"Do you hear that? Sounds like someone is mowing our lawn" I say, unpacking the groceries into our new kitchen.
"Hmmm...that's a pretty loud lawn mower" Emily replies, pausing with a carton of eggs in her hand to look out the window. The ranger bunkhouse we will spend the next two months living in begins to rumble. "Do we have a heliport in our backyard?" She laughs as the chopper comes into view through the trees, touching down just 200 feet from our kitchen window
I watch the helicopter as its blades slow down. All I can do is state the obvious. "This is so cool."
Emily and I have been Wilderness Rangers at North Cascades National Park for one month now, and I absolutely love it. I spend nine consecutive days working before getting a five day weekend to explore the park. Four to six of those work days are spent in the Wilderness Information Center in Marblemount. The office is where rangers help visitors plan backcountry trips, issue permits, and learn as much about the park as possible. The remaining work days are spent "on patrol," sometimes as single days hikes and sometimes as overnight trips into the backcountry. I've had a couple of three-day patrols and Emily is packing right now for a five-day hike into the northern reaches of the park.
The general job description of a Wilderness Ranger is to "protect the park from the people and the people from the park." In the office we make sure everyone going into the backcountry is prepared and up-to-date on the latest conditions. We also go over Leave No Trace principles and prevent fragile areas from becoming over-crowded with people by limiting the number of campers in an area each night. Sometimes folks come into the office having never been to the park, with little idea of where to go, and want our recommendation on the most epic trip possible. Those are fun visitors. Others are expert climbers who know exactly which routes are epic and beta is swapped at the desk.
Office days aren't bad, but they're not why any of us love being rangers. Patrols (and weekends) are what we live for. On patrol we hike the trails and take in the grandeur of the mountains. During a standard patrol I will check in with a dozen or so other hikers on the trail, make sure the wilderness regulations are being followed, clean camps, and stir the composting toilets. It's a glamorous life. At night I can turn off my scanning radio and listen to the birds sing as the sun sets behind the mountains, sipping on hot tea and reading by headlamp. In the morning, I wake up and put my badge and uniform back on, dirty from the previous day's sweat, and continue hiking, hopefully deeper into the mountainous wilderness.
"Hmmm...that's a pretty loud lawn mower" Emily replies, pausing with a carton of eggs in her hand to look out the window. The ranger bunkhouse we will spend the next two months living in begins to rumble. "Do we have a heliport in our backyard?" She laughs as the chopper comes into view through the trees, touching down just 200 feet from our kitchen window
I watch the helicopter as its blades slow down. All I can do is state the obvious. "This is so cool."
Emily and I have been Wilderness Rangers at North Cascades National Park for one month now, and I absolutely love it. I spend nine consecutive days working before getting a five day weekend to explore the park. Four to six of those work days are spent in the Wilderness Information Center in Marblemount. The office is where rangers help visitors plan backcountry trips, issue permits, and learn as much about the park as possible. The remaining work days are spent "on patrol," sometimes as single days hikes and sometimes as overnight trips into the backcountry. I've had a couple of three-day patrols and Emily is packing right now for a five-day hike into the northern reaches of the park.
The general job description of a Wilderness Ranger is to "protect the park from the people and the people from the park." In the office we make sure everyone going into the backcountry is prepared and up-to-date on the latest conditions. We also go over Leave No Trace principles and prevent fragile areas from becoming over-crowded with people by limiting the number of campers in an area each night. Sometimes folks come into the office having never been to the park, with little idea of where to go, and want our recommendation on the most epic trip possible. Those are fun visitors. Others are expert climbers who know exactly which routes are epic and beta is swapped at the desk.
Office days aren't bad, but they're not why any of us love being rangers. Patrols (and weekends) are what we live for. On patrol we hike the trails and take in the grandeur of the mountains. During a standard patrol I will check in with a dozen or so other hikers on the trail, make sure the wilderness regulations are being followed, clean camps, and stir the composting toilets. It's a glamorous life. At night I can turn off my scanning radio and listen to the birds sing as the sun sets behind the mountains, sipping on hot tea and reading by headlamp. In the morning, I wake up and put my badge and uniform back on, dirty from the previous day's sweat, and continue hiking, hopefully deeper into the mountainous wilderness.