“What to do after being a seasonal park ranger?”
I used to search this question on Google multiple times a year, when I was facing the end of yet another park job. During my nine years working for the US National Park Service, I never had a job that lasted more than a few months, my longest being also my last–a year-long internship.
Yes, you read that correctly. I spent nine years working for an organization, only to earn the right to become an intern–a paid intern, but still. That was the only way I could stay an entire year in one park–a student internship, owing to the fact that I was going to grad school online while working full-time.
There were things about being a seasonal park ranger that I loved. I loved learning about a new park, traveling to and living in beautiful places, meeting fascinating people. At first being a seasonal park ranger felt like I was living out a dream vacation.
After a few exhausting years of moving non-stop–losing friendships because I had no internet or cell service or just didn’t have the energy to keep up with people I knew I’d never see again after my few months were up–I reassessed how I felt about that ranger life. By then I felt trapped, on a never-ending seasonal rollercoaster. I had no idea how to get out.
So I would type ”what to do after being a seasonal park ranger” or “jobs for park rangers other than park ranger” into Google. Shockingly, my searches didn’t turn up much.
I knew other rangers who worked as teachers or ski patrol or guides for other organizations in the offseason. I knew seasonal rangers who spent a summer season at one park and then a winter season at a totally different park. I knew folks who spent the summer saving up their pay and then the winter traveling in Asia or South America, somewhere cheap.
I tried some of these options out–worked at a ski lodge one winter, even tried traveling, although I always seemed to run out of money way too quickly to last the winter. Then I landed a coveted winter park job. I spent a couple winters in Texas, bouncing between summer park and winter park, sometimes with only a few days off in between.
When you are a seasonal park ranger, it is expected that you do not take vacations–you are only hired for six months max–why would your supervisor allow you to take time off?
I worked five consecutive seasons once, my only breaks the time I spent driving between jobs. Six months at this park, five months at that one, six months back at the first one, six months at a new one, six months again. After two and a half years I was burnt out and exhausted.
The people who know such things say that it takes about ten years of seasonal work for an interpretive ranger in the NPS to get a permanent job. You can’t even apply for permanent jobs unless you’ve logged years of seasonal hours or have some other special hiring consideration, like former military.
These are the two tiers of USNPS park rangers–seasonals and permanents.
Seasonal rangers work a maximum of 1039 hours (one hour less than full-time for six months, the limit beyond which they would be eligible for permanent benefits). They do the front-line work of the park world–building trails, leading hikes, fighting fires, cleaning the toilets. Most rangers you see while in national parks are seasonal rangers. The USNPS hires thousands of them every year.
Permanent rangers are the NPS employees who have been hired indefinitely, not temporarily, by a national park. They get benefits like retirement, hiring status for other jobs, the possibility of promotion, and job security (it’s difficult to fire a permanent employee–a seasonal ranger can be fired at any time, without cause).
Permanent jobs in national parks are as threatened as any endangered species. Between 2011 and 2019 (most of my park service career), budget cuts stripped the NPS of around 3,500 or 16% of permanent staff.
And their jobs are vital to keep parks functioning. You typically do not run into permanent rangers while visiting a national park, not because they are unimportant, but because they are in an office somewhere doing paperwork (god bless the federal bureaucracy) to keep the lights on, the rangers paid, the park infrastructure and mission maintained.
Some of these permanents are a little envious of their seasonal counterparts, reminiscing about the days when they could hike a trail every day, when they didn’t have a mountain of responsibilities to tackle instead, a national treasure to run on a shoestring budget.
The grass is always greener, even in national parks, I suppose. Seasonals want the luxurious life of the permanent ranger, like the option to own a pet, one of the many indulgences not allowed to those in seasonal housing. Permanents want the freedom to roam the park or travel to new parks or be with their partner, who might be a permanent ranger at a park a day’s drive away. We all want what we can’t have.
The permanents versus the seasonals. It sounds like an 80s teen drama–the “richies” versus the poor, the “freaks” versus the “normies.” Yet here we are. The US National Park Service, arranged in a class system like one invented by teenagers.
When you have such distinct divisions–a relative caste system–there will be consequences. There will be haves and have-nots. I met plenty of compassionate permanent rangers who treated me like an actual human being. But that is not the dominant culture of the NPS.
The culture of the NPS is one of two levels–the permanents and seasonals–those with rights and those without. Those who are heard, seen, respected, and those who are none of those things. In the NPS, seasonals are disposable, forgettable (“what was her name?”), which makes a certain amount of sense, since they are only around for a few months.
Temporary employees are also easier to abuse. It’s easier to dismiss their concerns, easier to ignore their complaints when they say they are mistreated or even harassed. They have little recourse–they can be fired without a reason, remember?
And when seasonals are unhappy–well, who cares? The competition for seasonal ranger jobs is fierce; if one seasonal doesn’t return, there will be hundreds of applicants eager to take their place next season.
I remember at one of my parks attending an all-park meeting, featuring a ceremony for rangers who had worked for that park or for the NPS for a certain number of years. Plaques and certificates were awarded. “Fifteen years of service–congratulations!” We would all applaud.
My fellow seasonals knew that one of our colleagues–a venerated and much beloved interpretive ranger–was celebrating her twentieth season at the park that summer. Twenty summers, twenty years of her life, dedicated to the park she loved.
I waited for our boss to announce her accomplishment, maybe once he finished handing out gifts to his fellow permanents.
I’ll save you the suspense; he didn’t say a word about her. There was no formal mention the entire summer of her twenty seasons. After the meeting, I went to her and gave her my congratulations, along with some of my seasonal colleagues. We tried to look after our own.
It doesn’t matter if individual permanents don’t treat seasonals this way–the system is set up for them to do so. The hiring system of the NPS is tiered in such a way that one group of employees has almost unchecked reign over another.
It’s like the feudal system of medieval Europe–if you’re ruled by one of those nice lords then lucky you, but that doesn’t mean the system itself isn’t fucked.
I could give you countless examples of unequal treatment I’ve witnessed or have been subject to over my years as a seasonal working for permanents. I could list all the ways it is nearly impossible to make the leap from seasonal to permanent–more stats on how few permanent jobs there are, how those positions are getting even rarer.
One supervisor insisted that with the continually slashed NPS budgets, national parks won’t be able to afford to hire any rangers some day, that they’ll be overseen entirely by volunteers.
Instead of focusing on the problems, though, I will tell you what should happen. The seasonal/permanent fracture in national parks is outdated and untenable. It should be dismantled.
Employees in national parks should be in one class–that of employees. All employees should have the same benefits, be given the same opportunities for advancement if they do a good job.
If a park needs more staff during a few months of the year, like a busy summer season, those staff members should be hired on and furloughed when the park doesn’t require them, retaining their jobs, given the same rights and benefits as any other employee, and with the expectation that they will come back with the next busy season.
The “1039” rule should be eliminated.
There should no longer be a number of hours an NPS employee must work to have basic rights and benefits.
In the end, I worked nine years for the NPS. I didn’t last the ten I was told would get me a permanent job. After nine years of seeing the dysfunction up close, I found I didn’t want to be a permanent part of an organization set up this way.
My final park job, the internship, lasted a full year. An entire year in one place–miraculous in the life of a seasonal. A technicality of my intern title meant that the normal rule about 1039 seasonal hours didn’t apply to me. I had the same rights and benefits as a seasonal (meaning none), but I got to do it for longer. Wasn’t I fortunate?
It didn’t feel that way. National parks are wonderful; that final year I still felt as warmly towards them as I ever had. National park employees are–for the most part–lovely, and I still felt honored to wear the uniform alongside colleagues doing hard work for little pay and few accolades (a group that includes permanents, by the way).
“We get paid in sunsets,” we would say. There was a pride in doing something challenging out of love. There were days those sunsets and foggy mountains and crystal clear lakes sustained me in ways no form of employment ever could.
And yet. And yet I did not feel satisfied with my compensation for uprooting my life and abandoning all my relationships, just for the pipe dream of one day being a permanent ranger. I’d also been bitten one too many times by the bureaucratic chaos of hiring and budget cuts.
I felt like if I had to jump through any more hoops to prove myself to an organization that didn’t give a crap about me, I would lose myself entirely.
So I quit. I stopped applying to seasonal jobs and then permanent ones. When my last supervisor asked what was next for me at my exit interview, I said I was done with the NPS.
“I quit a couple of times when I was a seasonal too,” she said, “but I always came back. I’m sure you will too.”
I am not you, I thought.
I lied and told her that the pile of uniform pieces I was donating to the park’s uniform cache didn’t fit me anymore; truthfully I just didn’t want to carry their weight on my next journey. I kept the big hat as a souvenir, packed up my car for the final time, and drove off into I knew not what, a smile on my face.
I never did find the perfect answer for what a ranger does after their season ends. There are as many answers as there are seasonal rangers. I am writing, traveling, and working on my own projects now.
Here’s an idea: after being a seasonal park ranger, you could advocate for change. You could unionize your colleagues and champion a better hiring system. You could fight to be treated with the dignity and respect any employee should be owed from their employer.
Or you could write disgruntled essays. Just find and do what makes you happy.