I have an internship through SCC but with the forest service. I am working with Cibola National Forest in one of there wilderness areas. In 2005 the government set up The 10-year Wilderness Challenge. All the wilderness areas in the country are being graded. Cibola currently has the lowest score. So i am hired to change that, and its not to bad. My job exactly is to go backpacking. My and my co worker, JR, who was on my crew since january, are working in the apache kid wilderness. We are going to hike all the trails in the wilderness and be on the look out for three things. People, invasive plants, and Campsites, when we find any of these things we fill out a little paper about it and take a picture and GPS point. Not a bad thing to get paid for.
I just got off nine days in the wilderness out first little hitch. with in 10 min of being in the boundaries we saw three little bears a mom and 2 small cubs. in the nine days we saw no people. none. at all. and no invasive plants, there it hardly any water all all so the plants are pretty tough. we did find 26 camp sites, some of witch looked like they had not been used since the apache kid him self had been there. also in nine days we hiked 75.5 miles! and this is not easy hiking. Its all up or down, tiny trails that are easy to lose due to burns and fallen trees. many times we hard to wander until by some miracle we found a tree blaze. we have come across a few old cabins that are really cool. we saw a cow that had either died or been killed but the only thing left were the bones licked clean and the skin a almost tempting leather still attached to the skull. we have hiked through amazing canyons and up miles of switchbacks. its been quite an adventure but i am having fun. JR is one of my best friends so we have fun and i get paid to do something i love. i think i am living the dream.
