Jim beck national forest service son11/6/2023 ![]() ![]() “It was my desire to give something back,” said Beck. The volunteer projects offer new travel focus. After both retired early, they sold their home in Evergreen Colorado, bought the motor home and visited all states (49) that can be driven to. The Becks have a permanent address in Alaska but have been living in their motor home, exploring areas and doing projects that appeal to their love of the outdoors. ![]() Next project was the Superstitions, then a Nature Conservancy Project in the Florida Keys, and back to Arizona to help improve trails in Mount Wrightson Wilderness near the Arizona border. ![]() Beck, who has climbed all the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado, patrolled Chicago Basin, a favorite access point for peak-bagging climbers, and also used his cross-cut sawyer skills to clear trails. The next summer, Beck showed up at Pagosa Springs Ranger District in Colorado, snagging a post as volunteer ranger in the Weminuche Wilderness. I said, ‘I’m going to do that.’ He got in touch with the Superior National Forest and snagged a volunteer ranger job-not in the remote cabin, by then defunct. “They have a cabin back in the wilderness, people go out there and stay, check on campsites, talk to people…That stuck in my head for years and years. During a “trip of a life time” canoeing in Boundary Waters, Beck talked with an outfitter who said his post-retirement dream was a volunteer ranger slot. This notion had caught Jim and his wife Cathy’s interest when both were still working full time. Jim’s first ‘job’ was wilderness ranger in the Boundary Water Wilderness in Minnesota. He also hiked virtually abandoned trails on the obscure eastside of the wilderness to provide trail condition reports to district managers, who applying for grants for needed trail work. “Turns out they don’t have any staff assigned to the Superstition Wilderness.” Beck located 34 old signs many were subsequently replaced by the Forest Service throughout the west side of the sprawling 160,236-acre urban wilderness at the edge of Phoenix. I said ‘I’m in town, I want to volunteer and I’m highly qualified,” Beck said. “We ended up in Arizona … and I showed up on the Mesa district doorstep. In 2016 Beck, a former consultant whose resume now reads “Outdoor Volunteer,” hiked 250 miles of trail in the rugged Superstition Wilderness in Arizona to locate trail signs for the Mesa Ranger District, Tonto National Forest. Jim Beck took “early retirement” in his late 50s but started a new career-hiking, climbing, clearing trails and doing stewardship work across the country. ![]()
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