As Rocky Mountain National Park backcountry ranger Jeff Christensen’s body lay on the side of a mountain in the park’s Mummy Range in summer 2005, searchers came within 30 feet of him but never saw his body.
Christensen was wearing the National Park Service’s standard green and gray uniform when he fell to his death in rocky green and gray-colored terrain.
Beginning this year, the park’s rangers wear high-visibility yellow uniforms when they venture into the backcountry thanks to lessons learned looking for Christensen and a fundraising campaign by his family.
The search for Christensen was difficult, park officials said, and high-visibility uniforms will prevent injured rangers from being unseen amid the woods or talus in the future.
“We went there on day one of the search; we flew over that area with helicopters; we had lots of people out on the ground,” Rocky Mountain National Park chief ranger Mark Magnuson said. “How did we miss him?”
The standard-issue uniform was the culprit, he said.
