One phone call was all it took for Hanna Beatty to pack up her life and start over.
She was halfway through her shift as an assistant for a small escrow firm in Redding, California, when a customer called her to loudly complain about the firm's services.
"This person was just not very happy and decided to take it out on me," Beatty, 24, recalls. "As soon as I got off the phone I had this moment of clarity, like, 'I deserve more than this. I'm so young, and I'm so burned out.'"
Beatty didn't quit her job that day, but she did tell her boss that the next time they were doing layoffs, or needed to cut someone from the staff to save money, they should get rid of her position first. A week later, Beatty says, she was let go.
Instead of despairing over the loss of her job, Beatty viewed it as a chance to realize a childhood dream of living and working in the wilderness.
She spent the winter working at Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe before moving to Yosemite National Park in March, where she currently lives and works as a seasonal employee with her boyfriend, Justin Olsen.
Quitting the 9-to-5 grind for 'something simpler'
Beatty started looking for seasonal jobs in October 2022 on Vail Resorts' careers website at the recommendation of a friend.
She had applied to a couple of seasonal jobs at ski resorts throughout the U.S. but focused her search on California, as she wanted to be close to Redding, her hometown, just in case things didn't work out.
"If you're like me and you've spent your whole life in the same spot, it can be intimidating to leave everything you know behind," Beatty says.
She knew she likely would be taking a pay cut — her job at the escrow firm paid about $5,000 per month — but Beatty said she craved "something simpler" than working 50-plus hours each week.
In November, Beatty received an offer from Heavenly Ski Resort to be a restaurant lead at one of their lodges, a full-time job that would start in December, close to when her apartment lease was up. At the time, Beatty was renting a 1-bedroom apartment in downtown Redding, which cost her $1,200 per month.
The restaurant job paid her approximately $18 per hour for 9-hour shifts from Wednesday to Sunday.
Olsen, who is also a freelance photographer, landed a job as a ski instructor at the same resort. At the end of December, the weekend before their first day at work, the pair packed up Beatty's car and drove the four-and-a-half hours from Redding to Lake Tahoe to begin their new adventure.
Finding her 'dream job' in the mountains
Even though Beatty's contract wasn't set to expire until mid-April, to coincide with the end of ski season in Lake Tahoe, she and Olsen were craving warmer weather and started looking for spring and summer gigs in February.
Olsen, who worked past summers in Yosemite, suggested they apply for jobs posted online by Aramark, a Philadelphia-based company that hires for hourly and seasonal gigs in food, facilities, retail and related industries.
As Beatty recalls, it only took about two weeks — and one interview each — for her and Olsen to land jobs as bike attendants working at two of Yosemite's bike rental stands. She and Olsen quit their jobs in Tahoe a few weeks before their contracts ended, mainly because the severe snowstorms that rocked South Lake Tahoe last winter made driving "nearly impossible," Beatty recalls.
The job pays $16.45 per hour, and requires four 10-hour shifts per week — so she and Olsen have three-day weekends and are typically off Sunday through Tuesday. Their contracts run from March through November.
Among other requirements, bike attendants are expected to have excellent communication and customer service skills, first-aid training, and the ability to work flexible hours, according to a similar job posting on Aramark's website.
What most drew Beatty to the job, she says, was the opportunity to interact with park visitors directly, and explore Yosemite's sprawling meadows, waterfalls and mountains on its scenic bike paths. When Beatty received her offer letter via email, "it felt like I landed my dream job," she says.
Paying $88 per month to live in Yosemite
At the end of March, she and Olsen moved into a small, one-bedroom cabin in the park, which costs them $88 per month, each. "It's basically the size of a large tool shed," says Beatty. "But it's insulated and comfortable, and our bed is lofted, so we have plenty of storage."
They share a communal bathroom and kitchen with other Yosemite employees that live nearby. Those facilities are a two-minute walk from their cabin.
Sharing those intimate spaces with her co-workers was "a bit of a shock at first," Beatty says, and has been the most challenging adjustment to seasonal work.
"But if you have a good attitude about it, and agree to keep the space clean, it's really not bad at all," she adds. "Especially for how affordable our rent is."
Re-thinking ambition as a seasonal worker
For Beatty, most mornings in Yosemite start around 6 a.m. when she wakes up to the sound of birds flitting in and out of the tall pine trees that surround her cabin. She bikes 10 minutes to work, keeping an eye out for wildlife — the occasional deer will trot alongside the bike path — and opens the bike stand around 8 a.m.
She spends her lunch breaks reading on the shop's front porch or exploring a new part of Yosemite. A few weeks ago, she took a cold plunge into a watering hole to cool off from the 90-degree heat.
After biking home around 7 p.m., Beatty and Olsen will often cook dinner in the communal kitchen or run errands on their bikes. There are a lot of local businesses close by in Yosemite Valley, Beatty notes, including coffee shops, bars and grocery stores.
But some of her favorite nights are spent making s'mores with the park's visitors and other seasonal workers around the community barbecue.
"The best part about working here is that I get to call one of the most beautiful places in the world my office," says Beatty. "But I also get to meet interesting, friendly people from all over the world ... Yosemite is just a giant melting pot."
Beatty isn't sure how long she will continue to pursue seasonal employment once her contract is up in November — but she says working in Yosemite has radically altered the way she thinks about work and ambition.
"At the end of the day, a job is a job. No matter what job you have, whether it's seasonal work or a desk job, there are inevitably going to be challenges, but it doesn't have to be this constant race to the finish line," says Beatty. "Life is this incredibly beautiful, fragile thing, and not taking work so seriously can help you appreciate it more."
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