Commends national parks for safety

Once again, I had the great privilege to visit many of our magnificent Western parks. I have visited them all my life and even worked many summers in the best of them, but this summer I was more impressed than ever with the responsibility that each superintendent has for the safety of their great numbers of visitors.

As we descended the equivalent of 80 stories into the huge rooms of Carlsbad Caverns, I wondered how the administration could be so confident that no rock (or thousands of tons of rocks) would precipitate down on some of the multitude of visitors who explore that cave each day?

In Yellowstone, where I spent three wonderful summers working near the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, how could the superintendent be sure that pinnacles would not fall straight down upon some car or RV on the narrow road below? I do have a book called “Death In Yellowstone” and have often said that I wonder why I am not in almost any one of the chapters in that book. I even have a similar book about all the national parks. Yes, people do die in national parks, but many (or most) of them die because of their own foolishness.

We drove beside beautiful Saint Mary Lake in Glacier National Park. At one spot men were working on the road. To the right of the road, the cliff ascended straight up for at least one hundred feet. There were cracks in the rock above. How could the National Park Service be sure that even one hand-sized rock would not fall onto a motorist or passenger below? It was easy enough for me to drive under that cliff, but I think I would have a hard time sleeping if I was the one responsible for all the hundreds of thousands of park visitors who would pass under it this summer alone.

The engineering problems only increased as we ascended to the Continental Divide and over Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. That road is literally dug out and/or attached to the side of the cliff on a mountain called The Garden Wall. It was my backyard when I worked in Glacier Park, and I have traveled it many times, but I must take my hat off to anyone who bears up under the responsibility for the safety of all those lives during the tourist season.

I commend the Department of the Interior and those responsible in the National Park Service for providing safe roads and trails throughout our magnificent parks. I have enjoyed years of safe travel in a host of our parks, monuments and battlefields, but I just cannot fathom the grave responsibility that some officials have in order to keep millions of visitors safe year after year. My complements, and again, I take my cowboy hat off to you.

Dan Manka lives in Fairmont, W.Va.