Volunteering at Success Lake

Our campsite for five months at Success Lake

As many of you know, we love our public lands. We think parks at every level are wondrous places and enjoy exploring and playing in them and we’re happy that our tax dollars go toward supporting them. We actually wish that more of our tax dollars went toward supporting them (and libraries, but that would be a digression and y’all know we stay firmly on track in this blog). In that spirit, we thought that we’d like to give back in some small way by putting some sweat equity into our federal lands in the form of volunteer labor.

Taking a break on a pretty day to enjoy the lake.  

We aren’t completely altruistic though - we planned our volunteer gig around our timing (winter) and our desires (someplace warm where we could run, bike, hike, kayak, and play). We also received a campsite while serving as volunteers. The little bit we save helps keep our finances healthy in order to fuel ourselves with good beer and good food, our truck with diesel, and our spirits with adventures like going on an epic road trip to Alaska. You know, priorities of the first world variety.

Plenty of scenic hills to wear us out! 

So, how to pick a place to volunteer? We knew we wanted to stay fairly warm (or at least not too damn cold), near a lake, near mountains...and we got all that at the Success Lake Recreation Area (run by the US Army Corps of Engineers) near Porterville, CA.  We arrived there on 30 October 2018 and left almost 5 months later on 25 March 2019.

So we thought y’all might be interested in the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding  our first experience as volunteers.

We might’ve volunteered to erect these signs after picking up buckets of trash. Never said we were subtle... 

The good: Turned out that south central California is a great place to overwinter. Temps never dropped too low. California’s Central Valley is a huge producer of fruits, nuts, and olives, and other fresh vegetables and we were surrounded by citrus orchards. We ate more avocados, grapefruit, and oranges in five months than we have in probably decades. And we managed to eat our way thru a number of the nearly limitless Mexican restaurants and taco trucks which was a huge bonus. It was a snowier in the mountains east of us than it had been in recent years, which is a very good thing for filling up the lake, but it prevented us from getting up and into the mountains and seeing the sequoias as much as we would’ve wanted.

A typical haul from our favorite panaderia. Era tan sabroso y barato! 

More good: turns out we still have a work ethic even though when we need to be we’re also world class slackers! 

We climbed Boat Island (it’s only an island when the lake is full) and the views did not disappoint.  

And the best part about Success Lake? We met and worked alongside some great folks and in the process we made some new friends. Not bad for a couple of introverts, right? We won’t mention names, as we don’t want to leave anyone off the list, but we feel sincere gratitude to the folks who made us feel like we were part of the team. You know who you are...you made us laugh, broke bread with us, and even shared your adult beverages with us! 

Nuestros Ranger favorita!  Ranger Juanita made us crowns for El Dia de Reyes (Three Kings Day).  

Repairing picnic sites.  

The bad (or shall we just say the not-so-good): we should have asked a few more questions up front; for example, what sort of cell coverage is available (we had to buy an ATT SIM card and plan as Verizon did not cover this area). And it turns out that we could not completely turn off our leadership experiences and discipline learned in the military. In the absence of leadership, we are not your average “Joe Snuffy” volunteers; we are rather self-directed and self-motivated, so we took on projects that we thought needed done.  On the other side of that coin we will work our asses off as members of squad when the mission and priorities are clearly articulated. 

A little excitement at the lake and a lesson on why you have an emergency brake in a car.  

The ugly: well, nothing was really all that ugly in hindsight, but as we alluded to above, if you’ve spent any time leading people and large complex organizations, then volunteering will be an interesting experience. You can’t help but see organizational and systemic flaws as well as potential. Success Lake faced a few challenges such as leadership turnover, (including our amazing volunteer coordinator, Ranger Juanita) and some government bureaucracy-specific challenges in resourcing their mission. Those things stood out like sore thumbs to us, especially when some of it is self-inflicted (or at least preventable with solid leadership). We considered staging a coup...but that would have been decidedly unYOFO-like so we quickly nixed that bad idea.

In progress- paint prep

Before... ugh.

...After. Just sayin’ 

So what did we actually do when we weren’t scouting the best taco truck or raiding our favorite Panaderia (bakery)?  We pitched in on a variety of handyman tasks, such as trail maintenance which included sanding and staining benches, police call (Army flashbacks for sure), and erecting information signs. We also painted gates, painted traffic markings on the pavement, and trimmed trees in the campground. Our biggest project was repainting the interiors of the four restroom/shower facilities in the campground (we’d like never to use epoxy paint again).

I’m ready to go in boss!   Epoxy day. 

So if you’re wondering about whether we’d do it again, our answer is a resounding yes. It was a good experience, we felt a sense of having made a difference (even if a small one), and we gave as much as we got out of it.

Ranger Jaunita taught us how to make tamales!   

If you’re thinking about volunteering, we’d say go for it. Ask better up-front questions than we did about the program and work involved, as well as support provided to volunteers. Logistics such as: what cell carrier works best? Also ask what services the campground provides the for volunteers - full or partial service camp sites? Laundry facilities? We didn’t mind packing up every ten days or so to make a trip to the dump station, but considering that we typically jump every two-threee days, we’re definitely an anomaly. Success Lake got laundry facilities installed mid-way thru our stay and it was a MAJOR upgrade for us.

Kady and Nate loving the big Sequoias on a hike not far from our campground. 

So yeah, we would do it again. We’ve already got an application in at another place for this winter. If you have the opportunity, we recommend giving volunteering a shot - the parks can use some TLC and you’ll get more out of it than you put in.

Out for an afternoon of horseback riding with our new friend Ruben.