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Weeks 9 & 10, 7/17-7/20,7/23 - 7/26

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  The view from Saddle Peak I had yet to see Ranger Cooper conduct a traffic stop, until Monday. She was driving me back to my dorm, and we stopped at a 4-way intersection with stop signs all-way. At the same time a motorcycle failed to come to a complete stop at the stop sign and continued down the road. Ranger Cooper turned to follow the motorcycle and close the distance. She pulled the motorcycle over and approached the biker. He surrendered his license when she asked for it and waited while she ran him. Ultimately, Ranger Cooper decided to give the biker a verbal warning. While we were driving back home Ranger Cooper was telling me that she loved conducting traffic stops and was glad I got to observe her conduct one. I didn’t think I would ever go to court until I became a Ranger, however, I had the opportunity to attend a Zoom court hearing and witness initial appearances. Ranger Cooper and I were originally attending because “Mary” from week 2 was supposed to have her appearance,
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Week 8, 7/11-7/14

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  This was the start of my week with PSRM, which stands for planning, science and resource management. On my first day I spent about an hour or so with different sections of the division. I started my morning with Cathy, and we went to examine the many raptor perches in the park. We cleaned off the wildlife cameras and switched out the memory cards so we could see what types of birds had been using the perch. Next, I went to see the GIS specialist, Denise. She showed me how she inputs location data to create accurate maps of the park. She can design maps for the visitors to use that highlight the trails, and she creates maps for the terrain itself. These maps usually have the elevation levels labeled as well as geological landmarks. Maps like this assist researchers when they conduct surveys, and the researchers can even help Denise make her maps more accurate. After that I went to the supervisor of cultural resources, Gabrielle. She explained to me how they conduct surveys of an a
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Week 6 & 7, 6/28 - 7/1, 7/2 - 7/6

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Franklin Canyon After a three day weekend, I was ready to get back out in the field. Ranger Artiga was my ride today and he took me to Franklin Canyon for the first time. It was so beautiful. It’s a bit tucked away, so not many people driving down the road will see it as they go about their day. I feel as though its seclusion adds to the serenity of the park. The trees are tall so it’s a shady area, and there’s a lake with several picnic tables around it so visitors can have a scenic lunch. Turtles and fish inhabit the lake and ducks float along the surface. Ranger Artiga and I did a foot patrol around the lake and so many ducks and turtles approached us, unfortunately, that meant that visitors were feeding them. Visitors feeding the wildlife inhibits animals from learning how to find their own food sources. When you’re on the trails there is always something to look at, Ranger Artiga said it’s a great place for a jog. Duck.   After the foot patrol Ranger Artiga and I decided to do
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Week 5, 6/19 - 6/24

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A flower along the Modelo Trail at Cheeseboro Today was much different because I was riding with Ranger Spraggins, who came for me at about 6:30. The day was calm for the most part. I spent most of the time trying to learn as much from Ranger Spraggins as possible, particularly about FLETC. Ranger Spraggins is going to be transferring to FLETC to become an instructor, so chances are I’ll see him when I go. I asked Ranger Spraggins what he thought made a good Ranger, and his answer was incredibly thorough. He said that every Ranger needs to be resilient because so many things can happen to you and it's important to not take things personally. He explained how important it was for a Ranger to have patience, which goes hand-in-hand with being resilient. You’ll deal with all sorts of people and all sorts of situations. The most important trait a Ranger should have is compassion, because above all things, Rangers exist to help people. They are civil servants as much as they are law en
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Week 4, 6/12/23 to 6/15/23

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Mountains of Zuma canyon from the trail   I think this is the week where I stepped out of my comfort the most. Facilities week. I’ve never done manual labor jobs like landscaping and renovation work so it was definitely an abnormal experience for me. Monday and Tuesday I worked with the roads and trails team, Thursday I was with buildings and utilities. I had a separate adventure on Wednesday, which I’ll get to later. The roads & trails team likes to start bright and early, so I arrived at the maintenance office at 6:30 AM. Tara Hallman, the crew lead, was there to greet me. She took me a little further up the hill to the toolshed and showed me where they stored the equipment we would need for the day. Tara walked me over to this massive storage container and handed me a weed wacker; I’ve never used one before so I was taken aback a bit. I had to wear a harness that hooked onto the wacker because I wasn’t used to its weight. With the weed wackers gassed up, we headed out to Zuma
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Week 3, 6/5/23 - 6/9/23

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A view from the Zuma Ridge Trail This week was all about the bread and butter of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area: the Admin division. This week I split my time between Admin and Special Park Uses (SPU). I would spend two hours out of the day with Admin and the rest of my day would be spent with SPU.  I began my admin time by shadowing Kate. She does a large portion of the budgeting for SAMO. One of her main responsibilities is credit card reallocations, when a SAMO card holder makes a purchase, she has to validate the transaction and check to make sure the budget money is being used appropriately. Kate is also qualified to verify travel authorizations and vouchers. When someone needs to travel for work-related purposes, they fill out all the information about their travel needs on this platform called Concur. Kate’s job here is to make sure the paperwork is correct and then verify that the travel plans are reasonable.  For my first day with SPU I spent time with Ran
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Week 2, 5/29/23 - 6/3/23

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A view of the mountains at Circle X Ranch   Oh. My God. I definitely got way more than I bargained for this week while working VRP and patrolling with Ranger Cooper. When she told me that SAMO mostly gets low level misdemeanors, I thought we were going to spend our time telling some lady to put her dog on a leash or redirecting equestrians to horse-friendly trails. I want to clarify that I definitely did not expect an action movie, I also didn't expect this week's event to happen either.   Tuesday was probably the most calm day out of the week. Ranger Cooper spent most of the day answering my questions as we patrolled a few areas of the park. I asked her about the park's legal relationship with the state of California, and she told me that she can enforce both federal and state laws within the jurisdiction SAMO, and that the park does not have it's own detention center so, depending on where a suspect was arrested, a Ranger would either book them in to Ventura County or
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