Re: Grapevine Ranger Station status?
Posted by Ralph Klinger on November 01, 2001 at 02:28:51:
In Reply to: Grapevine Ranger Station status? posted by David on September 27, 2001 at 15:53:42:
David,
Yes, the Grapevine Ranger Station is occupied. It actually forms the entrance station at the northern end of the park and a number of NPS personnel are permanent residents there. In addition to the rangers (law enforcement types and fire protection), many of the Park Service personnel that work at Scotty's Castle (interpretive and maintenance staff) live in the housing near the Ranger Station. There are plans on the books to enlarge the facility with new housing planned in a small canyon to the east. Currently, much of the housing is in the form of trailers. However, there are concerns about the siting of the new housing due to the presence of the Northern Death Valley fault, a very active fault that crosses the highway right at the Ranger Station. There was an older ranger station that was located maybe a half mile to the south of the current station before the current station was built. I don't know much about when it was abandoned, but the only remaining trace of that station is a concrete slab and some of the plumbing. I have found the interpretive staff at Scotty's Castle very helpful. Perhaps someone there could shed some light on the history of that station. I talked to Vickie Wolff, an interpretive ranger, a number of years ago about the age of the mesquite trees in the campground at Mesquite Spring. I am not sure she is still there; she may have transferred to another park by now, as is the norm for many of the personnel in the NPS. With that disappears some of the institutional memory that then has to be recreated. A very strange tradition that is engrained in the NPS.
Ralph