Well this special "hero" Garry Oye didn't like my comment I posted last fall on the YouTube video. Months ago I commented on his disregard for the NEPA process and disregard for public comments that he showed as Whitney District Ranger. Well, he followed my YouTube name to my YouTube channel, watched my daughter's high school graduation video and tracked me down at my work from there. He called me this week at my office. Here's how the conversation went:
Every time I started to talk, he interrupted me and wouldn't stop talking, mostly telling me what I think and how great he is. Apparently he's psychic and knows what I think, but he's not a very good psychic. After about 10 attempts to complete a sentence, I began to tell him how rude he was, but it didn't register. He was so rudely interrupting me that he didn't realize I was calling him out for rudely interrupting me. Eventually, I raised my voice and accused him of ignoring public comments just as he was ignoring me right then. Eventually it sunk in and he let me complete a sentence or two, but the general pattern continued. He's a horrible listener, but boy does he love to talk about Garry Oye and how much he knows, and what everybody else thinks. He knows pretty much everything, just ask him.
He was clearly concerned about how my comment was affecting his reputation, calling it "chicken shit" even. He tried to belittle me and my "hiking buddies on some chat room" which is you, by the way. I kept redirecting the conversation back to the successful toilet system at Long's Peak. He asked me to "define working system" but once I started to, he interrupted again.
Eventually we were able to have a decent back and forth discussion. We found common ground on using wag bags on Mt Shasta. "Who do you think implemented that?" he asked with a pathetic cry for appreciation. For the upper mountain on Shasta, it's about the only solution. There's also a solar toilet at Shasta, which demonstrates how the two systems can work together for the best solution. It's even great to have them available on Whitney, but not as the only solution for 20,000 people during the summer months. To remove the toilets and rely solely on wag bags, that's stupid in my humble opinion. I also acknowledged that the previous toilet system on Whitney was not working and the Rangers were put into a horrible position having to deal with it. That experience affects their thinking today and it's understandable. Anyway, we found common ground on a few things and I sympathize with the difficulty of the situation he was facing.
When I pressed him about how he handled NEPA, he was very evasive. He claimed, "I didn't need a decision document" Instead of explaining why, he went off on an unrelated hypothetical case about a "Do Nothing" alternative. But this was not a "Do Nothing" alternative. He implemented Alternative 5 (removing toilets and using wag bags) with a host of potential environmental impacts. The wag bags littering the trail and general noncompliance you see today are environmental impacts. It degrades the wilderness experience and could contaminate the water. From there, he tried to shift it onto me, questioning my experience with NEPA and bragging about his vast experience with NEPA in a condescending manner that was becoming repetitive. He never explained why he didn't need to complete the NEPA process.
There's one example that sums it up. When I explained how disgusted my 16-yr old daughter was about seeing wag bag after wag bag on the trail, he expressed no understanding of how a teenage girl would feel about that. Later in the conversation, it came out that he also saw several wag bags on the trail on his hike a few years ago. He brushed all that off like it was nothing, and then claimed that he won't be satisfied until there's 100% compliance. Basically trying to have it both ways. I could go on, but I think you get the gist of it by now. They just don't seem to care. There's only one thing that gets their attention. A lawsuit.
Last edited by SierraNevada; 03/31/14 11:27 PM.
