Most of you know about my situation from a previous thread in the "Off Topic: All-in-one" section. A couple days ago, I was searching for places in Gatlinburg to rent gears so I could take my bestfriend backpacking. I stumbled onto a guide business in Gatlinburg that does guided day hikes and backpacking trips in the Smokies as well as gear rentals. Guide .

I was curious if they would be hiring part-time backpacking guides for the upcoming season. I sent the owners an e-mail; I got a respond from the owners saying they are hiring part-time guides for the upcoming season. A couple e-mails later one of the owner invited me to attend a get together with new applicants and returning guides. She wrote a detailed itinerary about what to expect that day. The owners will speak to me one-on-one to get to know me and I'm expected to give a short program on any topic of my choosing that I would talk about to their clients.

I thought maybe I could work two part-time jobs depending whether or not I can be employed by them, and how often they keep me busy. I never realized there is a demand for guided backpacking and day hike trips in the Smokies. I'm assuming most of the day hikers are interested in nature and history stuff. The backpacking clients probably wants to go backpacking with a guide because they don't have the skills to do it alone, the equipments, or whatever the case may be.

I feel really good about my technical skills and knowledge of the Smokies, but the thing that could hurt my chances is the plant life. I'm not that good at identifying medicinal plants and things like that. They tend to sell the point about teaching clients plant life and using them for medicinal. If they can't provide the training for Wilderness First Aid, I may not be able cough up $155 for a class in February offered at an outdoor store in Gatlinburg.

I may use the part-time money to save to go out west or prepare go back to school for the CPA exam. I'm just trying go with the flow instead of getting all frustrated over the lack of accounting and finance related jobs offers.

Good luck!

If you have any language skills be sure to highlight those.

One thing about identifying plants is that once you get a handbook and then go find them yourself they're a lot easier to remember, so I wouldn't fret much about that.

As far as medicinal plants, I'm sure there are a handful that are common and easy to identify, so you learn those and point them out as you go along and you look like Euell Gibbons out there to everyone without a clue (the target market).

Some are easy, like mint, echinacea, goldenrod, birch, etc. If someone asks about a certain plant that you can't ID from memory be honest, tell them you have no idea, but have the handbook ready to help and get the client involved with the process of identifying them. That's fun for all.

I've guided a few hikes here. One was for a bunch of plant nerds that work with the Conservation Dept. That was a thrill for me, they knew practically every plant down to the specific variety, and you should have seen how excited they got when they found one that none of them could identify. We didn't make it a more than a mile from the trailhead, when we got to a glade area they all got stuck. There was just too much cool stuff for them to want to go any further. I walk right by it every day.

I heard more latin being spoken that day than all the rest of my days combined. It was total overload. They told me the names of hundreds of plants and I don't remember one of them.

Guiding hikes is a pretty cool job. Most of the people you'll be with are happy to be there, and eager to learn. The only advice I can really give is to keep on eye on all of them to see how they're holding up, and stop for a rest whenever you see someone struggling a bit. Don't ask them if they want to stop, just tell the group to stop for a bit. If you can spot a plant you're familiar with talk about that, or tell a story, and when everyone is rested move on.

If they wrote you, I'm sure the job is yours if you want it. I'd jump on it, you never know where it will lead you.

Wow that sound like a really neat opertunity! I bet you'll do great as a guide!

I'll see what I can dig up for you (this is a topic of interest, I'm working with medicinal herbs that grow here in Alaska), what I found easily:

http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/research_papers/pdfs/scanned/OCR/ne_rp138A.pdf

--errg - nevermind on the link, mostly how to wildcraft.

I hope it take me out west. I really want to get out the south for awhile and explore Colorado or Washington. It seem to me if this work out, maybe I would have been happier working in outdoor recreation than I ever would as an accountant. Never mind the fact I loved it in college and only made one C in 33 hours of accounting classes, and that class was Federal Income. Oh, well. I'm just trying not to get caught up in all the B.S. and try to remain positive. I'll keep you guys/gals posted on what happen. It would be really fun to take and teach beginners backpacking in the Smokies. I have long been interesting in the history of the Smokies when my parents took me to Cades Cove as a child. The one book I haven't read is: Our Southern Highlanders by Horace Kephart. I need to acquire this book!

Given the combination of your interests and your college major, I would suggest you look into opportunities in the National Park Service. There are other resource management agencies that are almost as good, and you can make a very decent living with them as well..

And yest, I am NPS tp the core. I bleed green and gray. It all started with a summer job.

What I found:

Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West, Michael Moore (also for the "Mountain West")

Peterson's Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants, Steven Foster et al

http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/rp/rp_ne138.pdf - drawings / pictures just okay.

HTH and good luck.

I doubt they would expect you to know much about plants from the start; obvious bonus if you did, but of the two skills, I would think that first aid is likely to be more of a make-or-break thing.

For a paid guided tour business, it's pretty essential for them to have guides that are somehow certified (with up-to-date certification) in being able to care for their clients medical emergencies at need.

Perhaps there's a lower-cost more basic first aid class offered by your local city? Far different from an actual wilderness first aid class, and my last experience along this line shocked me a bit in how much an "urban" style first aid class boils down to "call 911 and don't do anything dumb", but still --- having any sort of current first aid credential couldn't hurt.

Just now saw this - sounds like a really interesting opportunity. The accounting and finance skills are always useful, even if not directly applied. If nothing else, they taught you how to plan, consider contingencies, and think in a very logical manner.

In the words of Yogi (Berra, not Bear): "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."