{"id":782,"date":"2025-11-18T12:01:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T13:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/?p=782"},"modified":"2025-11-27T10:27:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T10:27:03","slug":"the-pleasures-and-perils-of-seasonal-jobs-in-the-backcountry-on-rivers-or-snow-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/the-pleasures-and-perils-of-seasonal-jobs-in-the-backcountry-on-rivers-or-snow-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"The pleasures \u2014 and perils \u2014 of seasonal jobs in the backcountry, on rivers or snow (Opinion)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was a student at Western Colorado University in Gunnison when my professor told our class he had a message for anyone wanting to work as a seasonal in the outdoor industry after graduating.<\/p>\n<p>His message was simple: \u201cGet out of my classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t that he didn\u2019t want us working as outdoor guides, trail crew leaders or ski bums. He wanted us to work as a seasonal, then come back to college when we were ready to value the economic stability of a degree.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t need a degree to be a guide,\u201d he said. \u201cA degree is so you can move into management after you burn out.\u201d Most outdoor guides he knew burned out after five to seven years in the field, he said.<\/p>\n<p>I took his advice and dropped out. It took me only three years to burn out.<\/p>\n<p>It all started when I took a sabbatical between my junior and senior years. I found work for a season on a schooner, then at an organic farm, and finally with AmeriCorps in Denver. After finishing my bachelor\u2019s degree, more seasonal jobs followed: a stint at a museum, a tall ship on the Hudson River, working as a outdoor educator. For four years, I moved every two to eight months.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\">\n<h2 class=\"widget-title\" data-curated-ids=\"\" data-relation-type=\"automatic-primary-tag\">Related Articles<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/11\/25\/outside-festival-moving-denver\/\" title=\"Outside festival forced to move, will have new name and location in 2026\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tOutside festival forced to move, will have new name and location in 2026\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/11\/20\/christmas-tree-cutting-colorado-national-forests\/\" title=\"Colorado&#8217;s national forests open for Christmas tree cutting &#8212; with strict rules\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tColorado&#8217;s national forests open for Christmas tree cutting &#8212; with strict rules\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/11\/04\/back-from-beyond-search-and-rescue-teams-moab\/\" title=\"Search and rescue teams in the West are vital, and not just because people push the bounds of recreation (Opinion)\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tSearch and rescue teams in the West are vital, and not just because people push the bounds of recreation (Opinion)\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/10\/05\/colorado-outdoor-industry-tariffs\/\" title=\"Trump&#8217;s tariffs creating stiff headwinds for Colorado outdoor industry\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tTrump&#8217;s tariffs creating stiff headwinds for Colorado outdoor industry\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/09\/29\/cherry-creek-state-park-closing-hours\/\" title=\"Cherry Creek State Park is closing nightly due to safety concerns, vandalism\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tCherry Creek State Park is closing nightly due to safety concerns, vandalism\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>I was lucky. I was still on my parents\u2019 health insurance. My car never broke down. I had no student loans, so I could build up a financial cushion.<\/p>\n<p>Seasonal work provided travel, flexibility, constant learning and sometimes fun. But if you asked me now if I\u2019d recommend it, I\u2019d say \u201cno &#8212; unless you plan ahead.&#8221; I learned that the hard way.<\/p>\n<p>After one seasonal job fell through, I found myself over a thousand miles from home and a month away from being homeless. Luckily, I found work as a library assistant and temporarily moved in with my family back in Colorado. I qualified for the library position only because of my bachelor\u2019s degree in Spanish, which I had finally finished thanks to my outdoor education professor.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the hard questions I had to answer while working as a seasonal: Where would I live between contracts, and what was the distance between jobs? Where would I store all my stuff? When I worked on the East Coast, I was a four-day drive away from my family in Denver, which made moving and swapping out gear extra difficult, especially in winter weather.<\/p>\n<p>As a seasonal, you also have to keep start and end dates of seasonal jobs in mind, as not all run on the same schedule. If you live in employee housing, you risk becoming homeless between contracts. Always ask about relocation and travel stipends to fund the in-between.<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoy a job and feel like you could learn more, try to return for multiple seasons. You\u2019re more likely to be offered a permanent or management position, and it shows consistency to future employers. You\u2019re also likely to make more money if you ask for a raise every season.<\/p>\n<p>Seasonal work lets you try on professions until you find a good fit, or not. But regardless of how cool a job sounds, or how qualified you are to do it, you always need a backup plan.<\/p>\n<p>Apply for multiple positions and be open to learning new skills on the job. If you have the chance to cross-train or pivot to doing something new at the same workplace, do it. And if you get a job with the U.S. Forest Service or any other federal land management agency, know that these days you could be fired without notice.<\/p>\n<p>My professor was right. My degree saved me when seasonal work became too stressful to keep pursuing it anymore. But working seasonally in the \u201creal world\u201d and out of a classroom was invaluable. I had to be resilient and adept at picking up technical skills while connecting with people I would never have met while attending classes. I became someone who was always ready to learn new things.<\/p>\n<p>When I finish my master\u2019s degree, I want to teach, holding onto summers for outdoor jobs. This time, I\u2019ll be doing it right.<\/p>\n<p><em>Kira Cordova is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is currently working a seasonal job for Outward Bound while also completing a master\u2019s degree in nature writing online.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/myaccount.denverpost.com\/dp\/preference\">Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more. <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/submit-letter\/\">online<\/a> or check out our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2013\/07\/09\/submission-guidelines-and-contact-information\/\">guidelines<\/a> for how to submit by email or mail.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-justify mb-2\" >I was a student at Western Colorado University in Gunnison when my professor told our class he had a message for anyone wanting to work as a seasonal in the outdoor industry after graduating. His message was simple: \u201cGet out of my classroom.\u201d It wasn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}