Nostalgia Trip

Last February I was camping in the mountains somewhere in Death Valley, working on some odd project involving carrying weird heavy metal objects in backpacking in the blistering desert heat. My time as Wilderness Intern was one of those jobs that was, sweaty, exhausting, fairly rewarding, and unglamorous. It didn’t seem like that sweet of a gig at the time—just a way to break even and work outside in a beautiful place, and learn something along the way. However, I look back on those four months living at the lowest point in the country as the highest point of my year (awwwwww I know I couldn’t resist).

Also made some pretty great frands.

While my fellow roommates were working in air-conditioned offices or interacting with the public, I was hiking in the wilderness and eating ice cream and bumping over crazy 4WD roads and getting weird tan lines. There aren’t many jobs where you can get paid to do that (paid is a strong word, though). My job took me to every corner of Death Valley. I didn’t by any means get to know the park well, because that would take a lifetime. I did get to see a huge variety of landscapes, from crusty geometric salt flats to sagebrush scrubland dotted with burros and chuckwallas. I got to sleep under some of the darkest night skies in the country during the work week, and I frequently took my lunch breaks in the shade of canyons. 

Here's a photo from park service orientation. Pretty sweet field trip to the Badwater salt flats!

My govnt truck hangin' out in some scrubby desert land.

Side note: I miss my lunches there almost as much as the work. Picture a fat sandwich loaded with hummus, lettuce, pepperoni, cheese, mustard, and avocado after a long day hiking up an alluvial fan dodging cacti and creosote bushes. That sandwich was better than the views some days, I gotta say. But on this day, the view was better:

But I guess I’ll stop bragging about how freaking awesome my job was by saying something about how National Parks are totally America’s Best Idea and I’m excited to be working on public lands all summer doing conservation projects. I’ll look back on Death Valley as one of those Golden Times in my life. Carefree desert living, only concerned about having a great sandwich and not dying of dehydration.

Me and Charlie and the Americorps crew on a hitch in the Wilderness. Capital W.