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Peeking Inside The Rangers Club At Yosemite National Park

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Take a few minutes to explore the Rangers Club at Yosemite National Park. Screenshots pulled from Yosemite Nature Notes.

Need a reason to become a National Park Service ranger? Some get to live in really cool accommodations, such as the Rangers Club at Yosemite National Park.

Of course, not every park offers such historically rich accommodations in such picturesque settings. But it's nice to dream, no?

The following video by Steven M. Bumgardner is the latest installment of Yosemite Nature Notes. Enjoy!

Comments

It must be like living in a museum. Cool in some ways, but -- can't the library even update its books? Those should be in a museum.


What a beautiful gem! It's just a shame that the forest service keeps covering everything up with brown paint!
There is so much detail being covered up because people are lazy now days.....


Just curious, but what does the Forest Service have to do with the article or any of the comments?


I lived there (in the Ranger Club) in the early seventies. On my 21st birthday we had so many people on the deck that it separated from the building, very slowly. It was an awesome place to live back then. The communal kitchen was something to behold. You did not dare leave food out or it was eaten, and even the refrigerators had padlocks.
One night we killed a bear, and a zoologist/ranger wanted the skull. We put it in a large stockpot to cook off the meat. As a prank we added carrots, celery, etc. We simmered that skull for a full two days and continually added water. One morning at breakfast he emptied the pot, retrieved the skull, and noted the two large abcesses in the jaw, the source of the behavioral problems of the bear. The skull was the source of some rather pale faces that day as many had been helping themselves to the stew that had been brewing for several days!
There was also the night the stables burned down, when the fire started at midnight. First responders were all of us from the Ranger Club, and a long night it was. Thanks for bringing back some great memories!


Vince, My sources tell me that Bertha Allen spent some hours adding spices and stirring the pot without knowing that a bear skull with an absessed jaw was inside. She was not pleased once she discovered the core contents of her simmering soup.


I lived in the Ranger Club my last month in Yosemite NP (September '09). I'm really not sure what was my favorite part...the big thick living room ceiling beams or the view of Sentinel Rock from the back terrace.


Oh, yes. Bertha Allen. I had forgotten her. And now I'm wondering how I could possibly have forgotten such a wonderful lady.


Would like to set the record straight or at least give another version of the bear stories. My name is Ken Henson, and I worked in Yosemite as a ranger, in the protection division 1969 - 1973. My shift was from midnight until 8:00 AM working mostly law enforcement with some resource management. This included trapping and tagging bears. I had the privilege of working with some really great guys and living in the Ranger’s Club. There were three bear skulls that were collected that were going to Northern Arizona University during my time in the park. Bertha Allen knew what was in the pot cooking on the stove. I skinned the heads out on the kitchen table and removed the large muscles, tongue, eyes, some brains, etc. Bertha told me that in the depression she had eaten bear and it smelled good to her. I do not know who the guys were that put the vegetables in with one of the skulls, but I did not think it was funny. One of the bears that ended up in the pot was hit by a shuttle bus and then put down with a .357. Another was choked to death while being tagged. The final skull was taken from a bear that was overdosed with a drugs. This had been a problem bear.

The skull of one of these bears can be seen at:

http://myweb.cableone.net/khenson/Bear/bear.html


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