Josh Page
SBFC Wilderness Program Director
Josh back in the day!
When I first wrapped my fingers around a crosscut handle in 2015 along a trail in the Trinity Alps Wilderness of Northern California, it wasn’t as dramatic as awakening some long-dormant sense of purpose and belonging, but after that first long day of many miles hiked and many trees bucked, I did know that the exhaustion blended with pride and satisfaction was a natural high that I wanted to keep chasing. Now in my tenth season of Wilderness work, I can proudly say that what I thought was many trees that first day would be woefully short of what I can buck in a day now, and I can also say with humility that the miles are not so easily earned as they were at age 23.
Thousands of trees and thousands of miles in, there are still many lessons to be learned, and I sincerely hope this is only the first of several decades spent working in the Wilderness. Here are ten broad lessons that Wilderness has taught me thus far.
Plan Ahead and Prepare
There is a reason this is the first Leave No Trace principle.
In our highly connected world, the consequences of simple oversights are easily negated. Forgot to bring your lunch to the office? That’s an easy fix by walking to a nearby restaurant, and if you’re too busy with emails, they can just bring the food to you! Change that scenario to the Wilderness so that day 7 arrives with you being a dinner short, and your hike out the next day just got a heckuva lot more difficult. Did you only look at the forecast for the first four days of the hitch and day 6 arrives with a significant temperature drop that you didn’t plan for? Sleep isn’t going to come easily in that 40 degree sleeping bag that night! A little bit of preparation goes a long way when you can only rely on what you’ve brought with you.
2. Then Adapt on the Fly
Wildfires, wind storms, summer snow storms, impassable creek crossings, dried up water sources, unanticipated volume of work, pack animal mishaps, car troubles, crew member injury or illness…Plan 1A is an incredibly fragile thing. Unnecessary rigidity is needlessly frustrating at best, and highly hazardous at worst. Preparing with tools, gear and a plan that help you stay flexible when the inevitable changes happen can keep a crew moving down the new trail, and acceptance of those changes is the only way to keep yourself and those around you sane.
3. Be Curious
Borrowing from Ted Lasso, don’t let your mind get too assumptive. Aim to constantly stay present and keep your curiosity. Earlier on in my time working in Wilderness, I cut through hundreds of trees learning very little because I stopped being curious. It’s not easy to stay present and engaged all the time when you’re in the middle of 10+ hour days hiking and working, but we only learn from experiences if we reflect on them. The laws of nature don’t change, but the endless variables and our personal understanding of it all would take much more than my lifetime to fully master. Be curious and you’ll get a lot further in the short window we all have.
4. Learn How to be Ambidextrous
This one is a little less philosophical, but an ambidextrous life has many benefits both on and off the trail. Some tasks in Wilderness work teeter between frustratingly difficult and borderline impossible if you are not ambidextrous. Even walking can be negatively affected in the long run if you overcompensate with one side of your body. If getting skilled at swinging an ax with your opposite hand feels too lofty, start by brushing your teeth or washing dishes with your non-dominant side. I for one am grateful that there isn’t a shortcut to everything in life. Some skills only get better with practice.
5. You’re Closer Than You’ve Ever Been
If anyone that has been on a trail with me reads this, I am sure my inclusion of this statement as a lesson will be to their incense, since this is always my answer to the question, “How much further is it?”. Being sometimes infuriating doesn’t make it any less true though. “The only way out is through” or “An object in motion stays in motion” are other ways of saying the same thing- wherever you are at the moment of the trek to your destination, try to keep going, because you are closer than you’ve ever been.
6. Try to Stay Present, Fail, and then keep Trying and Failing
Josh hiking in the Frank this summer.
When I say that I have spent ten years in the Wilderness, the numbers quickly show how much I am embellishing. Of the 3,650 days that have happened in the last decade, it’s roughly around 700 where I was actually in Wilderness. Even whittled down to 700, I could clearly describe perhaps 50 days and what occurred. We learn only from what we are willing to reflect on, and we can only reflect if we were present to begin with. There are so many difficult and mundane moments in Wilderness that it is all too easy to detach from the moment, and tune in later when something is happening. The problem is that those difficult and mundane moments are lessons and they are also the bulk of life. Whatever is presently happening, try to feel it entirely, and when you disassociate (and you will), give yourself some grace before diving back in. Don’t let 700 days go by remembering only a handful.
7. Bring some extra snacks
It’s easy to be philosophical about working in Wilderness as I type this on my computer, but at the end of the day, we’re all just animals with some biological needs. If you find yourself or someone around you getting cranky or down, before you go to the mind go to the stomach. I have ended many tense moments with a well-timed snack or electrolyte offering. Dried mango, chocolate-covered espresso beans, jerky and pistachios are a few of my favorite crowd pleasers. Some quality chocolate of your choosing paired with a mint tea after dinner can make a lot of problems feel a little smaller as well.
8. Pick a Wilderness, Discover it, Fall in Love with it, Protect it, Share it
Josh, Krissy, and Nate in the Selway-Bitterroot WIlderness this summer
There are over 800 Wilderness Areas in the United States. Some of them like the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-RONR are over 1 million acres in size. Not that I don’t love to visit other Wilderness Areas, because I absolutely do, but I truly hope that I get to spend the majority of my Wilderness time discovering, loving, protecting and sharing the Selway and Frank. These are remote, vast, diverse, and often harsh places, and with every visit I feel like I am uncovering a new facet among millions. Definitely explore as many Wilderness Areas as you can, but I also suggest finding your Home Wilderness, the one that begins to feel like visiting a long time friend. It’s an unmistakable feeling.
Josh leading an SBFC volunteer project on Marble Creek in 2019.
9. Wilderness & Humans are Deeply Connected, Not Separate
I signed up for my first season of Wilderness work with a self-centric focus. I wanted to see what I was capable of, how much I could rely on myself, and above all, I wanted to escape from the modern world. I ended up finding many of my best friends, my spouse, and my community of people on this journey for solitude and self-reliance. Working in Wilderness is hard to explain to those who aren’t indoctrinated, but the bond shared by those who have done this work and been to these places is strong. Humans are meant only to be visitors to Wilderness, but that does imply that we are also meant to visit. I know my life is infinitely better for those visits and the people those visits have connected me to.
10. We need Wilderness, and that need is only rising
One can make a pretty strong argument that Wilderness doesn’t need us, but I know for a certainty that the opposite is true and only becoming truer. With internet and cell service becoming more and more available, I can’t help but be concerned about what that means for the human experience in Wilderness. I am always so thankful for the opportunity to wash my brain clean of social media, videos and the endless content of our modern existence when I visit Wilderness. Wilderness is one of the last havens we have away from the algorithms designed to keep us glued to our phones. I doubt the founding mothers and fathers of the Wilderness Act could ever fully understand how invaluable these protected places would become in this specific sense. If entering Wilderness ever entirely loses that sense of entering a natural, untrammeled, more primeval world, a key aspect of what Wilderness means will be lost.
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There are likely easier ways to learn some of these lessons besides working in Wilderness for 10 years, but I doubt they would stick with me as well if I had learned them any other way. For 60 years Wilderness has been a federal designation, but for thousands of years humans have helped steward these places now called Wilderness. The tread dug, the vegetation brushed, the trees bucked and the retaining walls built are all impermanent, but the connections I have to these places and their stewards will last a lifetime. Keeping these places simultaneously protected and accessible to people is a tightrope hike that requires seemingly endless human power and passion. We are each just one piece of that massive puzzle, and it takes all of us giving everything we can towards that mission. I hope this inspires folks to safely and respectfully discover their own lessons in Wilderness, and perhaps avoid a couple of the mistakes I’ve made. I aim to continue to give to the human experience of Wilderness for many years to come, and with a little bit of luck, in 2034 I’ll have another 10 lessons worth sharing.
Thanks For Reading & Stay Wild!
Josh grew up in a 100+ year old family farmhouse in central Michigan. In 2015, Josh headed west and spent an uninterrupted 6 months in Wilderness with the California Conservation Corps. Since that first formative season working in Wilderness, Josh has spent the last nine years leading and teaching crews in the Selway and Frank. He spent 2018-2020 as an SBFC Crew Leader, and is thrilled his winding trail brought him back to SBFC as Program Director in 2022. In his free time, Josh can often be found playing with his two cats and beagle. When the pets aren’t demanding his attention, getting overly competitive in board games with his wife Erika is a favorite pastime.
Bonus Josh’isms":
10 of my favorite sayings to utilize as I make decisions working in Wilderness (Fittingly, I’ve already mentioned a couple):
You’re closer than you’ve ever been
Before going to the mind, go to the stomach
Be comfortable being uncomfortable
An object in motion stays in motion
Whatever the forecast, prepare for 10 degrees colder
Be bold, start cold
You are capable of far more than you think
Wedge early, wedge often-eat early, eat often
Am I choosing the right path, or the easy path?
Wilderness is too damn hard to get to, to have a bad time; and it takes too much effort to get to, to not do a job right