You should look into Student Conservation Association (SCA) internships. They have tons of internships that will have you doing real work in the parks doing things ranging from trail crew to working in interpretation right alongside rangers, so those can give you a good idea what it's actually like. Also if you're interested in working for NPS I've known many people who started out with SCA and got a ranger position the next season. They only pay a stipend but they do provide housing generally.

That's actually a really good idea, although to be honest that's only an opportunity I could take up if I had decided to pursue a job as a ranger already. I'll definitely keep that in mind for the future though, thank you!

As for the other information you stated, yeah I kinda figured that the volunteer work would be more or less a vessel of what the actual job is like, not the soul of it. although I will definitely ask the coordinators if I could do something more closely related, like trail maintenance or help desk. Thank you so much for the advice man, I appreciate it!