Permission to Be a Beginner

How the Junior Ranger Program Changed My Life

by Sandra Darling aka mommacherry

Joshua Tree, February, 2026

When I got fired and quit drinking in the same month, I was a little lost as to what to do next. Losing a job hurts. Giving up drinking is lonely. Doing both at once feels like dancing in your most embarrassing pair of underpants in the school auditorium.

So, I loaded up my car and started driving.

A friend offered me a cat-sitting gig in St. George, Utah on my directionless road trip. She left me some maps on the counter and a fridge full of beer. I had a stack of books and a sunny patio. It would have been very easy to stay there, to sit still, to read and drink and not think too hard about what I should do next.

At the time I was using a cane a lot and I had never hiked on purpose. My only real memory of a national park was Yosemite when I was a kid, which leads to a story about why I am afraid of bears and the time I peed in my sleeping bag at ten years old. The outdoors did not feel like it belonged to me.

But before she left town, my friend took me to see a slot canyon. I was more taken with the beauty than I expected to be. It wasn’t a summit. It wasn’t athletic. It was just there—and I was there in it. I kind of wanted to see more.

I went to Big 5 and bought a pair of trail runners that seemed like a thing for hiking. I stood in the aisle and asked really weird questions; I was buying equipment for a world I was really unsure about. Then I did what I always do when I’m unsure: I researched. I searched for accessible trails. I looked for “easy,” for “close to parking lot,” for “under two miles.” I calculated how far I could walk and get back in case the arthritis became angry. I looked for a trail with enough foot traffic that I probably wouldn’t get eaten by a bear.

I am obsessed with labor history and found that nearby Zion National Park has a mile-long tunnel carved as part of early federal infrastructure projects that would later echo in New Deal job creation. Public works. Public lands. Public good—totally worth the cost of entry. I found a short, easy trail near a parking lot: a mile-ish, in and out. I drove through that tunnel as slowly as I could and more than once. I parked. I joined the other people aiming for the easy trail. And, I walked slowly.

I was not in the wild alone; I was in a managed space designed for access. The path was clear. There were railings when the trail got a little close to the edge—like the tunnel, this came from public works, trails equaled jobs. I am basically an anthropologist at this point!

At the top of the trail, the park opened up beneath me in impossible layers and I sat down carefully. I took a million pictures of my feet in their new outdoor shoes, resting on the edge of the sky. I had driven myself there. I had walked myself there. No one had dragged me out of the house. No one had monitored my pace. No one had congratulated me. I did it by myself.

Around the same time, a friend’s mom passed—she had welcomed so many of us into her family. After cat-sitting wrapped up I kept going; I met up with a friend and we drove to Washington in secret to take care of our shared family. We drove a back highway through Mount Rainier National Park, living in Washington for so many years, I knew the glory of when the mountain is out, but I had never thought to visit her up close. As we found ourselves on a back highway in this beautiful park, I told my friend about Zion—about the tunnel and the short trail and the view. She listened and then, like it was obvious, she started listing other parks we could see on the way home.

It had not occurred to me that there was a list. That other people knew about parks the way they know about restaurants or bands. That there was a whole network of public land designed to be experienced.

Two weeks later, I drove into Moab and stopped at Arches National Park. The land there looked like every Star Trek scene that happened when a team beamed down—the final frontier, indeed. I walked into the visitor center to get a map because I was going to walk on another trail—it would be the second time.

A sweet young park ranger asked me if I wanted to become a Junior Ranger. I laughed. I was in my forties, holding a cane, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. He didn’t laugh back.

“It’s for everyone who loves the parks,” he said.

He handed me a booklet—stapled pages with activities and questions about the geology, the plants, the impact of visitors. “Complete the curriculum, bring it back, and you earn a badge.”

It felt absurd and earnest and strangely dignified all at once. I was hooked.

I spent hours in that visitor center digging for answers. I read exhibits more closely. I asked questions. I learned the names of the rock layers. I learned about the animals. I learned about the history. When I brought the booklet back to the desk, the ranger asked me to raise my right hand and swear to protect the park.

I did. He handed me a small badge.

Over the next few years, I earned badges at national parks and state parks. I planned road trips around them. I began to understand that each park has its own curriculum—its own lessons to impart about flora, fauna, water, history, labor, displacement, conservation. The program is structured for children, yes, but it is also structured for anyone willing to pay attention.

When my spouse and I got married, we took our wedding party on a hike along the Arizona Trail. Instead of party favors, we gave them Junior Ranger badges and booklets. We hiked the trail where it crosses the San Francisco Peaks in our backyard—through Aspens to a view of the volcanic fields that make up our small town.

Some rangers laugh at me. Some are a little gatekeep-y about what they think is intended for children. But I am incredibly sincere about this. The Junior Ranger program gave me a way in. It gave me permission to be a beginner. It made the outdoors feel less like a test of endurance and more like a classroom designed for curiosity. Designed for me.

Over time, I relearned how to use my body without a cane. With slow movements like yoga and hiking, I was able to rebuild what was broken – between sacral arthritis, the very worst of surgical menopause and the very wrong anti-depressant, I had to relearn how to move. It is still a carefully held ecosystem – diet, movement, constant maintenance. 

My health journey hinged on National Parks because they made accessing the outdoors possible for people like me: people who did not grow up camping, who did not have someone to teach them how to read maps, or buy real hiking shoes, who needed trails that began near parking lots. Those badges gave me a reason to get outside at the beginning of this journey.

Public lands are one of the most democratic things we have. They are funded by all of us. They are held in trust. They are staffed by people who love their jobs and love the land they serve. They create spaces where a woman with a cane and a shaky sense of self can walk up to the edge of a canyon and feel really fucking capable.

The Junior Ranger program creates connection. It asks you not just to consume beauty but to understand it. It reminds you that your presence has impact. It frames stewardship not as a singular act but as a daily, shared responsibility.

If I am telling you about how amazing these programs are—if I am asking you to spend your time and dollars visiting our parks, buying passes, filling out booklets—then I have to ask you to pay attention to what is happening to our national parks and public lands. Funding shifts. Staffing cuts. Policy changes that speak to protected land as inventory rather than inheritance.

These places are not inevitable. The tunnel through Zion was carved because someone believed in public investment. Trails are maintained because someone budgets for it. Visitor centers stay open because someone decides education matters.

Belonging is built by all of us.

I still keep asking for an opportunity to earn badges—every park I visit or even just pass by on the way to work conferences, with work friends in tow. No shame. Each one marks a day I chose to step outside instead of staying on the patio with a beer. Each one marks a lesson learned about stone or water or history. Each one is proof that access can change a life.

I did it by myself. But I did not do it alone.

Sandra D is mommacherry. She is busy and stable most of the time and witchy and difficult all of the time. She intends to be kind and is usually down for hugs.