Remembering Ranger, Climber, and LGBTQ+ Activist Robbi Mecus

The first time I met Robbi Mecus, she told me she liked my skirt. I was 25, working as an interior caretaker in the Adirondack High Peaks, my first job with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). My male supervisor had recently told me the skirt was unprofessional. But Robbi loved it—she lamented the fact that she couldn’t wear one on the job as a ranger. She loved embracing her feminine side.

It was summer 2020, and Robbi, who had been a forest ranger with the DEC for over 20 years, was passing by my backcountry cabin at Marcy Dam, a major trail intersection in the Adirondacks. She had just rescued a pair of hikers from the Trap Dike, a class four climb in a steep, rocky gully on Mt. Colden, where many hikers get in over their heads. Robbi knew this area better than just about anyone, and it took her just a few hours to get the pair safely back on trail.

I had been looking forward to meeting her for a long time. I had heard her calm, unwavering voice on the radio all summer. In the years to come, her voice would become a balm. I’d hear her on the radio and a flood of relief would wash over my body. Thank God Robbi is coming. Everything will be ok.

Later that summer, I would successfully file a claim of discrimination and sexual harassment against that supervisor, citing a long list of incidents that included his distaste for the skirt. The day I met Robbi, I had no idea what was coming. But I was standing for something I believed in—that women belong working in the outdoors—by wearing that skirt. Robbi saw that. We were fast friends, bonded by this common thread that wove our lives together.

Now I’m left wondering how to move forward without her support and passion. On Thursday, April 25, Robbi died in an ice climbing fall on Mount Johnson in Alaska’s Ruth Gorge, at the age of 52. She was on a route called the Escalator, and she and her climbing partner, Melissa Orzechowski, fell about 1,000 feet. Another climbing party on the route witnessed the accident, called for help, and descended to the pair, where they confirmed that Robbi had died. They dug a snow cave and attended to Melissa’s injuries throughout the night. The next morning, Melissa was flown out and transported to a hospital where she still remains in critical condition.

In the wake of her death, Robbi has left many communities grieving. She was an incredible ranger, an accomplished climber, a powerful advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, a mother, a mentor, and more. Our relationship was just beginning—I hadn’t yet cashed in on her offer to get out for a climb in Keene Valley, and we’ll never get a chance to go to the Rage Against the Machine concert she invited me to. But in the four short years I knew Robbi, we spent many hours skiing together in the backcountry and at Whiteface, our local mountain, and we were on multiple rescues together. I got to see her shine in the most precarious and stressful situations: in helicopters, doing rope rescues, on carry-outs. I also saw her shine in the most joyous: on the dance floor, with a margarita in hand, or traveling the trails in her favorite mountains.

For someone as tough as Robbi was, she had the softest, kindest face. She was tall and strong with electric blue eyes and long brown hair, often tied back in two braids. From the moment Robbi understood gender as a child, she knew she was a girl, and a girl who loved the mountains. Both felt out of reach: she didn’t have examples of trans people in her immediate community, and living in New York City, the mountains were far away. But early on, she found a climbing community and immediately fell in love with the sport. To her, everybody was equal at the crag.

In 1999, Robbi became a forest ranger in New York. She was in her thirties, working her dream job. She got married and had a daughter. In an interview with North Country Public Radio, she said she thought that maybe that was enough, maybe she could make her life work in a man’s body.

Then, when Robbi was 44, she came out as a transgender woman. She couldn’t keep hiding. In a place like the Adirondacks—conservative and blue-collar, without a big community of openly trans or queer people—she thought her career as a ranger would be over. She knew the job relied on personal connections within the community and her coworkers, and believed that she would lose those relationships after coming out.

But people who knew her, like her coworkers, ended up supporting and respecting her. Robbi said she felt a wave of relief. It was all coming together. She was finally in the right body, with the right job.

Throughout her career, she relentlessly worked to create a safe and supportive community for LGBTQ+ climbers in the Adirondacks. Back in 2022, she and Melissa started the Adirondack Queer Ice Fest, the first of its kind, and a huge success. She became a role model for people who aren’t always seen or accepted by the outdoor community. She had put up a number of first ascents in the Adirondacks, and was known throughout the region for her climbing prowess.

Unlike a lot of forest rangers, Robbi was very public about her work. She agreed to interviews with the press. She delivered presentations on the complexities of mountain rescues. She conducted Facebook Live Q&A events, wrote for the Alpinist, and was interviewed on their podcast. She performed at live storytelling events. She did it all because she believed it was so important that women like her were visible. Before she transitioned, she didn’t see any queer rangers or trans climbers.

Robbi was a damn good ranger. Once she was called to rescue a man at the Boquet River Lean-to. It was her first rescue in a zone new to her, and she reached him at sunset. The helicopter pilot radioed her and said she had two minutes to harness the patient or they’d turn around, because they couldn’t hoist someone in the dark. Another ranger was brought in to help. With webbing, she tied a full waist and chest harness in under 90 seconds (less than half the time it usually takes). They hoisted the patient, and then the other ranger. Robbi walked out with the rest of the group. No ranger since has been able to beat her record.

Robbi and I were thrilled every time we got to work together. She made me feel seen, respected, and empowered. Soon, our texts shifted from work talk to plans to make dinner together, or get out for an adventure in our free time.  She was a ball of fire. In winter 2023, we took an avalanche course together. After our first day in the course she texted me, “Let’s see how many times the instructors will automatically gender some random made-up rescuer or ski patroller as male today. It was all over the place yesterday. Did you catch it? ‘The guy running the probe.’ ‘He needs to start shoveling downhill.’ ‘What if your wife or girlfriend were caught in the avalanche?’ That last one I loved. I looked around the room at the students and a good 40 percent of them are women. WTF?”

Robbi affirmed the disappointment and anger I often felt as a woman in the outdoors. She was so articulate about it, so precise. She saw it, said something, and carried on proving the world wrong. She supported me in every way. It’s dizzying to imagine how many people she impacted, if in just four short years she could give so much to me.

This spring, she was at the height of her career, as strong as she had ever been. Weeks before she left for Alaska, she and her close friend and coworker Chrissy Raudonis, the Lake Colden caretaker, saved the life of a man who became lost on Mount Marcy, New York’s tallest mountain. They spotted his tracks off trail just hours before a blizzard would have covered them. A few days before she flew out to the Ruth Gorge, I sent her the New York Times article about the rescue. I wrote how proud I was to call her my friend, and how excited I was for her that she was back in Alaska. She responded simply with, “Chrissy too!” That was Robbi. Humble as ever.

A ranger I used to work with called me when he got the news. I’ve tried to find words for what it feels like when someone tells you the unimaginable. I keep falling short. He had the tone of someone who has to deliver bad news all too often. He invited me to a gathering that evening where friends and rangers, some who had worked their entire careers by Robbi’s side, told stories about the rescues they had been on together: the hard, the hilarious, the unforgettable. They all said that they never worried about Robbi. She was so strong and calculated. Something like this would never happen to her. She was one of the best rangers New York has ever seen. Before we knew it, it was four in the morning.

Robbi was magic, someone you became a better person around just by standing in her light. She glowed on her best days and her hardest. Everyone she met could feel the care and passion she brought to her work and her community. I grieve for the people who loved her. I’m more sure than ever that we must tell people we love them, even when it might feel strange or scary. I’m learning that loving hard means that loss hits hard, too. Robbi would tell me that it’s worth it.