Remember when you turn your hobby into a business; you then need to find another hobby. I quit my teaching job in my early forty's to open a wood working shop because I loved woodworking. But once it was a business it was no fun anymore and I had lost the thing I liked to do on the weekends. I've seen your stuff before and I think monetizing your channel for extra income yet keeping it a hobby is the way to go. I volunteered a lot with the National Parks as I thought once I retired early at 62 I'd get hired as an Interpretive Ranger and get bit of a second pension after working till 67 which was their five year vest and my full retirement age for SSN as well. What I found was the Rangers really were not enjoying the outdoors they were consumed with consumer problems and had horrible morale. I instead got a job as a Greenskeeper at our local golf course which got me outside and into a second pension AND kept my backpacking as a hobby. I recently bought a 2022 Jeep Willys and started "jeepacking" allowing me to explore my home state of New Mexico more. Keep plugging at your channel and you'll be a famous backpacker like Dan Becker in no time on the weekends, which will make your weekly work enjoyable!
Hi Mr. Vitt, thanks for the advice. It's a good example that what you wish for may not always turn out the way you think it will. That's too bad about the rangers, but it makes sense. I guess I was helping them out by avoiding them as much as possible when I went to the national parks. That's great about your jeep and being able to explore like that. Thank you!
Next summer gotta get you up to Cody Wyoming and do a multi-day hike into the Washakie and Teton wilderness areas. There's over 1.2 million acres of wilderness to explore and countless wolves and bears to meet along the way. haha
Hi Mike, I hope things are going well up there in the frozen north. If I can even make it to Nevada or Colorado next year that would be great, but there's still so much to do around here. I was planning on Nevada around this past Labor Day but that hurricane hit. Yeah, I bet the wolves and bears are much more of a concern there, especially the grizzlies.
@@ZacharyTeich-HikingTrainer Yep, about to get our first snow storm and we're not quite ready for the cold. Overall really looking forward to winter and doing some winter snowshoeing and maybe some skiing at the local ski park. And yes, apparently the grizzlies are apparently common around here. Haven't seen one yet but they caught and rehomed one from across the river from us... Almost in town.
Oh by the way, there are professional hikers up here. I ran into a guy in a local fishing shop that hiked for the Federal Government into the wilderness areas to check on installations that are outside the range of vehicles so the only way to check on them is to hike in. Plus, they have to have hikers go into certain areas to check the trails to see if they need to do maintenance. I'm sure there are other reasons they have to pay hikers to go into certain areas... but yeah, I guess that's technically a professional hiker. haha
That makes sense, and you're right, there probably are other reasons that people are paid to hike too. It's fun to dream about it. I really should just do some trail maintenance myself sometime. I keep thinking about it, but maybe I'll repeat one of the prominence peaks and do some trimming and trail building for free.
Thank for taking us along.
Hi Jackie Boy, you're welcome, and thanks for following along too!
@@ZacharyTeich-HikingTrainer you're welcome
Remember when you turn your hobby into a business; you then need to find another hobby. I quit my teaching job in my early forty's to open a wood working shop because I loved woodworking. But once it was a business it was no fun anymore and I had lost the thing I liked to do on the weekends. I've seen your stuff before and I think monetizing your channel for extra income yet keeping it a hobby is the way to go. I volunteered a lot with the National Parks as I thought once I retired early at 62 I'd get hired as an Interpretive Ranger and get bit of a second pension after working till 67 which was their five year vest and my full retirement age for SSN as well. What I found was the Rangers really were not enjoying the outdoors they were consumed with consumer problems and had horrible morale. I instead got a job as a Greenskeeper at our local golf course which got me outside and into a second pension AND kept my backpacking as a hobby. I recently bought a 2022 Jeep Willys and started "jeepacking" allowing me to explore my home state of New Mexico more. Keep plugging at your channel and you'll be a famous backpacker like Dan Becker in no time on the weekends, which will make your weekly work enjoyable!
Hi Mr. Vitt, thanks for the advice. It's a good example that what you wish for may not always turn out the way you think it will. That's too bad about the rangers, but it makes sense. I guess I was helping them out by avoiding them as much as possible when I went to the national parks. That's great about your jeep and being able to explore like that. Thank you!
Next summer gotta get you up to Cody Wyoming and do a multi-day hike into the Washakie and Teton wilderness areas. There's over 1.2 million acres of wilderness to explore and countless wolves and bears to meet along the way. haha
Hi Mike, I hope things are going well up there in the frozen north. If I can even make it to Nevada or Colorado next year that would be great, but there's still so much to do around here. I was planning on Nevada around this past Labor Day but that hurricane hit. Yeah, I bet the wolves and bears are much more of a concern there, especially the grizzlies.
@@ZacharyTeich-HikingTrainer Yep, about to get our first snow storm and we're not quite ready for the cold. Overall really looking forward to winter and doing some winter snowshoeing and maybe some skiing at the local ski park. And yes, apparently the grizzlies are apparently common around here. Haven't seen one yet but they caught and rehomed one from across the river from us... Almost in town.
Oh by the way, there are professional hikers up here. I ran into a guy in a local fishing shop that hiked for the Federal Government into the wilderness areas to check on installations that are outside the range of vehicles so the only way to check on them is to hike in. Plus, they have to have hikers go into certain areas to check the trails to see if they need to do maintenance. I'm sure there are other reasons they have to pay hikers to go into certain areas... but yeah, I guess that's technically a professional hiker. haha
That makes sense, and you're right, there probably are other reasons that people are paid to hike too. It's fun to dream about it. I really should just do some trail maintenance myself sometime. I keep thinking about it, but maybe I'll repeat one of the prominence peaks and do some trimming and trail building for free.