How and why Desolation Ghosts was born

In the winter of 2020-2021, a man with mental illness left a suicide note in his car and disappeared into the woods in the Pacific Northwest. He was known to be paranoid, probably dangerous, and carrying a gun, which affected how his search was handled. Should it have changed how emergency services responded or should he have gotten the same resources as someone not in the throes of a mental health crisis would have?

In February and March, 2021, a book on the subject - Desolation Ghosts - exploded out of me, based on my experiences working as a dispatcher at North Cascades National Park. The majority of the book turned out to be a love letter about the park itself, as well as fictionalized word photos of people, events, animals, and places I experienced there.