] But moving all that material puts a lot
of wear and tear on the grader’s blade.
And as Alex is about to find out...
- [Colleague] Alex, copy.
- [Narrator] The one they brought on this outing
must not have had too many miles left to go.
- Hey, this blade’s getting pretty bad.
We’re going to need to change it.
- Alright, go back up to the pave pullout.
We’ll do them up there.
If we don’t change them, we can’t operate anymore.
So it’s something that puts a halt to all operations
until they get swapped out.
(mechanism humming)
- [Narrator] But with 27 years of practice,
Alex and his team should be able to swap out this blade
in just a few short minutes.
- You got that one?
- Yeah.
(tool whirring)
- [Narrator] Then again, that doesn’t account
for little hiccups
like when a nut lodges itself into your one and only socket.
- Max, give me one of them pry bars.
(tool clicking)
That thing is wedged in there.
(tool clanking)
- [Narrator] Roadways like these are critical
to running any national park,
but they’re not what brings in the business.
No, that would be the majestic landscapes
and the flora and fauna that come with them,
like this Joshua tree,
a species only found here in the southwest,
or the long-tailed weasel,
a rare sighting in any environment.
But maintaining an ecosystem
as intricate and delicate as this one is no easy task.
It takes near constant supervision
and when needed, intervention.
And that is the job
of wildlife ecologist Michael Vamstad.
- A big part of my job is to really balance or help balance
that wildlife and visitor use kind of dynamics.
- [Narrator] This morning Michael
and his new understudy, Katie,
have come here to the aptly named Rattlesnake Canyon
not in search of snakes so much
but to investigate an eagle’s nest
that may warrant their attention.
- Is it near that spire up there?
- Yeah, you just follow that spire down.
- [Michael] Oh yeah. - [Katie] You can see that
really tall nest.
- My God, it’s huge.
So today what we’re going to do is go in,
take a look at the nest,
see the activity if it’s there.
And if it is there,
we’re going to close down the climbing
around that nest to protect it.
- [Narrator] Apex predators like eagles are critical
to Joshua Tree’s ecosystem,
so they tend to be a high priority.
But before Michael can make a ruling
on whether this nest is indeed active,
he and Katie will need to take a closer look.
Unfortunately for them,
that means a two-mile trek
through some of the park’s toughest country,
apparently Katie’s first.
- She just joined us like six months ago.
She’s still learning the ropes of the desert.
It’s a very extreme environment, so we take it slow.
We do these projects together,
so we make sure that we do it as safe as we can.
(dissonant music)
(music intensity increases)
And we have a rattlesnake.
(snake rattling)