Anais Barrientos turns outdoor passion into profession

This week, Anais Barrientos will graduate from the S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources at Utah State University. Her degree is in conservation restoration ecology and a minor in watershed science along with a certificate in Geographic Information Science — a culmination of her lifelong passion for the outdoors.  

At a young age, Barrientos was surrounded by nature because her family spent a lot of time outdoors. This festered into a full and abundant love for the wild side of life.  

“Growing up with my family, we did a lot of hiking and camping which kind of introduced me to just spending time outside and being dirty,” Barrientos said. 

She grew up attending a charter school that took a backpacking trip when she was in the sixth grade, one of her favorite memories of recreating outdoors. Her group travelled to Zion National Park, and it was the descent into the valley that gripped her love for nature.  

“It made me realize this is something that I want to do long-term,” Barrientos said. “It was just so cool.”  

Although her love of nature came from hanging out with family and friends outside, she also enjoys learning about the technical aspects of studying the outdoor world.  

“It’s been cool to be able to get in on the science side of things, not just the recreation side of things like that,” Barrientos said.  

She transitioned this love for the outdoors to a career when she started to obtain internships and seasonal jobs, including a few summers working as a vegetation tag. 

“It’s really fun to spend so much time on a landscape and get to know all the little plants around you,” Barrientos said. “Before college, I just was always like, ‘Oh, plants,’ but now I can look at it and I can tell you exactly what it is.” 

Barrientos said her classes were primarily field-based, so she learned many hands-on skills, including electrofishing and gill netting in a fall fisheries class. 

 Last summer, Barrientos worked for a Forest Service fisheries crew in the Payette National Forest in McCall, Idaho. She is returning there again this summer as a seasonal permanent employee. 

“I work May through November for as many years as I want,” Barrientos said. “It’s such a fun job, and so I’m very excited to be back.” 

Outside of school, Barrientos focused her love and energy for nature into a nonprofit organization called Backcountry Squatters – the local chapter of which she is the president.  

“They’re focused on building a community for women and nonbinary people in the outdoors,” Barrientos said. “When COVID hit, I had a kind of skewed perspective, but it felt like there wasn’t a very strong community of women in the outdoors.”  

Barrientos helped start a chapter here in Logan and served as president. The group organizes a variety of outdoor activities for a range of skill levels for women and nonbinary folks.  

“I have seen so many connections made and friendships built and have helped people go do backcountry skiing for the first time, or go climb outside for the first time, or it can even be backpacking for the first time,” Barrientos said.  

She said the group works with not only with USU’s community but also the Logan community on the larger scale, which has resulted in positive feedback about its impact.  

“I’ve been told by some people that have come to our events that they kind of changed their perspective on things and introduced them to a whole other side of recreation and spending time outdoors,” Barrientos said.  

Her favorite memory of the club was hosting a spring fling last week, which included a barbeque and a raffle to raise money for the following year.  

“I set up bike ramps in the backyard, and people were just riding their bikes off the bike ramps. Barrientos said. “We were dancing and grilling and hanging out.”  

Her passion-turned-degree has taken her across the country to see many different variations of the outdoors including mountains, lowlands and wetlands, but this hasn’t stopped her appreciation for Logan’s scenery.  

“I worked in Alaska for the summer and in Montana for another summer and then Idaho last summer,” Barrientos said. “It’s fun to have this be the homebase and also get to go out and explore totally different landscapes and come back, because Logan’s lovely.” 

One of her favorite memories of working around the country was camping in Montana then playing Settlers of Catan after making food.  

“That was so lovely to be like, ‘Oh my brain is getting a break. This is so good,’” Barrientos said.  

When in Idaho last summer, she worked along a river analyzing groups of cobbles and pebbles for fish to spawn into. The river was large, and she said there was a pair of eagles that would fly over her while she worked. 

“It was really cool to be in such a serene area and be like, ‘Oh there’s eagles. Good morning. How’s it going?’” Barrientos said.  

Barrientos will be working in Idaho again this summer and plans to attend grad school in a few years after gaining more field experience.  

“I don’t know what I want to go for because I’ve liked everything I’ve ever done,” Barrientos said. “It’s been lovely. I’m feeling a mix of emotions and definitely sad to go, but it will be good.”