A lot of folks asked me how I got involved in the outdoors. Most folks assume that I grew up with it like Brian did. If you’ve ever met my family, you’d know there is NO WAY I was genetically inclined. I was raised outside Washington, DC. Camping meant taking the RV for the weekend when I was growing up. Despite this, I still loved being outside. I played in the woods and built forts and campsites. I was a rabid Girl Scout. Even so, the biggest camping trip we ever did was an overnight in Shenandoah National Park, in a giant 200-space campground with flush toilets.   Not exactly a wilderness experience. I had a few other small forays – a few weeks at Girl Scout Camp, an overnight whitewater kayaking program. But I had never been backpacking or on a trail longer than a few miles.

When I was a freshman in high school, I spent a couple weeks during the summer at a University of Virginia science camp. We took a field trip to a postage-stamp-sized wilderness area called Ramsey’s Draft. While we were there, doing a stream survey, a ranger came out to talk with our group. He told us about a crew of high school students who had camped and worked on the area trails the previous summer with the Student Conservation Association. According to the ranger, they came in looking like little 50-lb weaklings. But they wielded sledgehammers and axes all day, ate steak every night, grew beards, got totally ripped and left at the end of the summer ready to go home and work as a lumberjacks in the Yukon. Suffice to say, I gawked at his description and thought, “BAD ASS! Sign me up!” I went home after that trip and started investigating the Student Conservation Association, because I wanted to be a muddy, stinky, sledgehammer-wielding badass too.

 

The summer before my Senior Year rolled around and my application was accepted to be a part of the SCA High School Trail Crew program (Now called the National Crew Program). This was an all-volunteer program and I would be working all the way out in Washington State, near the North Cascades. SWEET! I was sent a giant shopping list of gear, which I took to a local gear shop. They outfitted me with a new pack, new boots, and a few stuff sacks. I went to some big sporting gear warehouses and picked up a crappy Slumberjack sleeping bag, some base layers, a mess kit, a bug net and a few other essentials. This was really happening!

I was 16 years old and I hopped on a plane out to WA and met up with my whole crew of 10 very wet-behind-the-ears high school kids + 2 adult crew leaders at the airport. Our leaders went through our backpacks and inspected our gear before we headed off into the great unknown. Once we added in the group gear, I swear my pack weighed at least 70 lbs. I did NOT know how to pack a backpack! After a few hours of gear-shuffling and driving, we were at the trailhead, ready to rock. I hadn’t been on the trail for more than 100 yards, with my heavy-ass pack, before I accidentally lost my balance, slipped off the trail and started sliding down a super-steep side hill. Lucky for me, the guy behind me grabbed the top of my pack and kept me from sliding a hundred feet. Then, I grabbed hold of some Devils Club trying to climb back up to the trail – OUCH. What a rude introduction to backpacking!

 

 

 

We camped for two weeks in a muddy, mosquito-infested hole, working on a series of turnpikes (raised walkways with gravel), check dams and waterbars (erosion control) and a puncheon bridge (raised walkway with decking). What an intro to the wilderness. We were dirty and muddy. We washed our clothes in the creek and cooked our food over a camp stove. We pooped in a bucket. It was AWESOME. There was no contact with the outside world (this was before cell phones and satellite beacons). We just had each other. After our first two weeks, we moved to a higher campsite centered in a string of high-alpine lakes. It was so beautiful. A helicopter dropped us some fresh food (best cheeseburger I’ve ever had), some mail and a porta-potty that was accidentally perched on a cliff. We went swimming in the very cold lake after work every day. We built more check dams, waterbars and some super-cool log steps. I DID swing a sledgehammer and an axe every day, just like that ranger said I would. I got super tan. I got super strong. I got super filthy. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes. I got knocked unconscious (it was an accident). I would eat anything you put in front of me. A trail angel brought a watermelon and some Yoo-hoo chocolate milk and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I learned how to use a dutch oven in a campfire. I enjoyed the solitude, but also reveled in the companionship of my crew. We became a band of brothers and sisters over those 4 weeks.

 

Our fifth and final week was a wild backpacking expedition over Spider Pass in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. We struggled through the ups (there were lots of those) and downs as we traversed a snow-covered pass and into one of the most beautiful chain of alpine lakes I have ever seen. We scrambled up peaks and had inspiring views. We watched magnificent sunsets and sunrises. After a week, we finally took a ferry back to the south end of Lake Chelan and headed back to Seattle. There were tearful goodbyes as I left my new-found wilderness and dirtbag family.

 

 

 

I arrived home, looking a messy combination of tan and dirty, with muscled arms and unshaven legs and armpits, waving “HI” manically to my family. I was the muddy, stinky, sledge-hammer wielding badass I had wanted to become. My parents almost didn’t recognize me. But I had found my true self in those 5, dirty, sweaty weeks. I was in love with the wilderness. I loved the solitude, companionship of my crew, crisp air, stunning views, dusty trail and icy lakes. Being back in the “real world” in a big city was really challenging. I suddenly got overwhelmed by big groups of people. I couldn’t sleep in my bed. In fact, I slept on the floor in my sleeping bag for almost three months after I got home. I held my plate in my hand when I was eating dinner. It was a hard transition back to normal life. But that’s when I knew that I was most at home in the mountains, woods, rivers and streams. And once you find your true love, there’s no going back! I went back and worked through college and beyond in the woods, focused on conservation and recreation with the Forest Service and the Park Service. The SCA changed my life by helping me push my limits, learn to live and work with a team and helping me discover my passions. It changed who I was as a person. It changed my perspective. I gained self-confidence and comfort in my own skin. Really, my summer with the SCA helped me find myself and it started a long, dirty love affair with the mountains.

 

 

 

For more info on the Student Conservation Assocation and their High-School Crews and Americorps programs, check out http://thesca.org