Yikes, been a while and a lot has happened since last
Friday…my bad. So last Friday our students came back from spike and we had a
pretty chill night hanging around camp with different activities. Then Saturday
was group summit day and we all hiked Mount Washburn together. All 45ish of us.
Yep, all together. So that was semi-challenging but at the same time—fun to
experience with all the students. Some of them definitely struggled more than
others, even though it was a 2.5 mile gravel road, that somehow managed to take
us over 2 hours to get to the top. The day was a lot nicer than the last time I
went up there—clear skies offered a great view of the majority of the park. Mt.
Washburn is currently the only manned fire lookout in the park; the others are
manned on an as-needed basis. We had a giant snowball fight on the way up and
my buddy ol’ pal Elijah thought it’d be cool to pelt me with snowballs and
stuff snow down my back. :P The kids had a great time when we were up there
taking weird and random photos with each other, and then we managed to get a
group picture after a nice gentleman offered to take it for us so we didn’t
have to try to set a timer on the camera balanced on a stack of backpacks…
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| Nick, Elijah, Bethany, Maggie on the Mt. Washburn Observation Deck |
On Sunday, Loring (our final rec ranger!) and I took seven
students down to Pelican Valley for our last rec trip. We hiked the 3.5 miles
to Pelican Creek, which we forded, and then sat down and ate lunch on the other
side. The group consensus was to chill and then go back, so really there was no
reason at all for us to ford the creek…but whatever, it was a good time. Still
no grizzlies, but we saw a ton of bison and birds that weren’t pelicans—even
though every time we saw a bird I told them it was a pelican because we were in
the Pelican Valley. Obviously, logic says that it should be a pelican…
The students were great and we had a lot of good
conversations. I had two youth leaders—Elijah and Nick—because one of the other
trips got cancelled, so all of their students chose to come with me instead. :D
Fun fact—on the way back from Pelican Valley we saw pelicans in the Hayden
Valley. (They don’t belong there…obviously.)
Sunday night dorm check was zombie bison themed, so a few
staff were zombie bison and the rest were hunters. I was a bison that crawled
around draped in giant blanket with cardboard horns. If I had pictures of any
of the Sunday night dorm checks and all our crazy costumes—I’d show you, but I
have no idea where those pictures disappear to.
I had Monday morning off, so I went down to the Old Faithful
area and hiked to Summit Lake on the Continental Divide Trail. That was a heck
of a hike. It took quite a while to get down there and I had to be back by 1700
for work, so I didn’t leave myself a lot of wiggle room. Then I accidentally
turned onto the wrong path just past Biscuit Basin—first left doesn’t always
mean first left—so I added a solid .8 miles to my journey after trekking to
another parking area instead of down the Summit Lake trail. Once I figured that
out, I still had the 7.5ish miles to go to Summit Lake. I maintained a decent
pace on that hike in order to get back to camp around 1630. I actually kept
going past my turnaround time because I could see the clearing in the trees
where I knew the lake was, so I ate lunch at Summit Lake just past the campsite
there, and then turned around and headed back to Biscuit Basin. Of course it’s
generally quicker to hike down all of the elevation you just gained, so I was
fine on time and made it back to camp around 1620. Hurray, hurray.
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| Summit Lake |
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| Summit Lake lunch spot |
I honestly have no idea what we did on Monday night. I
recall the enrollees having a sleepover since it was their last night together.
Other than that…I’ve got nothing. All of our night rec activities sort of blend
together.
Tuesday was the students’ last day, so they spent the day
cleaning all of their gear and everything. I spent the day hiking the Slough
Creek trail to the Elk Tongue cabin. Holy crap that area is beautiful. The
trail is used for horse carriage rides also, so it was pretty well-defined. I
ate lunch on the porch of the Elk Tongue cabin, where the youth leaders would
be staying on their retreat the next few days after the other enrollees left.
That was another solid 14+ miles that I squeaked in before work at 1700, but it
took about half an hour less to get to the trailhead, and it was two miles
less, so I was done in plenty of time.
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| Slough Creek |
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| View from the porch at Elk Tongue Ranger Cabin |
At the banquet we waited tables—taking orders, serving food,
bussing tables. Then a few of the enrollees spoke (Connor, Adrian, Ellie, and
Jada) and Nick and Elijah spoke. Both Matt and Alicia talked about different
aspects of the session. Some of the high-up NPS people came and talked also, so
that was cool. The slideshow for the summer played, which was cool but at the
same time only included like three of the pictures we took on our rec trips…so
why make us take a bazillion pictures? Whatever. Maybe they got put on the
students’ flashdrives. Maybe not. Anyways, here’s our Session 1 Group Picture:
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| Front: Alicia, Maureen, Pooja, Aleah, Adrian, YL Lexie, YL Matt, Griffin, Lanie, YL Avery, Cindy, Jillian, Uma Second: Ricardo, Alivia, Tyler, Jose Z., April, Marcus, YL Sarah, Maddy, Megan, Hannah R., Melissa, Maria Third: Mike, Lilly, Taylor, Sara, Jada, David, Ignacio, Nora, Ellie, Connor, Jonah, Bethany, Emily Fourth: John, Hannah K., Matt, Bobby, Nick, YL Nick, James, YL Elijah, Lukas, Jose T., Matthew, Wendell, Cecilia, Maggie, Caleb, Bob |
There were lots of tears on Tuesday night as some of the
enrollees went home with their parents. I had the fantastic privilege of
working until midnight and making sure no shenanigans were taking place.
Hurray. It was really sad on Wednesday to say goodbye to them, so that’s why I
skedaddled out and went hiking. Because that’s how I handle feelings and
goodbyes.
Given that I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep and was fairly
tired, I decided to postpone my hike to Mt. Sheridan and instead Loring tagged
along and we went to the Shoshone Lake area. It was a super easy 3.0-mile hike
to the lake from the DeLacy Creek trailhead and it only took us 54 minutes to
get there. Then we ate lunch and chilled by the lake until we had to hustle
back for Loring’s 1330 phone interview since we had no service. We hiked out in
48 minutes, a 16-minute mile pace, and managed to get close enough to Old
Faithful just in time for his phone call.
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| Shoshone Lake--ft. Loring |
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| Shoshone Lake |
We went back and hiked the 1.7 mile Divide Trail to a point
that used to have a fire lookout that got taken down in the 90s. It’s a good
thing that it was only 1.7 miles because to quote Loring, it was “garbage.”
Honestly, we got to the top and couldn’t see anything but trees surrounding us.
No mountain views. At one point on the way up, there was a through-the-tree view
of Shoshone Lake and some mountains that was pretty cool, but nearly impossible
to capture with a camera. I tried.
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| Sweet view from the top... |
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| Semi-sweet view through the trees on the way there |
On the way back to the YCC, we had 10 bison pass less than
an arm’s length by my car, including two little baby ones. Then when we were in
the Mammoth/Norris construction zone, a black bear went across the road a
little ways behind us. It was Wednesday night so I had EMS review at 1900 and
we reviewed CPR calls and how to best utilize the Lukas machines.
Thursday was a boring day of cleaning everything, reading
student evaluations (some of which were hilarious/pathetic), and a 3-hour staff
meeting. Hurray. Thursday night was volleyball, so that was fun until the
coworker that rode with me kept asking if we could leave. I told her she could
wait for me to finish my team’s game or walk back. They both took ~20 minutes,
so I don’t really know what her issue was. She said I was a horrible person.
That’s about how well the two of us function together. She can drive herself
next time.
On Friday we went to a high-ropes course owned by the owner
of the Atlanta Falcons—Mountain Sky Guest Ranch. We only got to spend about 3
hours there, which is just not enough if you’re me. One of the elements was the
Electric Fence, which I participated in and facilitated for years, so that was
a real piece of cake (also because our facilitators were letting a lot slide in
the interest of time). Then we moved on to the high ropes part of it, which was
just a blast!
Then we had to come back to the MCC for sexual harassment
training and workplace aggressive behavior or whatnot training, which was the
opposite of a blast. It was dull, boring, and I fell asleep for probably a
majority of the first hour. The second hour I stood in the back with one of the
LE rangers—Gabe Gassman—so that I didn’t fall asleep again, sitting in the
second row right in front of the guy talking.
Following that, we all went on staff retreat to Schmitty’s
parents’ vacation house in Red Lodge, Montana. That’s a solid 3+ hour drive
from the YCC, but it’s a beautiful drive over the Beartooth Pass and mountain
range. By the time we got to Red Lodge, it was after 2000, so Ricardo made
burgers and I grilled them. That was honestly my favorite part of staff
retreat—grilling burgers. Schmitty put me in charge of everyone for the night.
That’s me—the forever sober, responsible one. Makes it really hard to ever go
to bed though haha that’s the only downfall.
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| Beartooth Pass |
The next morning, one of my illustrious coworkers had their
alarm set for 0600 and I about punched her in the face when I got up to turn it
off after a solid five minutes of annoying music blasting in the room of 7
sleeping people. Whatever. I got up, made myself some oatmeal, and read my book
on the back porch after cleaning up remnants of the night before. A few hours
later other people got up and went downtown to get coffee, so I went downtown
and bought ice cream. Chocolate malt, chocolate milk, and root beer float
milk—that last one actually tasted exactly like a root beer float in milk form
and I was pleasantly surprised.
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| Gossner Root Beer Float Milk |
After that some of us went to Cooney State Park and went
swimming. I went swimming for a bit, but mostly laid there and read my book. Note
to self—you’re not a lifeguard this summer and your back isn’t used to that
much sun…therefore your back is now a tomato in lifeguard swimsuit form.
Fantastic.
There were four rec rangers that came back on Saturday night
because of our work schedules today (Sunday) since our new students arrive
today. We stopped at the Beartooth Pass Summit and scrambled to the top of the
tallest rocks, which are at almost 11,000 feet. Super exciting for me was the
number of pikas in the rocks! I studied pikas for my honor’s thesis and used
them as my main case study for my defense panel, so to see them that close was
absolutely fantastic!
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| South from the Beartooth Pass Summit |
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| South/West from the Beartooth Pass Summit |
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| West/North from the Beartooth Pass Summit |
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| PIKA!!! |
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| PIKA!!! |
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| Bethany, Maggie, Maria, and Loring |
On our way back through the Lamar Valley, we got caught in
multiple animal jams, including a bear jam. The mama black bear and her two
cubs were along the right side of the road, walked right next to the car, and
then crossed right behind it. The two cubs were absolutely tiny and couldn’t
have been higher than my shin. Wow!!!
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| Black bear with one visible cub |
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| About to cross the road |
When we got back to the YCC finally, at about 2030, we were
all starving (even though we stopped at a gas station and I got ice cream and
pepperoni/cheese tornados), so we made gyros. Maggie and I were super
disappointed that the youth leaders weren’t there yet, so I waited up and read
my book until they got there. They’re such cool people and I like them all a
lot. Interestingly enough, often I find that I relate to some of them better
than I relate to my coworkers. In talking to them, they were asking me about
hantavirus and its symptoms. It turns out that when cleaning their cabin that
morning, they went about it all wrong and were all possibly exposed to
hantavirus due to the incredible amount of mouse droppings, sweeping them up
dry, and not wearing masks. I am incredibly displeased with the manner in which
it was handled—that never should’ve happened; it was explicitly covered in
staff training what to do if you encounter mouse droppings in a cabin and how
to clean them up. Sweeping them out with a broom is the exact opposite of what
you want to do! Now I have six students that I have to monitor for respiratory
distress for the next 2-6 days, and there are no common symptoms besides
difficulty breathing. I’m upset.
Mileage count: 318.5
Once again, super awesome pics! And finally some BEAR pics:)
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