Author's Note- Hello everyone...I was planning on starting to posting these stories tomorrow...but it is Thanksgiving, there are way too many people in the kitchen, and getting this story posted is giving me an excuse to avoid relatives for a little while. As I have mentioned in some of my previous work, when I was a kid I spent many a summer living in Yellowstone National Park staff housing. The memories of growing up among the Rangers and their families gave me a lot of inspiration for this year's collections, and I will admit that many of the OC's that will pop in on occasion are based on actual rangers that have known and worked with over my life. As a result, this story is dedicated to them.

A is for Approach Road

Wildfires plus rains equal a whole lot of trouble. Steep rocky terrain only made the situation worse, and while every employee of Piston Peak's National Park had done their best to stabilize as many of the bare slopes as possible…they surrounding county hadn't had the same level of resources. As a result, the spring following the Great Piston Peak's Fire was proving to be a royal mess.

Unfortunately, this meant that when a massive landslide buried the approach road a half-mile outside the park, no one was particularly surprised. Still, both the park and the county were left scrambling. Poor planning meant that there wasn't a back entrance to the park, and the rail track was just as badly buried as the road, which meant both organizations were left scrambling to rescue a gaggle of visitors that were stuck in the park.

Now for your average superintendent, the mound of dirt, rock, and debris would be enough to make them sob. But from his vantage point strapped into the hold of the park's resident cargo plane, Jammer was fairly optimistic.

"How many days do you think it would take our folks to dig us out?" He shouted to be heard over the thunder of engines.

"Hm…" Chief Blade Ranger, the helicopter that led his Fire and Rescue team eyed mass of rubble. "That looks like a solid, four days of work."

"You know that the gravel munchers will insist on just powering through this job." Cabbie's voice thrummed through the metal beneath Jammer's tires as the big plane spoke.

Blade gave a heavy sigh of agreement. "Fine, it is closer to two and a half days of work if they insist on working through the night, but I would prefer if they bedded down and got a proper night's sleep. Tired vehicles are a lot higher risk for accidents and injuries."

"I think that settles that then." Jammer announced. "Chief, I would like to put your smokejumpers in charge of this operation. They have the backcountry and off-road experience that all the other departments lack. They will have the full cooperation from park's road crew, as well as, as some county vehicles."

Blade opened his mouth as if to stay something, but Cabbie beat him to the punch. "Dynamite and Avalanche are going to have a field day."

Blade's estimate proved to be pretty close. The smokejumpers rumbled back onto base a quarter to midnight on the third day. They had worked nonstop until the access road was clear, and now that they were home, they didn't even bother to hose themselves down. They just opened the door to the main hanger and parked themselves inside.

While that may have seemed like at idea to the smokejumpers at the time, it didn't take long for the Chief to disagree with them. Blade discovered the crew shortly before dawn when he was preparing for his morning patrol. As he tried to grab a morning cup of Joe, he found his way was blocked by a mass of snoring smokejumpers that were utterly dead to the world. After a couple of attempts to wake and/or move them failed, Blade called in the Calvary.

"Cabbie, come and deal with your jumpers." The Chief motioned towards the gaggle of smokejumpers with his rotor blades. Cabbie, for his part, just stared sleepily at the helicopter. Then the cargo plane yawned.

"Looks like they are finally getting some overdue sleep."

"Well, they could do that in their own hanger." Blade grumbled. He was under-caffeinated, which was always a bad way to start the day.

The big plane poked his nose into the main hanger and simply gave a shrug of his wings. "Last time tried to move this lot when they were asleep, it required Windlifter…and you know how well he does mornings. They won't sleep in too long, but with as hard as they have been working, they deserve a bit of solid shuteye."

Blade grumbled a bit, then brought up his pressing question. "Coffee?"

"I will get the pot in my hanger fired up." It was Cabbie's turn to sigh as he guided the cranky helicopter across the apron for a mug of firehouse brew.

Term- Approach Road- The designation for roads regularly used by visitors to enter/exit the park. These roads often have official gates that at or near where the road crosses into the park. While some parks only have one approach road, many have several roads that enter the park from multiple directions. For example, Yellowstone and Yosemite National Park both have has five access points, while Bryce Canyon National Park only has one approach road, but has two unimproved back road that can be used to access the park in an emergency.