Nobody Remembers The Mountain Man

Growing up in Denver, Colorado I have been around the Rocky Mountains my whole life. The Last Session tells a true story of a park ranger named Randy. Randy was a veteran ranger who was very well know, suddenly he went missing. The whole community around was out searching for him. He was known to go off for a few weeks and randomly show up again. But this time was different. He had no radio communication for the past four days before being reported missing. The whole town was in a great amount of stress and was scared of what might have happened to the renowned park ranger. This part of the story made me stop and think of a dear friend of mine who went missing. He was only missing for a day before he turned up…. Dead. No one wanted to think of the worst while he was gone. I could really connect with the emotions of the people who cared for Randy. Their own friend, partner, college, or even family member was gone without a trace. Like my friend Brad had disappeared. Death is the worst possible outcome that could come from this situation. Everyone in my little town of Littleton was worried for Brad, as everyone was for Randy.
Loosing someone is a hard thing to undergo, especially when you don’t know what happened to them. The author, Eric Blehm, did a fantastic job at illustrating the pain and worry in your head. Randy’s story is told from a third person view of what is happening. This gives the reader the opportunity to feel the emotion from many different points of view. To better understand each step in Randy’s life and the hunt to find him, Eric organized the book into detailed chapters that specifically explain each journey along the way. Each piece of information is vital to understanding the story and to really seeing the whole picture.
Eric displays a very intriguing story that can only be understood if connections are made to the book. Living near the mountains it gave me a huge connection to the area Randy was lost in. I cannot completely know what tests he was put through but from the illustrations that were painted we as readers can deeply feel what might have happened.