S1E82 - Pat on Working Outside

Episode Summary

This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Pat talks to Margaret about working outside for a living with the National Park Service. They talk about gear, preparedness while hiking, search and rescue, how to prevent needing to be sought for and rescued, and the unfortunate realities of climate change.

Guest Info

Find Pat on the trails. Do not find them on the internet. They cannot be found there.

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: Pat on Working Outside

Margaret 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host today, Margaret Killjoy. And this week...Okay, so you know sometimes I have these shows and it's basically like I find people who talk to me about the things that I've decided I'm really interested in that week. Well, this is one of those examples! And so I'm really excited about it. I think you'll all be excited about it too because this week I am talking to Pat who works outside for a living and he gets to do search and rescue and help people access parks because he is a backwoods...person...at a national park. And yeah, I don't know, I think...I'm excited for the conversation. I can't tell you what's gonna be in it because I haven't done it yet because I record these before I do the interview instead of afterwards. But! This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network. Baba Baba bu ba baa ba ba baaa. [Making noises like a song melody]

Margaret 01:51 Okay, and we're back. Pat, so if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then just like a little bit about the work you do?

Pat 02:02 Yeah. So I'm Pat. He/him. I am a back country ranger for the National Park Service and I've been doing it for about 10 years. So I basically just hike around to talk with people, help out with search and rescue, clean toilets, do whatever needs doing. Yeah.

Margaret 02:24 Hell yeah. Okay, I have one question up front.

Pat 02:26 Yes.

Margaret 02:27 Okay, once when I was doing this forest campaign in a national forest--so not the Park Service, but, you know, the National Forest Service--there was this pit toilet. And--because he brought up toilets--there was this pit toilet and it had a door. And we would prop the door open to avoid it smelling. But then the Ranger came by and yelled at us and says that it works better...The like ventilation system is built on the door being closed. But then other times, I feel like I've seen ones that say, "Leave the door open." What's the deal?

Pat 03:00 That is...I'm going to chalk it up to every toilet in the back country is different. So maybe one of them was like designed in such a way with specific ventilation systems, because they get pretty high tech. We have some that have like little solar powered computer fans that will like vent air out and bring fresh air in to try to dry them out. It's kind of neat. It's a huge part of the job.

Margaret 03:25 This was like 20 years ago I think...Probably didn't have a solar panel

Pat 03:27 Probably not solar powered then. [At the same time as Margaret says above

Margaret 03:28 I just couldn't figure out whether she was like fucking with us because she didn't like us or whether she was just like annoyed at these idiots who thought they knew about the woods but didn't.

Pat 03:41 Well, the reason they gave may have not been like 100% accurate. Like one thing that comes to mind is--it really sucks--but you know, critters find their way down into there. And so if the door's open like, you know, a raccoon or something may climb down there and like it really sucks because oftentimes they get down there and they can't get out. And you know, at my park, we shovel all of that waste out into buckets and hike it out. [Margaret makes a "pee-yew" noise of disgust] And sometimes you know little chipmunks and stuff are in there. It's really sad.

Margaret 04:12 Yeah, Is there like a back entrance where you can go down and access the pit? Or do you have to just literally like drop buckets and like it's a terrible well?

Pat 04:24 Oh, no, those structures are literally just...like you just you just like rock them and move the wooden structures off. They're not secured to the ground. and then you put a hole in the ground with just like posthole diggers.

Margaret 04:44 That's fun. I'm glad that this is the first question I asked you. [Laughing]

Pat 04:48 It's part of the job. Sorry, gonna turn all the listeners away.

Margaret 04:52 No, no, no, no, I asked. And I think that that's like....Okay, I mean, that even gets kind of...Um, when I would do any kind of forest defense or anything that involves living in the woods, I feel like one of the main signs of like a newbie in a bad way was people who didn't dig a hole before they took a shit.

Pat 04:53 Yes.

Margaret 04:54 You know? And so the stuff that when you're like in houses and stuff that you sort of take for granted, you can't take for granted when you're not. So it sort of makes sense that shit is the defining characteristic.

Pat 05:28 Yeah, it's kind of fun.

Margaret 05:29 But, speaking of shitty jobs...Hehe, I had to make the pun at least once. I'm very sorry. What got you deciding that you want to work outside?

Pat 05:41 I feel like I was kind of like destined for it. Kind of a weird way to put it. I was basically...my first backpacking trip was before I could walk. My dad put me on his shoulders. And I was out in the woods when I still in diapers. I grew up doing Boy Scouts so I was backpacking basically once a month. And so I just continuously did that essentially my whole life, and then, weirdly enough, in college kind of fell off for a bit. And then, you know, I graduated and decided to volunteer and have been doing it ever since.

Margaret 06:17 Okay, and you moved from volunteer to now this is what you do professionally, right?

Pat 06:20 Yeah, that's kind of the primary path to get in. If you're not coming from some sort of military background or something, you kind of have to volunteer or do an internship or something like that. It's a pretty small community. So getting your foot in the door and learning the lingo is kind of important. And having a name that a hiring manager can call for a reference check that's like in the system is kind of an important deal.

Margaret 06:49 That makes sense.

Pat 06:50 Yeah. Kind of a small community.