What I do...

So what exactly do I do at my job?

"Pull weeds." That's the easiest way to put it. Not very glamorous, eh? Well it's actually not so bad... anymore. You see, the first 2 months or so, that's pretty much what we did. We'd go to fairly large sites around the park, and some smaller site in the backcountry, and just look for exotic plants. Find them, dig them, move on. Frankly, it got boring and I got restless. It was a treat when we got to install experimental plots, weedwhip (yes, a treat!), spread sugar (an experiment) and sawdust. I did have to use herbicide, dressed in one of those full body white protective thingies, with a 40 lb backpack sprayer, on a 90 degree day in the mountains. SUCKED.

Then about a month ago, the job paid off! Sortof. Now all the plants are flowering, so we have to pick all the flowers off and bag them, then wade thru a sea of prickly thistles and dig plants up that are taller than I am. But we do get to go to many more smaller sites that you knock out quickly, and we started TRAIL SURVEYS! and road surveys. Trail surveys are the best! I get paid to hike awesome trails and look for plants where there should be no plants! I did 13 miles two weeks ago, 7 miles last week, and probably 10 miles this week to Andrew's Glacier - which I had wanted to hike anyways. So right now, I am glad I am on my crew as opposed to greenhouse or revegetation. Of course, it took all summer to pay off...