Mary Schneider
Wilderness Ranger Fellow
Summer 2025
During the 4-day drive from Tampa to Missoula at the start of my season, I passed the time imagining myself out in the field, wielding saws and swinging axes, caked in dirt, rain, blood and sweat. I saw myself barreling down trails and letting out summit war cries. These imaginings were, however, constantly interrupted by stops for gas and my feeble attempts to keep my blood flowing. Breaking a sweat after a handful of push-ups never fails to keep me humble. Although I am confident in the functionality of my strength, physical finesse and spatial awareness generally fall low on the list of things I am proud of. This is precisely why I found myself on that drive to Missoula: I felt called to Montana and to SBFC because I knew that there were lessons to be learned out here. It offered an opportunity to level up, in a sense.
Mary with a crosscut!
In my training at Powell Ranger Station, I knew that I had come to the right place. The tools and the tasks felt thrillingly foreign and intimidating, and I came home to camp each day breathless in anticipation for the next. At night, chatting over dinner in the yurt, the other fellows expressed such joy about being dirty and working hard that it filled my heart and caught me off guard. At my past job in the Florida marsh, everyone did revel in the slop but expressed it only sarcastically. Here in the Selway, everyone wore their dirt and sweat with unfiltered pride. Inspired as I was by this, I still deep-cleaned myself every night and wondered anxiously about what my sleeping bag might smell and feel like on showerless day 7 of hitch.
On my first couple of hitches, we lopped and dug the days away and camped by rushing rivers and creeks at night. The gift of the cold, refreshing water at the end of the day made the time seem to pass so comfortably. My nervous energy was quickly redirected to the trails we were working and the way we couldn’t seem to make it to the end in time. I expressed this to one of my crew leads, Noah, and he gave me the advice that trail work is just about making a dent. There will always be more trees and more tread and more trail, and even when you think you’ve cleared it, another tree will fall tomorrow. All you can do is the best you can do.
Tents at camp
This advice carried me through the middle of my season, especially my fourth hitch. I spent multiple entire days working just one enormous tree, took detours and climbed the wrong mountain, choked on a constant cloud of mosquitoes and marinated in my freezing cold, forever-wet gear. We were tasked with 20 miles of trail but moved 8, and it took everything in me to fight off the brutal discouragement. I reminded myself of the dent we made and focused on the fact that the next crew would have easier work on that stretch because of us.
On my most recent hitch, my final one, I got to help lead a youth crew in the Frank. It was a challenging hitch for everyone, including myself. We bumped camp multiple times deep into the wilderness, and the difficulty sometimes seemed to overwhelm the trail work. The kids expressed disappointment in themselves, saying that they wished we could’ve made it to the end of the trail, wished the cuts would go faster, that things would just work better. So, I tried to pass on the same perspective that Noah had enforced to me. It’s important to want to finish and improve, but rather than carry the disruptive weight of discouragement, allow yourself to be lifted and propelled by the progress you’ve made.
Mary with SBFC’s Youth Expedition Leader, April, and youth program participants
My final hitch with the youth granted me a lot of time and prompting for reflection. In the youth, I saw myself in training at Powell. I heard the same lessons reiterated to their fresh ears, saw in them both the hesitancy and raw eagerness that I’m sure my instructors saw in me, too. I was surprised by how distant I felt from that training. Only in the position of teacher did I realize how confident I had become in comparison.
I then thought about my drive to Missoula, and the person and worker I thought I’d be by now. I certainly am no unstoppable force – in truth I crawled to the end of my season with a thrown-out back and a burnout head cold – but nonetheless I completed the season. It doesn’t matter that I needed heroic doses of ibuprofen at the end, because I genuinely relished in the squish of my boots under rain, hail, and creek crossings. I forgive myself for the tears of frustration I shed during my fifth hour of non-stop katana boy, because I kept sawing. I don’t care that I’m not the ripped lumberjack I saw in my dreams because what I lost in body mass, I gained in tolerance of pain and discomfort.
Wild-harvested berries
I know I am leaving many lessons still unlearned out here, but I am so proud of how far I’ve come. I am so grateful for the beautiful, pure thing that I got to be a part of this summer. I had never been around so many incredible, strong, scrappy dirtbags in my life, and I feel so lucky to have crossed this path. Although the wind now blows me elsewhere, I hope I stay downwind of this place for a long time. May the laughter of the crews, the sweetness of the sagebrush, and the hum of the crosscut forever come to me in whispers on the breeze.
Mary Schneider
Tampa, FL
University of Florida- Environmental Science
Mary grew up in the city in Tampa, Florida, where her love for the outdoors was nurtured by backyard oaks and rocky runoff creeks. In college, she studied environmental sciences, and the distant mysticism of the natural world became tangible. Her work as a research tech sent her to conduct experiments deep in the mud of the marsh, under the Salish Sea, and across African savannas. She also joined her school’s backpacking club, which led her to climb mountains and explore the backcountry with new friends and strangers. She has come a long way from her backyard, and is very excited to experience wilderness in a new way on the trail crew!
