Audubon: April '06
REVIEWS: Editor's Choice
By Todd Neale
Randy Morgenson grew up in the shadows of California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. He was "baptized into the world of camping in Yosemite by being bathed in a campfire-warmed bucket of water dipped from the Merced River," writes freelance journalist Eric Blehm in The Last Season. These mountains never loosened their grip on Morgenson, who, in 28 summers as a backcountry ranger in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, spent more time roaming the Sierras than the famed environmentalist John Muir. The ranger's 1996 disappearance in Kings Canyon set off a massive search-and-rescue operation. Some of Morgenson's closest friends suspected suicide. The legendary ranger had been struggling to sort out his life following the death of his father and an extramarital affair that cost him his marriage. The search drives the engrossing narrative forward at the speed of a best-selling thriller. Spun throughout are details of Morgenson's life that Blehm gleaned from eight years of interviews, research, and visits to the mountains that claimed the 54-year-old outdoorsman. To this day mystery shrouds Morgenson's fate, but as he once told a friend, "The least I owe these mountains is a body."
