Let the summer begin, our Estes Park workamping gig is underway! The next four months should be pretty interesting. This is the first time we are doing a traditional workamping job in a busy campground, and we are both excited (and honestly a little terrified) at what we signed up to do.

Excited, because we finally get to experience being a volunteer camp host at a public park, in gorgeous Estes Park of all places.

And it’s not just any park, but we are at Mary’s Lake Campground for the season. It’s a public campground just a couple of miles outside of Rocky Mountain National Park, one of the Big Five Parks in the nation. And you know what that means, right?

People. Lots, and lots of people, from all around the world.

Estes Park sees over 4 million visitors between Memorial Day and Labor Day. That’s the terrifying part.

Last weekend campers in all types of RVs and tents started arriving for Memorial Day weekend. We don’t expect guests to stop coming until closing day on September 15th. Bookings are a little down from last year, but this is still an extremely busy campground.

Thankfully we have what seems to be an easy schedule of 3-days on, 3-days off each week. And when we are off, we are off. That’s because there are lots of other workampers here to manage the other shifts. That’s a far cry from when Jim and I worked at our favorite, full-time solo workamping job at Vickers Ranch.

This gig isn’t like those crazy days of working six days a week, full-time. This gig should give us enough time to keep all of our other income-generating balls in the air without dropping any.

Meanwhile, we are learning the art of “being housekeepers of the outdoors.”

Our goal in this gig is “enriching lives with quality recreation,” as the Estes Valley Recreation and Parks District taught us during our weeklong training session.

So when (not if) we see a camper doing something dumb or dangerous, our goal is to kindly “educate” them on how to be a good outdoorsperson.

I won’t do what I’d really like to do when someone cuts through another campsite, leaves a campfire unattended, or decides the trash cans are too far away to deposit bagged dog poop. I’d get fired for that.

Instead, when we put on that uniform, we will kindly explain the correct way to behave in the outdoors.

In return for behaving in such a way that won’t get us fired, we get tons of great benefits.

As volunteers, we get so much more than the typical free rent, laundry, and store discounts. We also took a comped CPR and First Aid class, and Jim got certified to dispense propane.

Workampers also get discounts on the golf course, watercraft rentals, and propane. Best of all, everyone gets a free membership to the really sweet community recreation center. The gym and hot tub there are pretty nice. We will definitely take time to make the most of the membership.

Last but not least, there’s that spectacular scenery that people from all over the world come here to experience. Every morning I wake up to world-class views like nowhere else in the Lower 48.

Yeah, it’s pretty busy here, much more than we imagined. I’m guessing that by the end of summer, this experience will have us packed and ready to move to Alaska for good.