Working for the National Park Service: Week 1

Well, my first week of working for the U.S. Government is now at an end. I must say that it turned out rather different than I expected.

I work as a trail "Maintenance Worker" for the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Basically, my job entails grooming and maintaining the few trails and "airports" (where the trees don't grow) that do exist in this pristine wilderness. However, when I showed up on Monday, my supervisor had not been told that I was coming. I soon found out that a flight was scheduled to go fix up the "runway" at Horsefeld so I got pretty excited. I have been looking forward, with great anticipation, for flying in a small bush plane for the first time. I was pretty bummed when I discovered that I had not been included in this trip.

Day 1: I showed up bright and early Monday morning at 8am. The weather was cool but not cold. I was met by my boss who directed me to my supervisor. The rest of the day was to be spent with him getting organizational things out of the way. One of the first things that we did was head over to the park headquarters to do some paperwork. It was all rather mundane and boring until I was enlisted to haul a box of envelopes down into the basement. My supervisor was with me, and a worker from the visitors center. Instead of taking the stairs, somebody suggested that we take the elevator. Bad idea. As we stepped in the elevator, my supervisor commented that it would be nice to kill two hours in there. At that comment the other employee commented on being stuck in an elevator one time. As soon as she finished speaking, the lights went out, the emergency light came on, and the elevator stopped. Thus began a very entertaining 45 minutes--on government wages mind you--until we were rescued. It turns out that the power had gone out, which is quite common in Alaska.

After lunch I got fingerprinted, and I was also trained in using a $1000 GPS digital camera, which is pretty sweet. And that was all. It was a good day.

Day 2: I showed up bright and early at 7am. My compadres and I (there were four of us) got in three different rigs--two end-dumps, and a pickup hauling a skid-steer on a trailer--and traveled for around three hours to a gravel pit just across the Kuskulana River. About an hour of the drive was spent on a nasy little stretch of asphalt thut bucked and pitched like a roller coaster. Another hour was spent on a gravel road that was actually better than the aformentioned road. Once we arrived at our destination we filled the two end-dumps with gravel (with the skid-steer) and traveled six miles back down the road and turned off on a one lane track through the woods. It was such a tight fit, that branches and trees were constantly smacking our rigs. It would be an understatement to say that the drive through this bit was rough, but considering that it took us an hour to drive four miles of this "road" sort of suggests something to this effect. The culminating point was driving through a creek and powering (barely) out of the steep incline on the other side. We did this eight times, and it took us all day. It was pretty brutal, those eight trips, I felt like a rag doll in the washing machine. Towards the end of the day, two other guys left early and I stayed so that I could drive the truck hauling the skid-steer home. The day ended with that three hour drive--my first time hauling a trailer, and I'm doing it with 4 tons of machinery, heheh, I love this job already. 13 hours, most of it riding shotgun. What a day.

Day 3-5: Not much to report here. My crew flew out to Solo Creek (Horsefeld was too windy) and I stayed with the Maintenance shop crew and we all tried to look busy. It's a bit early in the season right now. Things will pick up later. Other than that, it was a great week.