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- Newsgroups: rec.backcountry
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!ames!data.nas.nasa.gov!amelia.nas.nasa.gov!eugene
- From: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
- Subject: [l/m 4/15/92] High tech employment, a romantic notion DW (25/28) XYZ
- Followup-To: poster
- Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov (News Administrator)
- Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
- Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 12:20:11 GMT
- Message-ID: <1993Jan25.122011.11825@nas.nasa.gov>
- Reply-To: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
- Lines: 108
-
- Panel 25
-
- So you want a job in the backcountry?
- What are you doing in computers?
- Don't expect to find anything in misc.jobs.offered.
- GO visit a job placement office.
-
- This is a common "romantic" idea. At this stage, the probability of
- mixing computers and the outdoors is very remote. Like the idea of
- being a fire lookout or ranger or someting else? Just telling you
- the odds (1000:1 is common). It helps to have a background in some outdoor
- field: geology, forestry, botany, biology, surveying, aerial photo
- interpretation, driving trucks, law enforcement, etc. The work is at times
- "back breaking," hot, hard, and sweaty. Sound discouraging? Intentionally.
- I want to dissuade you from marginal ideas. Why? Because these organizations
- need real hard working people. It's scary work in cases. Consider this
- because I've had friends recently lose homes in Santa Barbara, that's a
- very real thing, and they need people who realize this on fire lines.
- You can't hesistate in that environment.
-
- Next, if you are seeking a summer job with someone like the US Forest Service,
- if you are reading this anytime after Feb. 1, you are most likely out of luck.
- You need a Standard Form 171 from the US Government. These jobs come
- in the 1s and 2s odds tend to be in the 1:1000. Pay is low. Jobs like
- these do not involve sitting around. You must have excellent eye sight,
- also remember that most fire towers are lightning rods. Maybe smoke
- jumping? CA Department of Forestry?
-
- Hints: depending in region, if you are on quarter system, take Spring Qtr. off.
- The earlier they can get you the better.
- Law enforcement skills for many of these jobs help.
- There are sometimes the odd cases of someone not showing.
-
- There is summer camp conuseling and guiding requires some very good skills,
- a wide-range of experience, etc. for firms like NOLS, OB, YMS, etc.
- If you are young, you have some disadvantages.
- Working for a guide service, such services select their staff the year before.
- Apprenticeship is typically in order first.
- Guiding in National Parks and Forest requires a concessionare's permit.
- It's illegal to "simply" guide on public lands.
-
- Other examples of high tech work: snow hydrology (much harder than
- backpacking, competition for jobs, extreme avalanche danger [most
- resignations]), glaciology (naw, no future), field biologist, field geologist
- (petroleum and mineral exploration, compromise environmental values?),
- etc.
-
- From: John Cooley <johnc@csupwb.ColoState.EDU>
-
- A backcountry job
-
- Actually, one job is commonly available on a very part-time basis, mostly in
- the western US. You can become a wildland firefighter.
-
- An example of how to get started:
- The Larimer County Sheriff's Department (Northern Colorado) gives an annual
- one-week training for people wishing to acquire a "Red Card", which means
- they are supposedly qualified wildland firefighters. The training given in
- Larimer County is 32 hours (1991), and basically qualifies you to operate a
- shovel or a pulaski under the direction of someone else, and, with luck, stay
- out of trouble. Written and physical tests are given. The physical requires
- that you be able to run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes. They don't like their
- firefighters dying because of heart attacks.
-
- After you do all this, you can be placed on call to fight wildland fires. If
- there are no fires, you don't work. If you can't be reached, you don't work.
- If you are doing something else, you don't work. If all goes well, ("well"
- being a relative term here) you get to go to a fire, get hot and filthy, and
- risk your life for the princely sum of $8.33/hour.
-
- It's fairly easy to get started in the wildland firefighting business. Contact
- your local Emergency Services agency (Sheriff's Department, Forest Service,
- etc.) and find out about training. They like to have people up to speed by the
- beginning of June, so find out what's going on by the beginning of March, at
- the latest. If you stay with it, you can actually make a career out of it, and
- you'll have some amazing and unusual experiences.
-
- TABLE OF CONTENTS of this chain:
-
- 25/ A romantic notion of high-tech employment <* THIS PANEL *>
- 26/ Other news groups of related interest, networking
- 27/ Films/cinema references
- 28/ References (written)
- 1/ DISCLAIMER
- 2/ Ethics
- 3/ Learning I
- 4/ learning II (lists, "Ten Essentials," Chouinard comments)
- 5/ Summary of past topics
- 6/ Non-wisdom: fire-arms topic circular discussion
- 7/ Phone / address lists
- 8/ Fletcher's Law of Inverse Appreciation and advice
- 9/ Water Filter wisdom
- 10/ Words from Rachel Carson
- 11/ Snake bite
- 12/ Netiquette
- 13/ Questions on conditions and travel
- 14/ Dedication to Aldo Leopold
- 15/ Leopold's lot.
- 16/ Morbid backcountry/memorial
- 17/ Information about bears
- 18/ Poison ivy, frequently ask, under question
- 19/ Lyme disease, frequently ask, under question
- 20/ "Telling questions" backcountry Turing test (under construction)
- 21/ AMS
- 22/ Words from Foreman and Hayduke
- 23/ A bit of song (like camp songs)
- 24/ What is natural?
-
-