My supervisor and I sat on a snowy Mount St. Helens slope, watching. We didn't really need binoculars, because any snowmobiles to come into the restricted area below us would be well within eyeshot. And we could hear them coming. But we scanned anyway, sometimes spying a coyote in the distance.
I was volunteering for the weekend, something I did - or thought I did - to stay connected to what I have come to know as the best jobs I'll ever have. I had the uncommon fortune to be paid at each of the duty stations I served as a seasonal wilderness ranger for the Forest Service, including Mount St. Helens, Arizona's Superstition Wilderness and Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Without question, the best jobs I'll ever have.
And here I am, back for more, this time unpaid. My former supervisor called me, asking whether I'd be interested in putting my rangering skills to use by skiing with him into the restricted side of Mount St. Helens to patrol it for illegal snowmobile use. The northside of the volcano, the "blast zone," is a large area into which access is heavily restricted all times of the year to allow the most pristine, natural comeback possible. But looking at the miles and miles of clean snow, who could blame the snowmobilers who risk a ticket to throttle across its untarnished rolling snowfields? Skiing it was a lottery win . . . !
But why did I accept, really? It goes without saying that skiing legally into one of the most spectacular places on the planet had its allure, but there was something more, too, something important. For me. Something I couldn't put to words then and even now keep it personal. I will confess to a history of volunteering, first with federal land agencies and then with nonprofits that build and maintain trails. Now I serve on a city board and two committees. For each of us, volunteering means something different.
Fortunately, Michael Wolcott isn't shy of his reasons for his volunteering, getting into it and more in "No Pay? No Problem! ?New Volunteerism' on Public Lands," pg. 14, concluding that volunteering can change your life.
Right on!
JAN NESSET
EDITOR