To say that New York State Forest Ranger Rob Dawson wears many hats is an understatement. Aside from his olive-green and black baseball cap, several helmets hang from the roof of his black Ford F-250, including a wildland firefighting helmet, a swift-water rescue helmet, a rock-climbing helmet, a snowmobile helmet, and a chainsaw helmet with ear and eye protection. The headgear illustrates the forest rangers’ expansive job, ranging from backwoods firefighting to wilderness first aid to search-and-rescue. They’ve been called human Swiss Army Knives.

Forest rangers are an elite unit, 147 strong and stewards of nearly 4.9 million acres of open space. Dawson, 50, patrols Greene County, spending much of his summer around Kaaterskill Falls and North-South Lake Campground, both popular destinations. He deals with speeding motorists, noise complaints and scads of questions from the curious or confused. “You have like, 2,000 people [at] the falls; you have 800 people down [Platte Clove], and then 2,000 people in the campground,” said Dawson. “You’ve got one ranger covering all that.” 

A February 2025 report prepared for the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) found that on busy summer weekends and holidays the number of visitors at Kaaterskill Falls could cause “unacceptable parking, traffic, and crowding conditions.” The report noted that Forest Rangers “experience chronic stress” and recommended that the DEC limit the number of guests to 1,000 per day. 

Dawson said that his summer workload can prove taxing.

“You try to just be as best prepared to the point where I eat on a regular basis,” he said. “Because I’ve got times when I was going out to get lunch and it was three o’clock and I’m starving, and the next thing I know, someone fell off this cliff.”

While the public often associates rangers with high-profile rescues of lost hikers, they also serve as police officers. At first, Dawson conveys a cop vibe. Imagine if Joe Friday from Dragnet worked at REI. Tall and wiry, Dawson doesn’t waste words. He wears sunglasses, an olive-green uniform and a semiautomatic on his hip. He also keeps a Mossberg shotgun and shells in his truck. 

“Problems from society,” he explained, “sometimes come into the campground.”

Dawson warms up a bit after a roughly mile-and-a-half walk up the Escarpment Trail on a chilly spring morning.

“I’m Scottish, I love the cold,” he said. 

At one point during our hike to the former site of the Catskill Mountain House, Dawson scans the vegetation and predicts a future brush fire. 

In spring, which Dawson calls “housekeeping” season, he typically preps gear, sharpens his skills and walks trails, which doubles as “built-in mental health self-therapy.” 

On a bench with a dramatic view of the Hudson River Valley, Dawson said that he considers himself more educator than police officer. Still, “a ticket is education for people that are a little bit slower at learning.” 

Dawson joined the rangers in 2005 after considering the Coast Guard. At the time, the State agency was democratizing. Getting a ranger job, Dawson said, once often required personal connections: “You’re a friend of the forest ranger…or family member.”

According to “The Forest Rangers: A History of the New York State Forest Ranger Force” by Louis C. Curth, before 1958, “Ranger job seekers, no matter how good their qualifications, had to have the approval of local political leaders who supported the reigning party in power in State government.”

When the state established the first full-time force in 1912, the job focused on preventing and fighting wildfires. After World War II, Curth wrote, “outdoor recreation, especially hunting, began to increase in popularity,” prompting rangers to conduct more search-and-rescue operations. In 1973, New York issued handguns to rangers, following the high-profile manhunt for serial killer Robert Garrow who hid in the Adirondacks. An experienced woodsman, Garrow evaded capture for 12 days, before an environmental police officer shot and captured him near a relative’s house in Witherbee, New York.

Dawson grew up in Philadelphia and became an Eagle Scout; the organization’s motto, “Be Prepared,” made a lifelong impression. He fretted that some visitors to public lands fail to practice self-reliance.

“I feel like we’re losing that preparedness and that self-responsibility.”

“Even a little jacket like this weighs, like, four ounces, could be a lifesaver,” he said, fingering an orange shell. Having some extra snacks, having fluids. Having a headlamp. No one can even read a map these days, it seems, so if you’re gonna rely on your phone, have that backup battery. Maybe have two phones.” 

Dawson encourages hikers to carry extra clothing even in summer. “Yeah, sure, it was a 99-degree day, but now it drops down to the 60s [at night]. You can get hypothermic in 60-degree weather.”   

Asked about memorable moments on the job, Dawson cracked a half-smile. He recalled responding to a call that “there’s a guy with a flame thrower” at Kaaterskill Falls. Turned out it was just another would-be influencer filming a music video with a DIY blowtorch and an entourage of dancers in “skimpy outfits.” Some visitors apparently come for Instagram-able moments, not nature. 

Dawson sometimes asks himself, “Why is this person glued to their phone? And they’re literally tracking themselves down the hiking trail on Google Maps.”

Another unforgettable mission: Dawson once aided a camper who misjudged the position of his al fresco toilet.

“We had to rescue a guy that fell off a cliff because he had to go to the bathroom really bad, and pooped too close to the edge,” Dawson recalled. “At the same time, he was covered in poop, so he was easier to find, because you could actually smell him.”

Dawson’s tone sobered when he recounted one of his most harrowing assignments. Kaaterskill Falls is New York State’s highest cascading waterfall. Several years ago, a woman fell to her death. At the time, there was no trail to the victim’s body, so Dawson and other first responders set up ropes and climbed down. 

Dawson ultimately deemed the situation unsafe because of the impending darkness. A ranger guarded the victim’s corpse through the night, and then Dawson returned early the next morning with a litter to retrieve the body. 

“It’s a tough situation, very sad and sobering.” But, he said, “It’s not every day you go over, like 170-foot drop.”

Dawson said that most of his interactions with the public are relatively routine, pleasant and rewarding.

“It’s enjoyment to be able to help people, just even showing where a good spot to camp is, or a good hiking trail,” he said. 

“You’re helping people because they’re having a really bad day because, now, they’re lost or hurt. Their car broke down, or they’re camping in a tent” that was destroyed. 

He said that the limited number of rangers means that, “You can’t be there all the time, but when I am there, I can make things easier and smoother. Yeah, and that can make a huge difference.”

Who Goes There? is an occasional column about difference-makers in our community.

David Wallis has contributed to The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Guardian, among other publications. He co-edited “Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World’s Richest Country” (Haymarket).