PARK CITY, Utah — Olympic National Park Ranger Dan Pontbriand knows all the twists and turns of the giant slalom course.
Long before athletes at the 2002 Winter Olympics put ski to snow on the run, Pontbriand and his identical twin brother, Ed, have covered the route nightly on their telemark skis in search of potential security risks.
The ranger duo — Ed works in Stehekin for North Cascades National Park — were selected from hundreds of National Park Service applicants to provide security detail on the slopes of the Salt Lake City games.
“Who better than rangers to deal with those kinds of back-country issues?” Dan said Monday during a telephone interview as he scrambled into his mountain gear and headed toward the chairlift.
The brothers are two of 100 park rangers from throughout the nation chosen by the Secret Service based on their unique and extensive mountaineering, skiing, medical and law enforcement skills.
Dan, who is Olympic National Park’s Lake District ranger stationed at Lake Crescent, has been a Park Service employee for 21 years, including 11 at Olympic.
Ed — the younger of the 46-year-old twins by three minutes — has 17 years of experience with the Park Service. He moved to Washington four years ago.
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