Adventure Attempts in Sucky Weather

Okay so let’s catch up here for a second. Saturday was rec trips for the students and I took a group up Avalanche Peak, which is a pretty strenuous 2 mile, up-a-mountain hike. They absolutely crushed it and I was so proud of them! I had a great group of youth and they all had fantastic attitudes, even when there was a crapload of snow covering the trail (surprise). Afterwards, since we had enough time leftover before we needed to be back to the YCC, I took them to go get ice cream as long as they promised not to tell anyone else—so pretend you didn’t just read that…

East from Avalanche Peak

North from Avalanche Peak

SW from Avalanche Peak

Jonah, Lexie, Connor, Ellie, Matthew, and Nora

Sunday was rafting day and field games, then the normal Sunday clean, them—meeting, us—pack food for spike, then dorm check. Rafting was a ton of fun! The river was super high and the water was great. Our guides were fantastic and I thought they handled our students really well! This session we went with Yellowstone Rafting Company. Second session we’re with Flying Pig, so we’ll see how that goes. We played a bunch of games afterwards at the MCC before we had to get back to camp, so that was good also.

Fun fact—Monday night I went into Gardiner to get some allergy medicine since they’re so terribly miserable right now----I got the second to last box on the entire dang shelf of allergy medicines. Our rafting guide says that sometimes when he’s finished, his eyes are so red and puffy that he can’t see. Seriously people, they’re terrible.

Another fun fact—On Monday, Kyleigh—one of my college roommates—and her boyfriend Kolter got engaged! Hip hip hooray!!!!!!!!! :D I’m really excited about it! Jacquelyn, Ali, and I all knew it was coming though and we had bets on when he’d propose. Unfortunatley Kolter done goofed and let Ali win… :P

On my Tuesday adventure, I wanted to scout out my backpacking trip for the weekend before I take the enrollees there—so I day-hiked it. It was only 19.7 miles, so it really wasn’t a problem for me. Obviously I don’t expect them to do that. Our entry point is the Grebe Lake trailhead. The 3.3 miles to Grebe Lake is super easy and doesn’t have a lot of elevation gain, so I was there in less than an hour. Once you get to the lake, you get this awesome blanket on you…a blanket of mosquitoes. Everything is super muddy and you’re covered in mosquitoes and it just really wasn’t a good day to remember sunscreen and forget bug spray. Terrible life decision. I wore my rain jacket in the morning solely so I didn’t have to keep swatting at my arms also. Holy heck.

Anyways, from there after checking out our campsite (4G4) I headed up to Observation Peak. Honestly, the trail to get there wasn’t super challenging either, just super muddy and mosquito-y by Cascade Lake. Well I thought I had avoided the morning storms by hitting them all while I was driving to the trailhead, but once I got to the top of Observation Peak I discovered I was wrong. The storm rolling in looked absolutely awful! I ended up trail running back down the peak after scarfing down my pb&j because getting stuck up there during a thunderstorm would’ve been a really poor decision with not-so-great probable outcomes. (This area was all hit by the 1988 fires, and there’s still not a ton of tall vegetation left.) By the time the storm actually hits, I’m all the way back to the open meadow next to Grebe Lake. Yes, I am in an open meadow next to a lake during the massive storm with lightning and thunder and scariness. Did I stop running? Nope. Kept right on going until I got to the other side of the lake and only had a few miles left to go to get to my car. Did I finish almost 20 miles in under 6 hours? Sure did… (I’m aware that I’m crazy, thank you.)

South from Observation Peak

Cascade Lake from Observation Peak

Fire watch tower on Observation Peak

Wednesdays are typically my short days for the week since I have EMS review on those nights in Mammoth and I don’t want to risk being late. I planned to hike to Fairy Falls (down in the Old Faithful area), but from the other trailhead since the actual Fairy Falls trailhead is closed. That puts it at about 8.5 miles if you do the loop. So the first stretch is also a bike trail and it’s really flat and straight and super boring. Where that ends is typically a trail to the Grand Prismatic Overlook, which is currently closed due to construction. There are two signs at the trailhead stating that it’s closed. How many people did I pass on the trail either on the way there or back that had no idea that it was closed and were super disappointed? Over a dozen. How many of them read the signs at the trailhead? Zero. Silly tourons.

Fairy Falls itself was okay. I didn’t really feel like it was that spectacular, but hey—there was a bench where I ate lunch. A chipmunk wanted my lunch also. Pesky little fellow kept trying to get my food out of my hands or from my backpack. Not a chance. My food is mine.

Little twerp just kept surrounding me

Fairy Falls

The trail back to finish the loop was only slightly more exciting in that I had to balance on wooden planks across this giant meadow area that was practically underwater. That was where the excitement ended on that one. Back to the trailhead I went. Snoozeville. There were tons of people fishing in that area though and the parking lot was gigantic, so clearly some people like it there.

On Wednesday morning, I had gotten a call from Dan and Bonnie Forry who were going to be in Mammoth that night on their way back from the Arctic Circle. I know—aren’t they awesome?!? Anyways, I met them for supper at the Mammoth Dining Room and had a really great time talking to them! I was really excited that they were able to stop by on their way back from Alaska to Colorado to see some of their family members. If you ever want to be an awesome retired couple, you should take lessons from Dan and Bonnie.

Wednesday night, immediately following our EMS review, Joe, Lloyd, and I went on a call that we ended up transporting to the Livingston hospital. We didn’t get back to the ambulance bay until after 12:30 and I didn’t go to sleep until almost 1:00. I don’t really have much to say about the call except that there were no noticeable life-threatening injuries and the patient should be a-okay once they receive a diagnosis/treatment. On the way there I was doing patient care in the back with Joe, who’s a paramedic, and he showed me how to use their specific computer system for charting (my EMS Charts access actually came today—Thursday). On the way back, Lloyd taught me how to drive their ambulances and gave me the low-down on the park-specific driving rules. This was my first call that wasn’t during my clinicals, so there’s that.

This morning, Thursday, I woke up just dead tired and didn’t want to do anything but roll over and go back to sleep. But, me being me, I just can’t do that so I got up and carried on with my original plan of hiking Mt. Washburn and taking the trail down the eastern side to Sevenmile Hole. The weather forecast showed clear skies and cool temperatures in the upper 40s/ low 50s. LIES! It’s only 3.1 miles to the top of Mt. Washburn and for the last mile or so of the hike I was getting snowed on. There was a complete blanket of fog covering everything so you couldn’t see at all. By the time I got to the top, I was in blizzard conditions and couldn’t see anything. There’s an observation tower at the top that visitors actually have access to (an NPS fire employee lives in the top story), and there were a bunch of people crowded inside trying to warm up. Ugh, it was miserable. The view might’ve been nice on a clear day, but I could barely see anything except a rare occasion when the clouds broke.

I don’t know how many of you would want to hike down to Sevenmile Hole and then back up again in that kind of weather, but I sure didn’t. I waited in the observation tower for about 45 minutes trying to see if it would clear. I didn’t want to ruin the rest of my hike and I was really excited to go to Sevenmile Hole! Alas, the level-headed Bethany prevailed, and my fatigued self not wearing a hat or gloves in the blizzard returned down Mt. Washburn to my car.

Before the snow started swirling and I could still see...

Great view...

Storm clouds over the mountains

Fun fact—on the way down I passed about ten NPS employees, including Lloyd, who were headed up for various reasons. Lloyd and I talked about how hard it was to get up this morning haha (he actually had to work though…I didn’t).

So instead of a 21.4 mile day, I had a 6.2 mile day instead. Then I went back to the YCC, drank cider, ate warm food, and watched a movie with my coworkers (aka I took a nap during the movie). I also did laundry. Boo hiss.

If the weather is as crappy for my student’s backpacking weekend as it was this week, I’m going to be very disappointed for them. :( Hopefully the sun will come out! (It’ll come out tomorrow…the song says so.)

Mileage count: 190.5

P.S. I would’ve posted all of this last night (Thursday), but I went to sleep at 9:45… :D