Reminder of ultimate sacrifices at the mountain

By Pat Jenkins

The Dispatch

Margaret Anderson was killed on duty by a fugitive gunman. Nick Hall died trying to rescue mountain climbers.

They and two others who sacrificed their lives in the service of Mount Rainier National Park and the public are being remembered through a new memorial at the park.

The Valor Memorial was dedicated in the Longmire area on Aug. 25, the date of the 101st anniversary of the National Park Service. About 150 friends and relatives of Anderson, Hall, Sean Ryan and Phil Otis were joined by park personnel for the ceremony that included speeches by U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, park superintendent Randy King, and deputy superintendent Tracy Swartout.

“This memorial serves as a place to permanently honor and remember those who have lost their lives in the act of saving others,” King said.

Anderson and Hall were the most recent to pay that price, both in 2012.

In January that year, Anderson, a park law enforcement ranger who lived in Eatonville, was shot and killed by a man who had fled to the park after an earlier fatal shooting. She stopped him on the Nisqually to Paradise Road after he didn’t stop at a mandatory checkpoint. He then opened fire on her. The gunman, who authorities speculated may have been headed for the Paradise recreation area before being stopped, fled into the wilderness and eventually was found dead from exposure to the winter elements.

Six months later, Hall, a climbing ranger, fell to his death while working with other rescuers to help four injured climbers who’d become stranded on an upper slope of the mountain.

Ryan, another park ranger, and Otis, a volunteer ranger through the Student Conservation, also died during a high-mountain rescue on Aug. 12, 1995.

The memorial to the four park personnel – consisting of seven basalt stone columns standing erect in two groups among fir and spruce trees next to the Longmire Community Building, with a panoramic view of Mount Rainier in the background -- was designed and installed by park employees. Engraving of the names of Anderson, Hall, Otis and Ryan was done by Marenakos Rock Center of Issaquah. The project’s cost of $58,000 was covered by funds from the state of Washington and a donation from the Redmond Cycling Club through Washington’s National Park Fund.

King said the monument, in addition to its chief purpose of memorializing the Mount Rainier-related deaths, “reminds us of the selfless work that continues each day and the risks faced by those who serve in our national parks as they protect park resources for the future, provide a way for visitors to connect with those resources, and work to keep people safe.”