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Comment by CIPHERSTONE | Hacker News Reader

Would like to be a back country forest ranger. Someone who does work out in the remote woods. Not one of the rangers that has to deep with the public. The problem like most of us have is that our position and tenure in IT has lead to salaries that make such a change (and reduction in pay) almost impossible. Add kids, etc. and it gets set permanently in the dream category.

I know the logical response to this statement is: Reduce your needs and the reduced pay won't be an issue. While true, I don't think I am that flexible sadly.

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The bit about salary is huge. I do a moderately good job of keeping my needs/lifestyle pretty basic (I could do better). In the back of my mind, I'm always telling myself "you aren't saving to retire from work early. you are saving so you can retire to a different career early".

I'm a retired(?) programmer who spends his summers as a Forest Service camp host. I spend the mornings programming a "side" project and the afternoons panning for gold, fishing, etc.

My boss described being a forest ranger in the Mt. Shasta area as the Forest Service equivalent of being a green beret. They carry automatic rifles and are totally isolated from support while dealing with drug growers and associated violent criminals. Not my idea of a comfortable job.

Oh man there's some sort of volcanic park north of Berkely, CA that we visited once, and up on some mountain was a firewatch tower with a dude just chilling in there looking for smoke. He worked up there in 2 week shifts, just up on a mountain reading books and watching for smoke. Seemed like an awesome job, especially if you could get a data tether (he did) and do some programming on the side.

I think you're thinking of Mount Diablo. It's not quite volcanic anymore though (however when California was just the ocean it was), but is instead caused by uplift to the earth's plates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Diablo#Geology.

Or possibly Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sibley.htm , which is closer (though not north of) Berkeley.

I've thought about this ever since visiting the Needles fire watch tower and meeting Margee while climbing there. Sadly, that tower burned down in 2011 [1].

[1]: http://www.buckrock.org/needles.html

That feels ironic. Is that ironic?

Yes, I'd say it is.

How far north are we talking here? Calistoga North, or Lassen North? Cause we can keep going further, if we have to...

http://www.oldfaithfulgeyser.com/ https://www.nps.gov/lavo/index.htm

Well, here's the next best thing you can do:

http://www.firewatchgame.com/

Play a game about a Forest Ranger. I played this game through and it's fairly enjoyable (even if my usual cup of tea is Battlefield/GTA style FPS). Give it a try!

You are that flexible. If you were forced into making do with less you would adapt. What it really is, is the dream is not something worth pursuing to you, all things considered.

Sounds like you'd enjoy Firewatch[1].

[1]http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/

I actually did seasonal work as a Park Ranger on the Oregon Coast for a while. I would wholeheartedly love to do that again. I'm always so proud to go back to the areas I worked and walk the trails I built during those summers in undergrad.

I would like to do that too, and had thought of something like it when in my teens. I spent a lot of time in forests then.

Around that time I had read this novel (a Western) called The Deer Hunter (not related to the famous movie of the same name, which is about Vietnam, etc.), and it was about a guy who does that work - a forest ranger in the Grand Canyon (of the US). Great story.

I just said what I'd do if I switched now, but when I retire I want to do this ... exactly this.

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