Park ranger and medic Gabriel Mapel gave us tips for enjoying Death Valley.
Death Valley National Parkis the hottest , driest , and low-down internal park in the United States . The car park is also regularly the hottest place on the major planet . For the park rangers who work in these conditions , they have to be prepared to face not only the uttermost temperature , but also the elbow room those environments impact visitors . Gabriel Mapel is one of Death Valley ’s Texas Ranger and park medics , and drop his days between the typical internal commons duty and also participating in rescue missions and emergency reaction .
Even though Mapel has become skilled at navigating the extreme temperature of Death Valley — which turn over a record - fail 129 degrees Fahrenheit on July 7 , 2024 — his love for national park first developed well before he ever donned the grey and green uniform of the federal agency .
“ I raise up about 20 minutes from the boundary of Shenandoah National Park , ” Mapel narrate Thrillist . “ So I had basically a national ballpark in my backyard to develop up in and take aim family vacations to other parks around the body politic . ”
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He spent tons of time going hiking all over Virginia with his Padre , and it was when he was 16 that he began a summertime internship with the National Parks Service . He could n’t consider there was a chance that he could get paid to do this . “ I just strike in love with it and realized the case of work I wanted to pursue , ” Mapel recalled . " I made that the goal from there on out . I get really lucky that as presently as I fine-tune mellow schooltime , while I was still 18 , I got hired as a seasonal ballpark ranger . ”
That eventually led to his lasting position , after ferment as a seasonal employee for five years at a sum of five different parks . “ right on now , Death Valley ’s treat me really well . I love it here , ” he said . “ We have a turgid area , so we ’re 3.4 million acres , so we ’re the largest car park in Continental United States outside of Alaska . ”
Mapel suffice all of our questions about being a park ranger and medic at the hot park in the mankind , including how to well prepare for the heat , the best part of the job , and why wear out a long - sleeved uniform is the best move , even on the most sweltering days .
Courtesy of Gabriel Mapel
Thrillist : What is a commons ranger at Death Valley National Park responsible for?Gabriel Mapel : We have a large land area and very few staff . We all fatigue all different hat . Anyone that ’s train in parking brake services gets to help and is expected to do that work . And that has been true in some other parks I worked at too .
How did you become a ballpark medic?GM : primitively I started not in pinch service , I started as a commando that just solve at a visitor center and then eventually started serve with emergency servicing as an ambulance number one wood in Crater Lake National Park — when I worked for a summer up there , they just needed mass to drive the ambulance . I notice that work really rewarding , and see I need to be the person in the back of the ambulance rather than the front of the ambulance and wanted to actually be the one providing patient care . So I make my EMT license in 2020 and was an EMT for four years . And then I was implausibly honored that Death Valley select me as one of two EMTs from Death Valley to go to Fresno in January of this twelvemonth for two months of advanced EMS grooming to become a commons medic . So now I ’m one of the four commons trefoil for Death Valley .
Can you take me through a day in the aliveness at your job?GM : I ignite up and I never really know what I am going to do that day , which is something I in person really relish . It is not dull , it ’s not monotonous . And there are a mint of different hat that I wear and that park rangers in oecumenical wear .
A helicopter ambulance landing in Death Valley.|Courtesy of Gabriel Mapel
so as to make a park running — a park is fundamentally a little residential district , a trivial townsfolk in Death Valley , it ’s a hundred or so employees . In club for us to be capable to do our chore , those of us that are on the front lines , we necessitate everything that you require in a business enterprise or a town . So we have IT people , we have plumber , we have obviously jurisprudence enforcement , emergency services , fee collecting , camping site , general sustentation , wildlife technicians , biologists that are doing enquiry on everything here , historians that help preserve the cultural account of the car park . disregardless of what your background or interests are , there ’s a billet for you in the National Park Service .
For me specifically , my daylight - to - day , I usually start at 7:45 . I operate nine - 60 minutes days , 7:45 am to 5:15 post-mortem is my usual , and I ’m based out of the visitor center . So my day - to - daylight Book of Job , my on paper job title is Recreation Fee Technician , which mean that I ’m one of the ethnic music that roll up ingress fees and encampment fees . We do that at three principal locating . Day to day , I ’m commonly in one of either the principal park visitant centers , one of our campgrounds or a slightly more outback ranger post , and we ’re collecting entree and tenting fee at all three of those locations . So my day - to - day is a bit of a monotonous job , a little morsel repetitive salutation visitors , collecting their fees , score sure they ’re keep abreast Mungo Park rules . I ’m not law enforcement , so I ’m not write citations or enforcing the jurisprudence , but I ’m doing pedagogy on the ordinance , specially camping area rule since that ’s my world . And then predict law enforcement if there ’s a major issue .
Then the other facet of my line of work is the emergency services part . I ’m one of the only four ballpark medick , which mean there ’s no one higher trained in EMS in the park than me , and there ’s only three other people on the same level as me . So there ’s usually only maybe two of us on a day that are our parking area medic , and we have two ambulances here in Death Valley . It ’s then a entire change of tread from just act in a booth , working in a visitor pith where I ’m doing the same affair over and over again all solar day long to determine someone to compensate my work shift there and take hold of my aesculapian supplies and pop off to fulfill the ambulance wherever it is , or plunk up the ambulance from the post and respond directly to whatever call has go off , which could be anything from a medical emergency brake at one of our hotels in the car park to a rollover fomite crash to a vehicle flaming , to a search and saving incident with someone neglect or injured deep in our back country .
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We average around 300 to 350 calls for service for EMS every yr in Death Valley . So that ’s almost one a solar day on mediocre . We definitely have busy time , class than others , but that ’s our norm . So we answer to a lot , and if I ’m around , I go and that wholly interchange my Clarence Day from something normal to whatever is then thrown my way on that call . I go home and I commonly keep my beeper on at dark . There ’s one ranger that ’s designated the On - call Ranger every dark . But the rest of us that do emergency avail are encouraged to keep our pagers on as much as possible . If something important pops up in the night , we can respond . This preceding Sunday night , I was out double in the night for call outs at 11 pm and then again , 4 am . So yeah , I really just never lie with mean solar day or night what I ’m going to get thrown my style .
Can you share more about living and working in such an extreme natural environment?GM : We’re the terra firma of extremes here . Our apprehension line is that we ’re the hottest , driest , lowest — so we ’re the most extreme in all three of those way . Hottest , driest , and lowest in top in all of North America and the hot place in the world . We hold the record for spicy temperature immortalize on dry land . That does definitely add a layer of challenge , mainly May through former October . The residuum of the year really is actually quite nice . We ’re finally now getting into , I think tomorrow ’s going to be our first sidereal day under a hundred since June . So we ’re really mad for that . All summertime long , it is a land of extremes and you just have to be prepared and a lot of visitor are not prepared . Summer ’s not of necessity our fussy prison term of year visitation wise , but July and August be given to be some of our highest month EMS call - book wise because of that heat . We average out around six to eight calls for avail for heat - associate medical emergency in the calendar month of June , July , and August . That ’s a prominent portion of our summer work and there ’s challenges that go into that and ways that we require to conform as mass that know and work here and respond .
Our prescribed recommendation for outside employment or visitor being outdoors in the high temperature and dryness is at least one liter of water per minute , per someone . I recognize I drink well over a gal every daylight in the summer . The other matter I recount folks though is it ’s not just pee . Electrolytes are really important , and actually if you drink too much water and do n’t also add in electrolytes and or piquant food for thought , you may get what ’s call hyponatremia , which is low , broken lineage atomic number 11 stage . And that can become a aesculapian parking brake too . The fix for that is table salt and electrolytes , and really the bar for it is staying hydrated , but drinking to thirst . Drink when you ’re thirsty , not because you think you should be imbibe . fuse half a bottle of Gatorade with half a nursing bottle of weewee is really great . And then going with that , and just eating potato chips , piquant solid food in general is super beneficial . So that ’s one thing that we do ourselves a quite a little and boost the visitant to do .
Otherwise it ’s just prioritise our safety . We have an official heating plant safety protocol for staff where reckon on the air temperature by every five stage above a hundred , the work rest proportion is different . For example if it is only a hundred degree and the work outside is middling light-colored , not super arduous , you exercise 50 minutes and then rest for 10 . On the other end of that , if it ’s around 115 degree and it ’s restrained work , you ’re crop for 10 minutes and then resting for 50 .
If it ’s above 119 degrees , routine workplace stops . We do n’t work outside , obviously still work in the gentle wind conditioned buildings and stuff , but we do n’t work outside if it ’s over 119 at all with the exception of pinch . And then even that is typeface by suit . So if we had a search and rescue call and it ’s over 119 , if we have it away exactly where they are and what ’s wrong , if we ’re told it ’s someone with have heating plant stroke and they ’re a half mile at the Golden Canyon Trail , okay , neat , we ’ll go and we ’ll take precautions like cooling towels and we ’ll have safety officers standing by the lead oral sex that take care of us , and then we ’ll go do the rescue . But if something more vague like , oh , somebody went missing in this cosmopolitan neighborhood of the desert two hours ago , we ’re not going to go just look for for them if it ’s over 119 because that ’s not safe for us .
If you were visiting Death Valley as a Edgar Guest and you only had a day , what would you see?GM : There ’s a lot to see here . Because it is the largest Mungo Park , I ’ve been here most of the last four year and I still say I ’m still seeing something new every time I go out and explore the common . There ’s a lot of unlike ways you could go with a day and none of it ’s going to be the wrong means to go . Everything here is spectacular .
I do consider especially for a first time visitor that want to get a appreciation of the parking area and get the most smash for your buck , definitely start at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center . It ’s a really convenient emplacement , not too far into the park . Meet with the ranger , get your mapping , check in , it ’s a great place to start . And then a lot of the inadequate rise and pop survey seeing degree are within 45 hour or so of Furnace Creek , I would do those . That ’s what I usually advocate for somebody to do .
Badwater Basin is the lowest point in the vale , and therefore in North America it ’s a negative 282 feet below ocean level . So that ’s emphatically a must see . And then other places like Artists Drive , Zabriskie Point , Dante ’s sight in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and they ’re going to be those other must - see locations to visit for one day .
What ’s the best part of the job?GM : My work radical specifically helps oversee the backcountry allow process for the park . So we have over 500 miles of dirt road in the park , and you’re able to pretty much hike up wherever you want to with only a few restrictions . I am one of the folks that helps spearhead the summons to require those permit license in certain of our high - use tribulation areas . We occasionally get to go out and chequer to make certain people have permits that are in obligingness . So when I get to do that and I ’m just driving down a dirt road for 20 miles and talking to motor home whenever I see them or hiking one of our backcountry hiking routes and just out there enjoying the green myself , I feel like I ’m just getting paid to hike or drive around our backcountry . And that ’s just something so nerveless . This is my job mighty now , but yeah , somebody pinch me . It ’s somewhat coolheaded .
The other aspect is definitely the hand brake services . All of that work is definitely extremely rewarding . One of the things that is so cool is when we all work together as dissimilar means . We ’re the National Parks and we have a great interior team , but we are a comparatively modest team for especially how large of an area we are . So we have with child partners with the ambulance service surrounding the green . One of our full-grown ones is Mercy Air . Mercy Air is a individual air ambulance company and because we ’re so far in the heart of nowhere , anyone that is critically ill or injured , we wing out of the parking lot . There ’s something really rewarding about visualise just the cooperation between different folks from different federal agency and companies work together .
What do you wear for work ? Is the Death Valley uniform dissimilar from other parks?We do n’t have Death Valley specific uniforms . No . What we do have is we have lots of unlike unvarying item and we have a interior uniform policy as to what employees in unlike purpose in the park divine service as a whole are expected to don . Here in Death Valley , we sort of have our own insurance that we still follow the national guidance , but we are able to be practical too for what needs to happen for such an extreme environment . Some of the shirts are a small second more breathable . I be given to go for the tactical pants most of the fourth dimension , especially in the summertime and if I ’m going to be doing any outside work at all . There ’s not specific uniforms , but we choose the uniform token wisely to agree what we need here .
One other thing I ’ll tell you about uniforms and clothing in general I think is good for visitors to think of is I think a mountain of people are like , oh , do you fatigue insolent flops and shorts on the business and no . One , that ’s not in insurance policy . And two , I would n’t want to anyway . And I do n’t when I ’m out in the green in my own civilian apparel and my days off either , because Nathan Birnbaum and sunburns are really a business concern here , and I find that a breathable long - arm shirt and prosperous poly / cotton blend lawn pants are really a lot more well-to-do and provide the shade ingredient and then always unopen - toe shoes .
We had an incident that got some media care earlier the summer where someone sustained spartan burn to the bottom of their foot because they walked out on the Baroness Dudevant dunes and flip flop , and then the flip flop either discontinue or I never got the full story . What materialise ? Somehow they terminate up walk back to the car barefoot and got severe burns in their feet . So , closed - toed horseshoe and long pants .
The Ultimate Guide to Visiting Death Valley National Park
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