Grand Canyon Hikers Get Boost From Rescuer : Recreation: When visitors get in over their heads, a Park Service staffer may happen by and give a pep talk.

If climbing the walls of the Grand Canyon saps your strength, if the blisters sting with every step and you tell fellow hikers you can’t go any farther, you might get a lecture from Jerry Chavez.

Chavez, in his National Park Service uniform, is likely to happen by on one of his frequent walks and give you a pep talk, exhort you to try harder. If you’re too weak to lift a pebble, he might even offer to carry some of your load.

After a talk with him--unless you’re injured or truly sick--chances are you’ll be back on the trail.

The 45-year-old Vietnam veteran, a muscular 150 pounds at 5 feet 7, is a jack of all trades in the nation’s most visited canyon.

His official duty is to operate the pumping station at Indian Gardens campground, which sends water to the South Rim. The campground is on the popular Bright Angel Trail, 4.7 miles below the rim.

But you get the feeling that he much prefers some of his other tasks, including rappelling down the imposing canyon walls to participate in rescues or to repair the water pipe.

A member of the park’s 20-member rescue team, Chavez won a National Park Service achievement award for helping save a hiker found nearly dead from heat stroke.

Chavez has given his pep talk to perhaps hundreds of tired hikers during the five years he has lived in the canyon.

“I’ve given a lot of speeches to people who say, ‘I can’t make it,’ he said in an interview at the modern Park Service residence in Indian Gardens, where he lives year-round.

“People have given up. I tell them, ‘I can’t carry you. There’s no taxi service. I know you’re sore, but you can make it.’ I tell them, ‘I know what the human body can do if you’re strong-willed.’ I say, ‘We’re only a mile from the top.’ I’ll carry their pack if they’re hurting.”

In a real medical emergency, Chavez can summon medical help and an evacuation helicopter.

Chavez is a man at peace with his environment. He loves to be the first to hike out of the canyon after a snowfall, crunching the first boot imprints onto a trail. After the first snow this winter, he began hiking out at 2 a.m., just for the sheer enjoyment of the walk.

He used to keep in shape by running rim to rim, some 23 rugged miles, and has run 100-mile endurance tests. Recently, a back injury has limited him to fast-paced hikes, some on rarely used trails where Chavez claps his hands to scare off rattlesnakes.

He hates it when others abuse the environment.

“Sometimes I find myself getting irritated at people,” Chavez said. “They walk on a revegetation area. And the thing I hate most is littering, including littering in the campground toilets.”

The “dumbest thing,” he said, is “hiking without food or drinking water. It looks easy, but people suffer from dehydration and heat strokes.”

Like the park’s rangers, Chavez works nine days and then has five days off. He shares, with another pump operator, a Park Service house that has a modern kitchen, a wood-burning stove, a VCR, a stereo and two bedrooms. Supplies arrive by mule train.

He also has use of a Park Service house on the South Rim. He keeps a home in Leadville, Colo., where his wife, Jeri, lives along with children Michael, 10, and Sara, 8. Chavez has another son, Abad, by a previous marriage.

Chavez has seen a lot of weird things in the canyon, including a guy hiking in a tuxedo and women in high-heeled shoes.

“There are flights here from Las Vegas, and he looked like a high-roller,” Chavez said of the hiker in formal dress. “His tuxedo was dustier than hell, but he still had the bow tie on.”

Last June, the water pipeline broke and Chavez had to rappel down the rocks.

“I was on two ropes,” he said. “The rappel rope was anchored. Both ropes broke. I slammed onto a rock. The harness was twisted. I strained myself. I had back surgery twice.”

After 2 1/2 months off work, Chavez was not only back on the job last fall, he began learning to rappel from a helicopter in a new rescue-training program.

The incident involving the heat-stroke victim came three years ago. The rescue team included Chavez and two rangers, one a registered nurse.

“When I saw that man, he looked like death,” Chavez recalled. “We were talking to the clinic on the rim by radio. We had to carry him a mile up a steep embankment. His temperature was 109.

“We were running water from a creek and kept pouring it on him. When they flew him to Flagstaff, he still had a temperature of 105. The doctor called and said whoever worked on him had saved his life. The three of us got National Park Service achievement awards. The guy walked out of the hospital as normal as can be.”

Chavez complains about parents, out of shape themselves, who bring small children with them to hike the canyon.

One winter day in 1989, Chavez was out for a run when he came upon a couple with two children and heavy packs.

“The kids were lying in the snow and crying,” he recalls. “I told them, ‘You’re going to have to carry those kids out.’ I asked if I could help and the father said no. I could hear him yelling at the kids, who were about 2 or 3.”

Chavez eventually got permission to carry the kids out. He carried the first child part way to the rim and left him with two rangers who were out on a training exercise. Then he went back for the second child, and made another trip to retrieve their packs.

He tells such parents, “You’re going to turn your kids against camping.”

Chavez said wants to live in the canyon until he retires. When will that be?

“The day I can’t perform because of physical problems is the day I shouldn’t be here anymore,” he said.