A New Adventure

About mid-April, before I finished my term of service with the California Conservation Corps, I accepted a position with Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. At the time, I honestly didn’t think I would go through with it. After all, I could see many more challenges with the position than I could the benefits. First, it would mean living 4 hours away from Sacramento for 4 and a half months. Why would I want to leave Sacramento when Dana is there and all I’m ever complaining about is that she is deployed on disasters for the better half of a year?! And here I am considering leaving her! Secondly, I would be paying rent for our apartment in Sacramento AND paying $200 out of my paycheck each month to live at the Park. Thirdly, it would mean that come the end of September, I’d be right where I was at so many other points of my life- searching for a job and getting very few calls back. There were some obvious pros to taking the job at Sequoia and I couldn’t really let those fall to the wayside. I’d be working in a National Park, something I had been very excited about since my trip to Yosemite last September. I’d be an official government employee, if even only temporary seasonal work. I’d be getting paid real money! And I’d be able to live at the Park, allowing me to take in as much of the natural landscape as possible.

So like I said, I accepted the position with little intention of following through. But alas, despite my best efforts and my numerous job applications submitted between December and the beginning of May, I was only ever interviewed and offered one position- with Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. It’s an entry level position, paying only slightly over the California minimum wage, and doing some not-so-glamorous work in the park. I’m not guiding tours nor am I working on maintaining the trails and sites of the park. I barely interact with the guests, spending an average of 30 seconds with each visitor, but it’s a job and it’s not permanent, so I think I can manage it. After all, this is coming from the girl who learned to love cutting and gutting fish for 40 hours a week.

On May 10^th, I packed up my Mini once again, said a long and sad goodbye to Dana, and headed down highway 99 towards Fresno, CA. The trip took about 4 hours total with only one stop for gas and a restroom. I headed east from Fresno, through Visalia, and into a tiny town called Three Rivers. I swear there is only one road in all of Three Rivers and if you keep following it, you’ll just come to an end at the Ash Mountain entrance station- my new duty station for the next 4.5 months.

Currently, I’m sitting in my “cabin” which is really more like a three bedroom ranch style house. There are two couches in the living room, a fully loaded kitchen that has two refrigerators, two bedrooms with twin beds, a bathroom, and one master suite (which I claimed!). There is a washer and dryer in the house, a two-car garage, and a deck with a picnic table out the back of the house. It’s a really nice place and I think I’ll really enjoy my time here, although not having a TV and Internet is certainly going to take some getting used to. I have one roommate right now, but she will be leaving in about a week to hike into the backcountry of Kings Canyon and spend the summer being a Wilderness Ranger. I should be getting other roommates, but I don’t really know anymore than that.

I’m sitting on one of the couches looking out of the window and in front of me is a tall peak pretty much covered in trees. Out the back window is a very similar sight. I’m very grateful and lucky for the position I have been given and I hope to make the most of this summer. I think that working a summer for the National Park Service will give me a good idea if this is the field I want to be in and will help me gain the experience necessary for continuing in this profession. And if not… well, at least I’ll have some stories to tell!