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The Last Season (P.S.) | 
 enlarge | Author: Eric Blehm
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $1.88
You Save: $13.07 (87%)
New (47) Used (53) from $1.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  70 reviews
Sales Rank: 21709
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 0060583010
Dewey Decimal Number: 590
EAN: 9780060583019
ASIN: 0060583010
Publication Date: February 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Cover and page edges show light wear. The pages are clean.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada—mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 65 more reviews...
 Detailed account of High Sierra Tragedy July 12, 2008
I purchased this book from Amazon because I had known Randy's father back in the 70's. Dana Morgenson set a standard for excellence in Yosemite with his "camera walks" and slide shows that has never been equalled. It is both sad and ironic that both he and his son, Randy, suffered untimely deaths in National Parks - the places they both loved the most.
Eric Blehm's account of Randy's disappearance and the resulting SAR is fascinating reading. It's hard to put the book down because it's written like a mystery novel. Blehm knows the Sierra quite well and he seems to have developed rapport with all the major characters; getting all the significant facts in order to document the case in minute detail.
In fact, the amount of detail may put off some readers. And it, perhaps, lends a bit of voyeurism in that we learn so much about Randy's personal troubles in the years before he disappeared. Randy was a private person. I found a lot of similarities between Randy and myself and I would not want to have many of the details of my personal life written about in a book.
With that one caveat expressed, I recommend "The Last Season" as a fascinating look at the life of a Backcountry Ranger in the Sierra Nevada as well as a detailed description of how a Search and Rescue Mission is carried out in the National Parks.
Good if you like real-life mystery stories May 23, 2008
I picked this book off the shelf as a birthday gift for a friend who loves backcountry adventures and turned me on to Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, which I read in hardback some years ago. I like the central character in this book better than I liked Krakauer's all-too-young Alaska adventurer. Anyway, my friend read this one, loved it, and gave it back to me to read. The evolving story did indeed keep me up nights working through to the end. I didn't let myself read the resolution in advance --- actually I looked for it and it was difficult to find. Which was good. I am sorry to see at least one reviewer gave it away. It's true that some of the detail gets in the way of a quick read, and for that reason I'm giving the book a four. But I always found myself going back to make sure I didn't miss anything. The book is a fascinating study of a real person and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a true life mystery, whether they love the backcountry or not.
 Way too long and a bummer to boot March 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this book to be tedious and depressing and yet I managed to read the entire thing, wanting to find out what finally happened. Randy Morgenson grew up in an idyllic setting (Yosemite Valley), was raised by caring parents, yet managed to make a mess of his life due to what seems to have been an obsession for living alone in the beauty of the Sierra. He married, but was away from home at least half the time, and never had children. Although a legendary and exemplary ranger, he was unfaithful to his long-suffering wife in a three-year affair, became ultimately disillusioned with his obsession, and finally died alone apparently having drowned after falling through a snow bridge into an alpine pond while on patrol. Tragic and depressing.
 The Last Season March 10, 2008
A winner! Eric Blehm captures the head and heart of Ranger Randy Morgenson, who devoted his entire adult worklife to backcountry rangering. It's as much in the telling of the tale as the tale itself that makes this a great read. Blehm gets into Morgenson's head in a way that perhaps, Morgenson could not get into his own head.
"The Last Season" is the saga of the often humdrum duties of a backcountry ranger, combined with a psychological study of Ranger Morgenson that makes this a compelling, memorable read.
A great book for backpackers January 22, 2008
This book would be great to read on a ten-day backpacking trip.
As a backpacker, I have often wondered just what sort of lives are lead by those unique individuals called "rangers." This book gives a good glimpse into the life of one of those lonely dedicated people. The chapters devoted to the search efforts are riveting. The chapters that describe Morgenson's life are necessarily slower and more pedestrian, but they serve to give texture to the overall story. I actually found the descriptions of Morgenson's colleagues to be more interesting than those of Morgenson himself, perhaps because I got the feeling that, even though Randy Morgenson was certainly a highly respected naturalist and a devoted idealist, his fellow rangers (e.g., Durkee, Nash) were by far the finer people. This is a tragic story, with the silver lining being that the book does a good job of communicating the high standards and code of conduct to which backcountry rangers hold themselves.
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