Local park rangers go to work each day with hopes for inspiring
in others a love of the great outdoors
Pinnacles National Monument and Henry W. Coe State Park are vastly different in size and character, but the rangers who protect and reveal the secrets of the two state landmarks to the masses have much in common.
Pinnacles, designated a national monument in 1908 by the federal government, encompasses 24,000 mountainous acres in southern San Benito County. It is home to a number of curious geological formations, 13 California condors and two cave systems. It is also where Interpretative Park Ranger Brant Porter spends most of his days.
About 70 miles away in east Santa Clara County lies Coe State Park, established 50 years after Pinnacles. As the largest state park in Northern California, Coe Park is spread across 87,000 rugged acres. Although the land used to be under the care of the Ohlone Indians, it is now Park Ranger Barry Breckling’s duty to protect the vast expanse of wilderness.
Paperwork, Personality, and Spiders
Breckling and Porter face different challenges on a daily basis, but both spend the majority of their time attracting new visitors to their respective parks and making sure those visitors stay safe.
Porter leads tours, shows off the Pinnacles’ 30 miles of hiking trials, develops new educational programs for the park and helps visitors get the most out of their day at the monument.
“I’ve got the best job in the world,” Porter said. “But it’s a tough charge.”
The third-year park ranger divides his time between administrative work in the office and interacting with visitors out on the trails. But every day is a different experience, he said.
“That’s part of being a park ranger – you don’t really know what you’re going to do,” Porter said. “If you’re one for routine, this isn’t the job for you.”
Park rangers don’t work in the wilderness for the money. Although salaries range from $22,000 to $60,000, most take the job because it’s what they enjoy doing, Porter said.
“The first thing you do when you become a park ranger is take a vow of poverty,” he said. “But we also get paid in sunsets.”
Breckling, who has worked at Coe for the past three decades, also develops new educational programs and assists park visitors. Unlike Porter, Breckling spends most of his time in an office, overseeing the 140 volunteers who work at Coe and devising new ways to draw more people to the park. About 60,000 come to Coe each year, Breckling said.
One event at the park that is a magnet for visitors is the annual Tarantula Fest. Held on the first Saturday of October, the festival offers live music, barbecue and, of course, lots of spiders.
“The kids love it – they let the tarantulas crawl all over them,” Breckling said. “Nobody has ever been bit by a tarantula, but I always get a little nervous. The tarantulas are gentle creatures, but they sometimes get handled pretty rough.”
Although the festival is primarily meant to give people a chance to learn about tarantulas, Breckling said he also sees it as a way to make peace between humans and the furry black creatures.
“We try to educate people about tarantulas,” he said. “But we also help people to understand them and become familiar with them so they don’t swerve over to hit them on the road.”
It’s not spiders that draw more than 180,000 visitors to Pinnacles every year. People come for the hiking, extensive rock climbing and a chance to see the California condor, Porter said.
No matter what attracts guests to the parks, both rangers said that working with park visitors is the best part of the job. To a curious visitor out on the trail, Porter can succinctly sum up the 28 million years of erosion, faulting and tectonic plate movement that created the Pinnacles’ monoliths, caves and spires.
“This park is actually the remnants of an ancient volcano,” he said. “The rocks moved here – at about the rate your fingernails grow each year – from around Lancaster and Gorman, off the I-5, nearly 200 miles away.”
Environmental Upkeep
Although Breckling enjoys spending time with visitors as well, he also has to deal with troublemakers. Like all state park rangers, he has a gun and is expected to maintain safety in the park.
“Mostly it’s just minor stuff, like too much partying at the campground,” he said. “But one problem that can be dangerous is marijuana.”
Coe Park is a desirable location for cultivating marijuana because most of the area is hidden and inaccessible, Breckling said. The marijuana gardens, which are often patrolled by armed gardeners, are dangerous both for the unknowing visitor who stumbles across one and for the environment, Breckling said.
“From a resource standpoint, we are really concerned about the damage they can do,” he said. “The growers use a lot of fertilizers that can pollute entire streams. It can change the entire habitat and kill off the fish.”
Another environmental problem both rangers said they wish they’d see less of is litter. Although most visitors are kind and respectful, some are not.
Porter, too, is concerned with park safety, but he leaves most of the law-enforcement part of the job to his fellow rangers. Toting around only a flashlight, Porter is primarily charged with visitor interaction.
“My goal is to connect people with the park,” he explained. “It’s to get them to make an emotional connection with what they see.” Once that connection is made, Porter said, visitors return again and again.
My Favorite Hike at Coe
– By Ranger Barry Breckling
Henry W. Coe State Park is a hiker’s paradise, encompassing 87,000 acres (that’s about three times the size of San Francisco) and more than 350 miles of trails and dirt roads to explore. The best time of year for hiking at Coe is in the spring. The deciduous oaks leaf out with pastel colors, the wildflowers abound, the creeks flow freely and the animals are out and about.
One of my favorite hikes is the Middle Ridge loop, which is about 6.2 miles with more than 1,500 feet in elevation gain.
Start on the Monument Trail, a path that zigzags up fairly steeply. When you come to a trail junction, go straight. The trail to the left will take you on a pleasant-level one-mile loop with wonderful views of the Santa Clara Valley and surrounding mountains. A right turn will take you to the monument. Either of these options would be nice additions to the hike.
After the junction, you’ll be walking in a pleasant ponderosa pine forest with views of the northern areas of the park, and you can see the domes that house telescopes beyond the park on Mount Hamilton. When you reach Hobbs Road, turn left and follow the road down to the creek.
The road is shady, features beautiful flowers in the spring and is a good place to see birds. A little less than a mile down the road, you’ll come to the Little Fork of the Coyote Creek. (If you’re feeling lazy, you can take the Flat Frog Trail back to park headquarters for a 4.3-mile loop.)
Cross the creek, take the Frog Lake Trail to the right and follow it past Frog Lake to the top of Middle Ridge. Turn right on the Middle Ridge Trail. Along the Middle Ridge Trail, you’ll be shaded by huge Manzanita shrubs that have grown to treelike proportions. In early spring, under their boughs, you’ll find crimson blankets of Indian Warriors, plants whose roots attach to Manzanita roots and steal some of their nutrients.
When you reach the junction of Fish Trail, turn right. Another highlight of this hike is the Little Fork crossing on Fish Trail. You won’t find any fish there, though. The trail is so named because it used to continue down the east side of Middle Ridge to the Middle Fork of the Coyote Creek, an ideal spot for trout fishing.
The Little Fork creek crossing is a cool, cozy, friendly place that will tempt you to linger. You might as well give in and stay a while, maybe take off your shoes and refresh your feet in the cool water.
The hike back up to the top of Pine Ridge has some short steep sections, but the elevation gain is fairly spread out, and you’ll probably have plenty of energy to enjoy the views as you hike back to park headquarters. When you reach Manzanita Point Road, cross it and take the Corral Trail back. Return to the visitor center to ask any questions you may have and to share highlights of your day in the park.
