Why do we do it?

 What drives a normally rational, reasonably intelligent human being to live in a 16 foot camper trailer and work for free in the middle of the largest wilderness reserve in North America – some 3,000 square miles?  Glacier National Park alone is almost 1,600 square miles.  It's isn't an easy thing to explain.

In our case, we have a 16 foot vintage trailer that we've restored. we call it 'Willy'. Every May we pack Willy, load all of our 'toys' – two kayaks, two bicycles, two sets of scuba diving gear, and trekking gear – in and on our 2013 Ram 1500 4x4, gather the dogs and make our annual trek to Glacier National Park where we volunteer as campground hosts and back-country trail patrol. We live in Willy about 11 miles into the park. We do have electricity and water but there is no telephone, no internet, and no television. The joke here is that Glacier has two seasons – July and winter. Normally in May and June we never see daytime temperatures above 70 and night-time lows are in the high 30s or low 40s. By the time the lows are up to 45 we're sleeping with the windows open. Generally June is a very wet month. If it isn't raining it is snowing. Our day starts at 7am and ends at 9pm. While we do often get the chance for some time to ourselves we spend an average of 11 hours a day in the National Park Service volunteer khaki and brown uniform. When we do take time off we tend to elect to spend it doing other types of volunteer work – back-country trail patrol and working in the nursery that grows indigenous plants for restoration.

Our home  -  "Willy"

I can't write this and not think of a line in the movie “Beverly Hillbillies”. Jed Clampet has just discovered oil on his rural Arkansas land. His sister is telling him all the things she sees as wrong with the way he lives – no electricity, animals, in the middle of no-place – to which he replies, “Yes, we is'a livin' in paradise.” But that doesn't really explain why we do it, does it?

Granted, to our minds we are living in paradise. Glacier has clean air, the cleanest water in North America, magnificent mountains, and lots of bears, mountain goats, big horn sheep, moose, and many other animals. The only down side to the abundance of animals is that, for three months of the year, it also has an abundance of the most erratic, unpredictable and deadly animal on earth . . . homo sapiens. It takes our constant diligence and efforts to keep this invasive species from polluting the water, destroying the forest and driving the other animals into extinction. But I digress.

Jeff and Carolyn were fellow campground hosts in 2014. Like us they liked to find other ways they could help Glacier and the National Park Service. When he was able to get away, Jeff would work in the carpentry shop. He also helped install a new water tank high on a mountain side. Carolyn applied her teaching skills to provide educational programs. They are a great couple. But I must admit that we were most proud of them when we learned that they were going to count loons.

Counting loons might not sound like much until you understand that they would be taken by boat to a place so remote that there aren't even trails. There definitely wasn't any way of communicating with the outside world. They were 100% on their own to hike for three days counting loons in back-country lakes. I well remember us listening to the park radio when they called Dispatch to say that they were “commencing our back-country itinerary.” That's radio jargon for “we're going out into the wild unknown. If we don't get back when we say we will, would someone please come looking for us.”

Mt Edward stands above our home
at Sprague Creek

But I guess this is just another example. It doesn't tell why we do it.

Most of our campers are tent-campers. Willy is the only trailer allowed at Sprague Creek and “RV” on the registration tag usually means sleeping in a van or the occasional truck-camper. They tend to be at Glacier to hike, bike, kayak, or fish. They get up early and go to bed early. I really enjoy helping them plan hikes and other adventures then hearing them tell all about it at the end of the day.

When we have children they like to come to our campsite because Pamela will help them earn their Junior Ranger badge, send them out looking for flowers (no picking!) or take them on nature walks. One morning in 2015 I had just finished morning rounds at 7am and was enjoying my coffee when I saw four little blonde-headed girls heading toward our site. Pamela stuck her head out to say “hi” when, in unison, the girls asked “can you come out to play?” Pamela has a collection of pictures children have drawn and notes they have sent her.

I guess that's closer to answering why we do it, but it isn't the whole story. The opportunity to help people and their children enjoy and appreciate the wilderness is a strong motivator, but it isn't quite everything.

View from a mountain we patrol 

The back-country trail patrol that we do is called 'wildlife management' and falls under the auspices of Law Enforcement (park police). Even in our training it is admitted that what we do is really 'human management'. We hike trails that are very heavily traveled and have a lot of human-wildlife encounters. Our job is to help people understand how to behave in such areas and with the animals and plant life they encounter. We try not to be junior cops.

It is so rewarding to have a group gather around and ask questions. They want to know. We love telling the story of the great thrust that created the mountains that were then shaped by glaciers; about rocks that are two billion years old and Stramatolites that are billions of years old and are evidence that we were once connected to Australia; about the fragile alpine ecosystem; about why the animals do what they do. And it is so rewarding to stand with a person – child or adult – when they stand 25 yards from a wild animal without a barrier between them and see the looks on their faces. They are experiencing life as they've never known it.

A Mountain Goat is easily capable of killing a human. 

Once, when I was patrolling the Hidden Lake Trail, I was sitting at the Hidden Lake Overlook. There were lots of visitors and they were all asking questions about the Mountain Goats around us. I had a sandwich in my hand. Suddenly a large nanny (female) Mountain Goat was standing not 10 yards from us. She had undoubtedly been attracted by my food, so I put my sandwich back in my backpack and hoisted it onto my shoulders. She didn't move. The visitors stood mesmerized. Once realizing how big the animals was and how big her horns were, they asked if Mountain Goats are aggressive. I told them that she was smart enough to realize that she was outnumbered and she was trying to decide whether it was worth the risk to try to get to my food. As you might expect, she may not have been able to count, but she knew that I wasn't the only human there, so she finally ambled away. The visitors thought that was the most exciting adventure of their lives and they wanted to know more about this magnificent animal. It made me almost giddy to have people really want to hear about how we are tracking Mountain Goats so we can better understand them and co-exist with them, how they raise their young and why they risk coming so close to humans.

Yes, the opportunity to educate people about the nature of which they are a part must be a part of why we volunteer.

Wonderful animals that I love dearly,
but they're not 'Teddy Bears'. 

Have you ever stood a few feet from a Black bear, encountered a Grizzly on a trail, had five Big Horn sheep run around you to get to the mountain, had a mountain goat walk over your feet on a narrow mountain ledge, watch a coyote hunting, encountered a badger, watched elk in the evening twilight or looked into the dark eyes of a mule deer? If you haven't, you've got to try it!

To say that we love the animals might be one of the biggest understatements of this blog. There is nothing greater than living in harmony with nature. Man is a very special animal with our cognitive skills and abilities to dream and work toward dreams. Sadly, man is also one of the poorest animals on earth having denied his animalness and given up so many animal skills thereby isolating himself from his true nature and the unity of nature around him.

A shy Mule Deer doe

When we volunteer at a place like Glacier National Park and participate in programs like the back-country trail patrol and teach our campers and their children respect for the animals in whose home they are visiting, we are fighting a life and death battle for humanity. We are working and fighting for the restoration of the natural place of the homo sapiens so that it might live in true peace with itself, its environment and other animals.

Perhaps Pamela Smith; my colleague, companion, fellow adventure-seeker, best friend and mate; summed it up in two sentences after she listened to me read a draft of this blog.  "For me the entire experience completes the essence of who I am. It fills a void in my soul that I never even knew was there."  Well said, Pamela.  Well said. 

Pamela approaching the summit of Mt Oberlin
Determined to climb the mountain even with bone-on-bone knees
she climbed Mt Oberlin four months before bilateral
total knee replacement.  Touch, determined lady!

Post Script:  In not quite four months (May 1, 2016) we will officially be full-timers. We have already made application to work as volunteers at another National Park and are considering a third.