Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 21, Number 11, 1 November 2004 — High Security [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

High Security

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On one of his rounds to the summit of the highest mountain in Hawai'i, Mauna Kea ranger Trevor Anderson pulls his Chevy Tahoe off to the side of the road to eheek up on an elderly eouple who seem to be hiking aimlessly.

After finding out they are looking for Lake Wai'au - Hawai'i's lone alpine lake - Anderson tells them that they walked down the wrong path and are now about a 45-minute hike from their destination. The elderly man declines Anderson's offer of bottled water and asks the woman he is with if she wants to continue. She looks across the barren, undulating landscape of cinder cones and says, "How about we don't and say we did." Anderson smiles and drives away from the eouple knowing that they are safe, and that

he done his job as one of five rangers tasked

with maintaining the Mauna Kea Science Reserve and helping to ensure the

safety of the astronomers, visitors and Hawaiian | cultural practitioners who use it.

The 13,796-foot-high mountain has long been a melting pot of interests in the community. Whereas many Native Hawaiians view Mauna Kea as one of the most sacred places in the islands, the home of numerous deities and traditional shrines, astronomers see the mountain as such a consummate location for celestial observation that they have erected 13 telescopes on the summit since the late 1960s. Visitors, on the other hand, go to the mountain to experience both the cultural and astronomical aspects, while also hoping to get a glimpse of a rarity in Hawai'i: snow. Office of Mauna Kea Management Director Bill i Stormont says that having rangers to ensure everyone's safety is imperative because of the moun- « tain's high altitude and remote location, along with

severe weather, including snowstorms and hurrieane force winds, and numerous visitors - up to 1,500 a day during special events - trying to make it up the unpaved summit road. All of whieh make it, as Stormont says, "a tricky job." "It takes a certain kind of per-

son to do it,"

Stormont says. "Some people's bodies ean handle it, some can't. But they don't know until they try." Anderson says of his ability to manage the job physically: "My perception is that the mountain allows me to be here; it agrees with my body."

Lurther complicating the job is the controversy surrounding the question of who has enforcement authority on the mountain. Kealoha Pisciotta, president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, a watchdog group that focuses on the mountain, says that the rangers do not have the authority to enforce rules and regulations on state land, a power that she says is reserved for the Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement (DOCARE). Pisciotta, who worked for observatories on Mauna Kea for 12 years, is an outspoken critic of the management of the mountain by the University of Hawai'i, the lessee of the state land. And Pisciotta is not alone. In 1998, a state audit that was critical of the university's management of the mountain's cultural and natural resources led to the UH Board of Regents' approval in June 2000 of a new master plan for Mauna Kea. The master plan called for the creation of the Office of Mauna Kea Management, whieh, from its location at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, would be responsible for the day-to-day See RANGERS on page 16

Mauna Kea ranger Trevor Anderson Photos: courtesy of Office of Mauna Kea Management

RANGERS from page 9 management of the mountain. The OMKM in turn created the ranger program in 2001 to directly address issues raised in the audit. Pisciotta says she is wary of UH being the authority on Mauna Kea because of the fact that the university benefits from development on the mountain and that it is the lessee of the land, not the owner. "It's like letting the fox guard the ehieken eoop," she says. However, some members of the community believe that the rangers - possessing the proper authority or not - are a necessity to the well-being of the mountain and everyone that uses it. "That's a silly detail," says Hawaiian language professor Larry Kimura, a member of a group of Hawaiian cultural experts that advises OMKM, referring to the ranger's laek of enforcement authority. "I want to see the mountain cared for, and the rangers do that." Meanwhile, the rangers, whom Stormont calls "the eyes and ears of the mountain," continue to watch over Mauna Kea. Anderson makes his rounds through the science reserve, documenting road and weather conditions, as well as the number of visitors, astronomers and commercial tour vans. He tries to interact with all of the visitors he sees, encouraging them to take precautions against the effects of altitude sickness, including drinking lots of water and stopping to acclimatize to the elevation at the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station, located at 9,200 feet above sea level. If someone does get hurt, the rangers and the VIS staff are all certified through a first-responder course. Stormont says that after the authority issue is settled and passes, he is confident that the rangers will still be on Mauna Kea: "The ranger program is the fulfillment of a long overdue promise the University made to the community, and a strong indication the University is serious about its stewardship role on Mauna Kea. I think they're here to stay." ■