YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Every summer, Yellowstone offers a Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) program for young people across the United States.
Yellowstone National Park (YNP) ran the YCC program for its 37th consecutive summer this year. Youth between 15 and 18 years old could apply to participate, regardless of prior wilderness experience.
“The YCC experience allows teen enrollees and staff the opportunity to learn, work and recreate in Yellowstone National Park,” the National Park Service described on its site. “The program is challenging, educational, fun, and offers participants opportunities to expand their horizons while building skills that will benefit them for a lifetime.”
For the 2025 season, 40 enrollees were selected randomly from across the country. This year, the YCC crew spent time on weekend backpacking and whitewater rafting trips, along with lessons on stewardship ecology, geology and Indigenous cultures in addition to completing multiple projects in the park.
Some of the projects completed by this year’s enrollees include:
- Installing 52 bear proof storage boxes
- Constructing 319 feet of fencing
- Collecting 137 long logs for current and future fencing projects
- Cutting, splitting and stacking three truckloads of firewood
- Removing and re-decking 601 feet of boardwalks
- Removing 606 cubic feet of old asphalt trail
- Digging a hole for a new pit toilet at a backcountry cabin
- Removing over 1,200 gallons of invasive plants
- Removing over 330 gallons of roadside garbage
- Collecting over 80 hours of data for the park’s summer visitor use management study
- Collecting 62 hours of data for community science projects, including 15 pronghorn scat samples, 58 water filter samples and 53 dragonfly larvae for the National Dragonfly Mercury Project
For those interested in applying for the 2026 summer season with YCC, applications will open in February. More information can be found here.
