Youth Conservation Corps

As I read about stimulus money heading to the Grand Mesa for trail head improvements, like paving, it got me thinking about my one experience with government employment. When I was 16, I was selected to be a part of the Youth Conservation Corps.

From all the literature I thought it was going to be a great opportunity of camping all summer in some exotic place and fixing trails and enjoying the great outdoors; what a great way to spend a summer, I thought.

They selected my name and 4 others from a list of about 4,000 entries. They did not interview for the positions, they drew the names from a hat, 3 boys and 2 girls. The place we were selected for, was the Colorado National Monument. So there was no camping going to be happening and it was not too exotic, more like my own back yard. I was disappointed but I was happy to have another summertime job (I was also busing tables at Pantuso's 4 nights a week).

At least I could still enjoy the great outdoors and fix up cool trails maybe see some wildlife, etc.....NOT!

Evidently the trail they were talking about was the main road over the Monument because I spent most of the summer being a flag person for a road repair crew. We paved patches all the way from Frutia to Grand Junction. As an extra bonus they "allowed" me to clean the moleboard (blade) of the scraper every night. So I would put a pair of coveralls on, get 5 gallons of diesel fuel and a hand scraper and head for the scraper. I would dump diesel on the blade and scrape off all the asphalt. Oh what fun. Another little secret about paving is; gnats love new asphalt. They would get so thick we wore scarves and mesh hoods so we didn't inhale gnats with every breath.

The program lasted 3 months and in typical government fashion our first payroll check did not arrive until the summer was almost complete. I'm glad I had my second job to pay for the gas to get to my first job for the summer.

I said all that, to say this (my actual point): Why the hell do we keep adding pavement to our national parks? Doesn't anybody just enjoy going to a place that has been left alone? Isn't the difficulty of the adventure part of the fun of being outdoors and going camping or snowmobiling? What I mean is, if you have to unload your snowmobile in the mud or park in a ditch isn't that the outdoor adventure.

If I wanted to go camping in a Wal-mart parking lot I would. I would rather have to make a little extra effort and have more fun, in the absence of asphalt.

So I see a story like we are spending 1/2 million to pave the Grand Mesa I get a bit irritated.