Otzma-Bie Paz: On Ego and Ethics

I met Otzma-Bie Paz in 2021 while working at Rocky Mountain Field Institute (RMFI) in Colorado. We immediately connected over our shared experiences working in California; I quickly recognized the depth of her knowledge and passion for trails. After working for American Conservation Experience (ACE) for a year and a half, Otzma went on to work three seasons with California State Parks in the Monterey Ranger District in Big Sur. She moved to Colorado in 2021 and now works as a Program Manager for RMFI.

Otzma, like me, is a total nerd about trail-building methods and techniques. Whenever we hang out, the conversation tends to circle back to trails, tools, and the best way to do things. Once, I spent two hours in Otzma’s kitchen, my leg propped up on the dining table, talking about trails while she gave me a stick-and-poke tattoo on my knee. We don’t agree on everything (take, for instance, the necessity of wearing work gloves) but always have spirited discussions when the topic inevitably turns to trail work.

Joe: Was there a moment in your trails career when you thought, “I want to keep doing this”?

Otzma: When I joined ACE in Santa Cruz in 2017, we did a week of training. I was 20. We went out to the desert in Ridgecrest. Someone handed me a broom, and said ‘sweep these tire tracks out of the desert.’ And that's all I had to do that day. But for some reason, I thought, ‘this is sweet. I'm gonna be here for a while.’

The very first thing I ever did in trail work was sweeping the dirt in the desert in the middle of nowhere. For some reason I thought, ‘yeah, this is it. I'm stoked.’

J: Why were you sweeping tire tracks in the desert?

O: We were closing down illegal OHV (off-highway vehicle) trails, because people go out to the desert and ride everywhere, and destroy a bunch of habitat. There are actual designated roads where you can ride. But the whole place is becoming barren. So for six months, we did this thing called vertical mulching.

“Vertical mulching” is a restoration technique that involves planting sticks, branches, etc. in a vertical position to disguise illegal trails and tracks. It is often used in desert terrain where transplanting native plants or successfully sowing native seed is difficult.

O: It was very boring. And awful. We did this for six months with the Bureau of Land Management.

J: But you kept doing trail work?

O: I think it's because my crew was amazing. I love the desert. I loved the fact that I was sleeping outside. It'd be 40-50 mph winds and I'd be in my tent, and I’d be sleeping so soundly because it was so comforting. I loved carrying around a little baggie full of toilet paper. All that stuff just made sense to me and it felt really good. I did ACE for a year and a half, which is a long time to be a corpsmember.

J: And then you went to California State Parks?

O: I went and worked for the natural resources crew for California State Parks for a couple months. And I thought, ‘This sucks.’ Every time Jim, the trail supervisor for State Parks, would see me, he'd be like, ‘You look bored, like do you want a job?’ So eventually, I switched over to State Parks trails, and worked there for two and a half years. Then I moved to Colorado and began to work for RMFI.

Building a backwall to hold up the delicate tundra at 12,000 feet. South Colony Lakes, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Colorado, 2021.

Image courtesy of Otzma-Bie Paz

J: Do you find cultural differences between California State Parks and RMFI in Colorado?

O: I think State Parks is rough and gruff. You have these big burly dudes with cigarettes in their mouths who have been doing trail work for 15 years. It’s a really professional trail crew who is working on multimillion dollar projects, and everything needs to be really perfect. When we go to the quarry, we hand-select each individual rock we are going to use.

At RMFI, it’s like ‘I hope we get this grant to work at this place for the next few years.’ If we do, we’re gonna send out our crew of 20-year-olds who are working their first season. The work is still amazing and professional, but it’s a whole different standard. The culture is different. Just more loosey goosey.

J: What was it like as a woman working amongst these “rough and gruff dudes?”

O: Kind of awesome, because they taught me a lot about working without ego, which is hard to do in a really masculine environment. This one time, we had to put in seasonal bridges over San Jose Creek, and I was supervising Luis and Efrain, these two guys who have been doing trail work for a combined maybe 30 years. They’re just like, ‘Alright boss, tell us what to do.’ They’re not telling me what to do, but instead said, ‘Whatever you want, we'll do it.’

It also taught me that it doesn't have to be so serious while still doing really amazing work. But also it can be really hard when you're a tiny girl among big men. Sometimes people assume that you need help or you can't do something. Depends on the person.

J: What are the aspects of trail crew culture that you appreciate?

O: Trail workers are all really fucking weird. Everyone's unique and comes from different backgrounds. I don't have a college degree, but I've worked with people who have master's degrees. We’ve all had different experiences and completely different lives, but we've all ended up in this one specific niche thing. I think it's really cool.

My favorite thing on the planet is talking about trail work. I love having people to talk about trail work with all day at all times. I love teaching. I feel most stoked when I'm out on the trail teaching people and describing exactly how outsloped the trail should be, and where the drain should go. That feels really good.

J: Any aspects of trail crew culture that rub you the wrong way?

O: Maybe the ego sometimes that comes with trying to prove yourself and getting competitive with others. You're kind of always competing with each other, even unintentionally, especially between women. Or women to men, because sometimes we feel like we have to prove ourselves to have a place. And there have been times when guys make sexist comments or don't even realize that they're doing it.

Or the people who don't take initiative. When you have to say, ‘Hey, you're just standing around, go pick up a tool.’

J: I think a hard aspect of crew leading is trying to inspire folks to be as excited about trails as you are. Sometimes it just doesn't translate, or you're trying to figure out how to best communicate that.

O: Crew leading really teaches you so much about people and leadership in general. Because what you need is so different from what other people need, and you have to listen to what other people need. Every person is different. Every crew is different. Every project is different. It's really hard. It teaches you a lot about yourself. I've had crews who fucking hated my guts. Once, a crew member was like, ‘You sucked and here's every reason why the crew hated you.’ That hurt my feelings. But then I learned and became a better crew leader after that.

J: What are some of those things you've learned about yourself from those hard leadership experiences?

O: I think I've learned that I'm a good leader. And that I just really love supporting people. Oftentimes, I think I enjoy leading and teaching more than doing the trail work itself. I don't think I'm as good of a trail worker as most of the people that do trail work around me. Rock work takes me forever—I'm super slow. But teaching rock work—that, I can do easily.

J: Is there a style of trail work that you would say is your favorite?

O: You can't really beat building bridges. Building a 70-foot fiberglass bridge is so unique. I loved the technical work of having to use specific equations to build these crazy retaining wall steps. But I also love the nitty gritty backcountry work like crosscutting.

Otzma Installs hardware on the third bridge her crew built on the San Jose Creek Trail. Carmel, California, 2019.

Image courtesy of Otzma-Bie Paz

J: If you could wave a magic wand and change anything about trail work, what would you do?

O: There's so much. For one, I think giving corps members more pay. I mean, all trail workers should be paid more, but corps members specifically. As a corps member, I was making nothing. Maybe $200 a week. We didn't complain, and we loved it. The culture was like ‘Fuck yeah, like we're trail workers!’ But that's not everyone's mentality, and they should get paid more. Because it’s a real fucking hard job.

I wish that the public magically understood how trails work, that they knew about Leave No Trace and social trails. We spend so much time closing social trails, that's a huge bummer of the job. Trail workers don’t enjoy the work of closing social trails, and the public doesn’t like when we close social trails. But they destroy a lot of habitat and natural resources. They’re really erosive. The more social trails we have, the more the land is destroyed.

A lot of science and thought goes into building trails. It would be cool if people understood that. Trail work is this whole idea of destroying a little to protect a lot. And people don't realize that’s what we're doing.

J: How would you convey to the public how much work goes into building a trail?

O: I guess an easy thing to compare it to is construction sites. When you see construction workers out on the streets, most people don't really conceptualize how long they're out there, and how hard they're working. That’s what we’re doing, just in a forest.

I think it's one of those things where until you do it, you can't understand. I've had people come up to a 20 foot by 20 foot overlook that we were building out of rock that's going to take us a year. I've had people come up and ask, ‘Oh, you guys gonna be done with that next weekend?’ How do you explain to people that this work takes years and not days?

J: I think the frontcountry construction analogy is good. But it’s frontcountry construction where you have to do everything by hand, oftentimes using tools and techniques that were the same ones used 200 years ago. So it's almost like doing frontcountry construction, but with the building timelines of 1850. That’s the way I conceptualize it.

We use a lot of tools, but the effort to get things there, and the fact that we're underfunded and understaffed means a lot of delays. The tools we have are better than the Civilian Conservation Corps had in the 1930s. But the CCC was an army of people. They could just get shit done really fast. We're basically doing what they were doing, but just spread out over a much different timescale.

O: Even people within land management don’t always get it. At RMFI we use a pack string from Wyoming that is used for three different states. They are booked out for the entire year, but they just lost all of their funding. The Forest Service bureaucrats didn’t understand what it was being used for. Our program director was writing them letters explaining how important it is. Hiking all the stuff we need up a fourteener without a pack string? It’s impossible. It’s crazy.

Otzma with the now un-funded pack string in South Colony Lakes, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Colorado, 2022.

Image courtesy of Otzma-Bie Paz

J: Do you think some of those public perceptions of trail work as something that's invisible comes from general perceptions of nature? Most people perceive nature as a place where humans have not altered the landscape, and it’s hard to express to the public that trails are something that are human-built.

O: Before I got into trails, I was outdoorsy and hiking, and I had no idea that trail work existed. I think people are oblivious, oftentimes, and ignorant, and it's not their fault. They don’t teach you Leave No Trace in school.

The last bridge Otzma built for California State Parks Monterey District Trail Crew. 70 foot fiberglass bridge. Pfeiffer Big Sur, California, 2020.

Image courtesy of Otzma-Bie Paz

J: I think a lot of trail workers pride themselves on their work being invisible, right?

O: Yeah, but I take a lot of pride in what I do. It's a huge bummer to me when I think about this 70 ft fiberglass bridge we built at Pfeiffer Falls. That's a big deal. I took a friend there the other day. These two women walked by and I told them, ‘I built this bridge.’ And the woman was like, ‘Oh, haha’ and kept walking. And I thought, ‘I built this bridge and you have no idea the work that went into it’. It hurts.

Do a lot of people pride themselves on it being invisible?

J: I think to some extent. You’re always trying to make things seamlessly blend in with the environment. If you build a really good trail, you can’t always discern the natural elements from the manmade elements. You can’t tell if that meander in the trail is hugging the natural contour line, or if it’s an intentional design element.

O: I’ve seen arguments between two leaders at State Parks about straight lines. We built a causeway that was a little wavy, not perfectly straight. One of them was like ‘it should have been straight. Why isn’t it straight?’ But the other responded that ‘there’s no straight lines in the outdoors.’ There was a big argument.

J: There's obviously a spectrum in trail ethics of aesthetics versus functionality. Sometimes they conflict. How would you describe your particular ethic?

O: I always tell people 50/50. Trail work is 50% aesthetics 50% functionality. We're trying to build things that are going to last as long as possible. But also we want people's hiking experience to be pleasant. You build your steps with people's foot widths in mind. A person's natural foot length is 15 to 18 inches. So build your steps 15 to 18 inches or multiples of that number. So when they're hiking up steps, they're not hopping from one step to the other because everyone hates when you have to do that. So I think it's like half and half: make it functional but also make it feel good and look nice. I think it's an easy balance that you can do very easily if you take the time.

J: In trail work there's an endless amount of tips and tricks, like the 15-18 inch tip for steps. Is there any particular tip, or even just saying, that you find yourself falling back on more often than others?

O: Laurie from State Parks used to say ‘nothing is below anyone’s pay grade on a trail crew.’ That is amazing to me. At one point in time, I would go out and just be supervising with my coffee in hand and telling people what to do because I was naive. Now I will actually help and do things. Because that's my job. It’s important to show that you care and that you're also doing it.

Another one is that you can always take but you can never put back. Less is more. When you're chiseling or cutting, always do a small cut and then go back and cut again. If you take off too much, it can ruin the project.

J: You can make that really deep. “In trails and in life, it's a lot easier to take than it is to give back.” Put that shit in a fortune cookie.

O: Sure does. Penguins in a canoe.

J: Any other thoughts or comments you want to add just in case this all ends up in the Smithsonian?

O: Trail work is really fucking cool. I feel really honored to be part of this life.

Otzma’s infamous crosscut "lumber jane" pin up girl tattoo. 2022.

Image courtesy of Otzma-Bie Paz