Caitlyn Clay at SAMO

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 t...

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...

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 Z...

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...