Mountain Guide. Backcountry Ranger. Smokejumper. Every Backpacker Dreams of a Glory Job in the Outdoors
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Mountain guide. Backcountry ranger. Smokejumper. Every backpacker dreams of a glory job in the outdoors. Senior Editor Shannon Davis heads to Mt. Rainier—and a grueling tryout with premier guide operation RMI—to find out what it takes to make the grade. Plus: Rate your skills and fitness with the tests for eight more hard-duty professions. AreYou ToEnough? ugh Win BACKPACKER’s Tough-Guy Challenge! p. 82 Illustration+ by Jacob Thomas 68 BACKPACKER 05.2011 00.2005 BACKPACKER 69 Job description Simply Entrance exam A back- put, get paid to be a country ranger carries backpacker. OK, that’s a 65-pound pack full of too simple. Rangers do heavy tools, such as an explore sprawling wilder- axe, shovel, pulaski, saw, ness areas on foot, but it’s and wrench. The follow- not all peakbagging and ing test is designed to meadow naps. On patrol, gauge your ability to carry you’ll check on visitors’ that pack and perform safety and lawfulness, routine tasks. You can perform trail maintenance, take a one-minute rest join search-and-rescue between exercises, but to efforts, and more. (Get an pass, you must finish it all insider’s take on the job at within three hours. backpacker.com/ranger.) Backcountry According to Patti Schwind, + Walk 5 miles at a 5% who worked six seasons incline on a treadmill with ranger as a wilderness ranger in a 50-pound pack, in 90 Idaho, “You need superior minutes or less. strength and stamina + Dig a 10-foot-long for all hiking conditions. trench that is 2 feet wide Rangers typically go on a and 2 feet deep. 10-day hitch, alone, and + Push/roll a 30-pound hike up to 15 miles daily.” boulder for 50 feet. I’m worried that I’ve already been pulled me aside and said, “Hey, if that ice-axe arrest, client care, rest-stepping, relegated to the latter. BACKPACKER gig of yours ever stops glacier travel, setting a pace, step- But consider the former: mountain doing it for you, you could easily come kicking, transceiver searches, fixed-line guide! What backpacker worth his out here and guide.” It was a siren. A use, and navigation and routefinding. weight in ice axes hasn’t fantasized top RMI guide was telling me that I In other words: This is a tryout, not a about one of the toughest, most could be an RMI guide. I could climb class; you better show up as a capable, dangerous, and most glory-drenched this beast every day and lead countless well-rounded mountaineer. paychecks in the outdoors?1 Jobs people on a trip that could very well be I have a pretty solid foundation in like this—think backcountry ranger, the high point of their lives. I could do alpine skills, thanks to five years of travels Outward Bound instructor, wildlife that. Totally. as a BACKPACKER staffer (including biologist, and other Gore-Tex-collar If I can pick up the damn pace. summits of Mt. McKinley, Rainier, and careers—give you unfettered access to ice-capped peaks in Switzerland and an exclusive brand of adventure that’s New Zealand)—plus previous lives as off-limits to the general public. But it’s a Wind Rivers-obsessed climber with an not a simple VIP pass: You have to earn address that matched my license plate In It’s mid-morning on a 45°F March the keys to the kingdom by proving number and as an outdoor-pursuits day in perpetually misty Ashford, fitness, technical know-how, charisma, Each spring, RMI staffs up for the coming program coordinator at a private school Washington (population 293), just and those intangibles that separate the season, filling holes in the 74-guide in Arizona. (To be clear, I’m not quitting outside the southwest entrance of leaders from the rest. Maybe my peers staff. Out of hundreds of applicants,à my day job for the chance at a part-time, Mt. Rainier National Park. I’m here and I will never be tested like the 40 are invited to one of four daylong seasonal slot on Rainier, but my boss to go toe to crampon-compatible toe Greatest Generation, but that doesn’t tryouts. Out of those, 10 will make gave me the thumbs-up to moonlight as with nine other aspiring mountain mean we can’t reach the highest level the final cut. Our instructions: Pack an RMI guide, if I qualify.) guides who have been invited to a of competency, confidence, and self- sunglasses, gloves, boots, crampons, I arrive in the Summit Haus at RMI’s tryout with Rainier Mountaineering, reliance. Make the cut, and you see an ice axe, food, a climbing pack, compound two minutes early, and the theory, Inc. (RMI), one of the country’s largest, more, go farther, get deeper, and do it and crevasse-rescue equipment, and room is already packed with nervous, double-plastic mountaineering boots make crappy running shoes. In practice, I best-known, and most-respected guide all the freakin’ time. be ready to demonstrate proficiency milling recruits. At 32, I’m one of the can certify that they’re actually much worse. The hard outer shells come up to companies. We’ve all paid our own For some of us, the desire to join in the following skills: avalanche oldest. It’s as quiet and tense as a near mid-calf and are as rigid as barn siding. The thick inner linings are rated way to this one-shot trial, but only a that exclusive club is so strong we forecasting, crampon use, snow and ice finals week library, and I immediately to -30°F. These qualities make them perfect for snowy, steep, frigid terrain—but couple of us will get hired as guides. start wondering: Do I have what it anchors, pressure breathing, wilderness make it a point to break the ice and get FFRUNTI for running up a muddy fire road while carrying a 30-pound pack? Only if you The rest will have to find alternative A takes? That fire was lit in my belly medicine, knots/slings/ropes, cold- people talking.2 Supervisors Paul Maier RETT desire the gait of Frankenstein and the precision footwork of a cow. My shins summer work—something notably B after summiting Mt. Rainier a couple weather injuries, crevasse rescue, (more than 300 Rainier summits) and bang against the stiffened tongues. My heels slip. Other runners—the guys less badass, to be sure. The way of years ago on a climb with JanSport mountain weather, Leave No Trace Alex Van Steen (who has summited I’m competing against, who were smart enough to pack something besides this three-mile run—a key component employees. Casey Grom (a senior RMI ethics, outdoor equipment selection Rainier by 20 different routes, including doubles—pass me with antelope ease. of our fitness assessment—is going, BY ILLUSTRATION guide and two-time Everest summiter) and use, high-altitude illness, belaying, a solo of one of the hardest, Liberty 70 BACKPACKER 05.2011 GUIDE TIPS 1 It all starts by dreaming big. 2 A guide should be able to sense fear and anxiety and put people at ease—clients 05.2011 BACKPACKER 71 often arrive apprehensive about the climb and don’t know anyone else on the team. Smokejumper à Job description Risk your life to fight wildfires in the most extreme conditions and loca- Wildland firefighter tions imaginable. Smokejumpers up the danger by parachuting into remote backcoun- Job description Wage war at the front lines try hotspots. After leaping from the plane, you retrieve your gear (up to 110 pounds of of wilderness fire patrol. Hand crews, supplies per person), dig fire lines or fell trees from dawn to dusk, and often hike out helitack (chopper) crews, airtankers, rap- 10 miles after the job is done. Tip: Don’t get your chute caught in a 150-foot-tall pon- pellers, and smokejumpers all contribute. derosa on the way down. Expect to take the following test on the first day of training. And don’t be deceived by the relatively painless formal test. According to Murry Entrance exam Taylor, who fought fires for 27 seasons and + 1.5-mile run in 10:35 or less once worked 14-hour days for 56 days + Minimum of 7 pull-ups straight, “It is a very physically demanding + 45 sit-ups in 1 minute job where you learn how to live with pain.” + 25 push-ups in 1 minute + Dig 99 feet of 3-foot-wide fire line in light grass within an hour. Entrance exam + Pack 110 pounds on level terrain for 3 miles in 90 minutes or less. + Pack test: Hike 3 miles over level ter- + Prerequisite: To qualify for smokejumper school, you need at least one year of rain carrying a 45-pound pack. It must be employment with an established wildland firefighting unit (see right). completed within 45 minutes. Ridge) enter a minute later, and we best quality, and say why we should made me think a little bit harder, which gather around a foot-thick table hewn hire you. You each have two minutes.” is good,” I say. “My best quality is that from a huge western red cedar. So much for putting us at ease. I’m laid-back. That may seem like an “Welcome. This is a day where we Answers range from the brown-nosey odd one to pick, since it doesn’t take will get to know you,” says Van Steen. (“I’m a natural leader—and I’m all about much practice—or even any energy.