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I got hired for AZCC but quit without finishing the season. After having worked other trail crew jobs it seems the industry consensus is CC's are kind of a scam-you're doing the same work as regular crews but for comically low pay (at the time AZ gave 300/wk for 40 hours of brutal work+living at the jobsite 5-8 days at a stretch). Plus since it's a "youth" organization they treat you like you're on a grade school field trip the whole time. Sex and drama happens but doesn't seem to be all that bad. My crew at least was all straight men. Politically the organizational culture was pretty liberal, as you'd expect from an environmental nonprofit. I didn't meet anyone outwardly radical on that particular crew but the broader trail/fire/ecology job dirtbag culture has a lot of earth-firsty eco anarchist types. they're chillers for the most part and often connected to cool land projects (off grid/permaculture shit etc) if that's your jam but obviously they won't take kindly to right wing talking points. My advice would be if you have manual labor experience already then just apply outright to federal trail crews or if you don't try to get one of the individual placement internships through ACE which usually pay a little better and offer more autonomy.
