What Working in Yellowstone is Like for Me

50 hour weeks (on the lower side of my average)

Closing shifts followed by opening shifts three days of the week (3 or 4 hours of sleep)

• I f I work a dinner shift I usually won't get home until midnight or so. After work my body is so pumped up from moving around so constantly, that it usually takes me an hour to finally settle down. I don't actually get to sleep until around 1:30 or 2:30 am if Daniel wants to talk. I, then, have to wake up around 5:20 am in order to open in the morning. Sometimes I am lucky enough to ONLY work a breakfast shift (after closing) so I get off work at 10:30 or 11 am. This when Daniel is just waking up since he works the night shift. Unfortunately for me, when Mr. Daniel wakes up from his full 8 hours and sees me awake he thinks its time for food and then a brisk hike. I try to explain to him that we are not remotely close to equally well rested but he still seems to forget everyday. 

2 days off (one of which is used to catch up on much needed sleep)

• Our days off are scheduled together. Or rather my two days off are scheduled during the same time as Daniel's three days off. By the time my weekend comes around, I am so exhausted I can barely think straight, so when I get off at midnight I tend to sleep as long as possible. Sometimes, I am just drifting in and out of consciousness on the first day even if I am awake. My second day off I usually try to hike with Daniel. But when I do that, the room tends not to get cleaned. And the laundry gets neglected a bit as well.

15 minutes to eat before a shift

• The Employee Dining Room or the EDR doesn't open until 15 minutes before my shifts start so I don't get to eat much and am therefore starving by the end of my shift. If I am even running 5 minutes late, I can probably just forget eating at all. 

When I am not tired to the bone, I do enjoy the park very much. It is very beautiful and changing everyday. It seems like there is always something new to see and we have had a lot of good times so far. But I am feeling very frustrated that it feels like work even on my days off sometimes. I keep getting woken up before I want to be and begrudged any naps I feel I need. I miss my friends in Manhattan more and more everyday. They were the bees knees and the people here are too weird even for me. Or they are just weird enough and have crazy anger problems. Or drink every single night. The people I like the most are probably around 60 and have a group of their own. So I am also feeling kinda lonely. I feel like all I do is work, sleep, look for apartments in Washington, hike a little, and clean. By myself. It sucks. I kind of want to leave.

Old Faithful Inn

One of the many perks of my job as a Floor Technician in Yellowstone is that I get paid to visit the entirety of the park rather than having to wait for the weekend to see anything other than Mammoth Hot Springs.  Last week I spent the night at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge hotel (an over $200 room for guests) while polishing up the floors for their big opening.  This week I'm back in Old Faithful and rather than just 2 days here we are spending all week prepping the Old Faithful Inn for opening.  The Old Faithful Inn is the largest wood structure on the planet and I get to clean every hardwood floor in the place.  I also get a room up on the 3rd floor and am a 10 foot walk down the hall to a balcony overlooking Old Faithful Geyser.  I saw Old Faithful erupt four times my first visit and it is certainly not something that gets old.  The first time I saw it was about 9 in the morning while it was 30 degrees and windy.  There were 6 other people.  The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times that day were definitely more crowded and while it really didn't detract from the geyser much I'm still glad my first time was practically alone.  My current visit to Old Faithful involved a lot more exploring of additional geysers in the area.  There are quite a few more and though Old Faithful gets all the fame, other geysers are equally if not more impressive.  I sat on a log for 30 minutes waiting on Riverside Geyser which can be predicted accurately down to 90 to 120 minutes.  It shoots 70 feet high and is often accompanied by a rainbow (though not this time).  Its location definitely made it more beautiful than Old Faithful.  

As I walked back to Old Faithful Inn to work for the night I saw an unbelievably high cloud of steam shooting up about half a mile to my left.  I cannot be sure but based on my map and the short bursts of very high water coming from it I believe it was Grand Geyser, the tallest predictable geyser in the world, which erupts for 9-12 minutes and consists of 1-4 bursts reaching 200 feet high.  Morning Glory Pool was almost too pretty to be believed and there were many other lesser known thermal pools of stunning color such as Sapphire Pool and Chromatic Pool.  One nice thing about the Old Faithful area is you can walk the same boardwalk every day and have the chance to see something new and unique every time as only a few geysers erupt regularly or predictably. 

The snow is disappearing rapidly, other villages and roads are opening up, and some of the higher elevation trails are drying up and becoming accessible to hiking so there should be quite a bit more to see and post about shortly.

Beaver Ponds

Beaver Ponds is a 5 miles loop trail directly behind Mammoth Hot Springs.  It is the first hike we did when we arrived and I plan to make it the last hike we do when we leave to gauge how much better in shape we are after 5 months of hiking nearly every day at between 6200 and 11000 feet.  The first time we did it there was still significant patches of snow on it that if we were not able to follow previous hikers footsteps over we would have surely gotten lost.  Also the spots where the snow was melted were deep, wide patches of mud.  Sometimes we would be by a precarious cliff on snow, other times mud.  We never really could decide which was more frightening.  The ponds were partially melted but mostly still frozen when we got to them and they framed a very picturesque setting with tall, snow capped peaks in the background, and heavy forest that surrounded the ponds.  The trail was great and is very popular with employees due to its proximity, relative ease, and beauty but by the fourth mile, Clarise and I were both wanting it to end from exhaustion and being sick and tired of walking over either snow or mud.  

A couple of days after we did Beaver Ponds we heard that it was mostly dried out and that a couple of people had reported seeing a Cinnamon colored Black Bear around mile 3.  So we ventured back out on the trail with the goal being to find and take a picture of this adorable sounding bear.  Sure enough the trail was much easier to hike this time around as it was dry and we had 2 weeks to acclimate to being over 6000 feet up.  We saw an elk just off the trail by himself and when we got to the ponds they were completely thawed out and the pictures were even better than the first time.  We decided to turn around at the ponds because of needing to be back at work that night and on the way back we heard what we both believed to be a warning growl from the bear we were seeking.  We stopped in our tracks and looked around the forested area we were near for 10 minutes but never did see or hear anything else.  Before that time we saw an interesting bird that made a low, guttural sound we believe it adapted to sound like a bear so since we did not see anything move after hearing the growl we can't be sure what it was but I believe it was the bear running away as black bears are known to be skittish of humans.  I hope to return to find the bear when I get the time again but there is just so many things to see its hard to do too many repeats without missing out on other things in this huge park.

Leaving the Black Hills, Devils Tower, Arriving in Yellowstone

After grabbing a hotel for the night to avoid freezing to death, we knew climbing Harney Peak was out of the question.  So to fill the morning we decided to take Needles Highway to see the supposed crown jewel of the Black Hills, Sylvan Lake.  Alas, Needles Highway was closed and we suddenly found ourselves hours ahead of schedule.  So we headed north out of the Black Hills and discovered Pactola Reservoir. 

 Now I haven't seen Sylvan Lake so I can't be sure which is better but Pactola Reservoir would be hard to beat in beauty. 

As we drove to I-90, thick fog made visibility very low and we had 2000 feet of elevation to descend on winding mountain roads.  We made it to the interstate but there were portions of the road were the fog took visibility down to 0.  It is slightly disconcerting to be driving 70 miles an hour and suddenly cannot see anything at all.  Luckily it was short lived but fog and snow were a problem the whole day.  As we arrived at Devils Tower, with "Mars, Bringer of War" blasting on the stereo,  we discovered the top 1/3 of the tower was obscured by thick fog.

 There wasn't any snow in the area so we did the hike that circled the monument.  Unfortunately, about halfway through the bitterly cold hike, fog completely obscured the tower to the point that we could not even tell it was there.  We warmed up in the visitor center and got my souvenir shot glass and headed left down the road.  Oh, did I say left?  I meant right.  16 miles down the road we arrive in a town I didn't recognize from my directions and we realize we are going north, not south towards I-90.  34 miles later we again saw Devils Tower and to our pleasant surprise, the fog had cleared and the tower was perfectly visible.

 It was getting late at this point so while we didn't go all the way back to the base it was nice to get some clear pictures of it after all.

We got into Sheridan, WY right before a winter storm came through and dumped 6 inches of snow on the area.  I-90 was mostly clear the whole way to Gardiner but the storm closed the scenic byway through the Big Horn Mountains I had been looking forward to taking.  That had been the only thing on our itinerary for the day, so we slept in and headed straight for the North Entrance of Yellowstone.  Seeing the Rocky Mountains outside Livingston, MT was truly amazing.  I've seen the Rocky Mountains four times before but each time I see them I am blown away at their sheer size and presence.   Even though we had yet to do anything in them they definitely blew the Black Hills out of the water.  We arrived in Gardiner around dinner and got a discount and upgrade at the Super 8 for being there to work in the park.  Though we didn't get to do a lot of the things we had planned on the trip to Yellowstone due to an unusually cold April (even for South Dakota and Wyoming) it was an amazing journey and I'm glad we took the time to see some beautiful and interesting places along the way.

Black Hills

After passing Chamberlain River just before the Badlands I could finally, after hours and hours of flat, boring, grassland landscape, tell that we were moving higher and to more unique parts of the country.  As we arrived in the Black Hills we turned left towards Mount Rushmore, our first stop, and immediately started up a long, steep mountain road that left no doubt that these were definitely not just hills as the name suggests.  One of the first things that stood out to Clarise as she tried to get some pictures of the mountains was that every single shot was ruined by billboard after billboard.  Never in my life had I seen commercialization ruin such a beautiful place.  Keystone, South Dakota, a small town of about 300, was more billboard than town. (Though we did stop for Subway while we were there.) 

Mount Rushmore was honestly underwhelming.  Maybe I had just seen too many pictures of it before but when I was there it was really just a feeling of, "Is this it?"  We left after less than 30 minutes after saying hi to a friendly couple heading towards Tucson we had seen earlier that day in Badlands NP and wound our way down Iron Mountain Road.

Iron Mountain Road was the best part of our trip through the Black Hills.  It was very beautiful as we winded through the forest, through stone tunnels (Clarise's favorite), up and around pig tale bridges, and soared by open cliffs.



At the end of the road we turned down Wildlife Loop Road and saw an amazing assortment of wildlife native to the High Plains.  Buffalo grazed right next to the road, Pronghorns seemed to be everywhere you looked, and some Burros entertained us by coming right up to the car until we had to leave them because one started chewing on our bike tires.

From there we headed south to Wind Cave National Park to see what I thought was a scenic overlook.  It turned out to be a one mile hike to the top of a mountain where an old fire tower was stationed. We hadn't planned to hike at this point but we were unable to do any of the numerous hikes that we'd planned due to significant snow on the ground and the high temperatures being in the 30's the whole trip.  But one mile seemed doable so we went for it.  It took over an hour to complete and was not for the faint of heart. It was almost entirely uphill on a narrow, snow covered ledge with no footprints to follow.  Perhaps the lack of footprints should have been a clue but I was tired of driving and wanted to hike somewhere.  We made it up alive and found the downhill was actually a mostly snow free gravel road down the backside of the mountain.  It was certainly an experience but we were definitely done with hiking in the snow for a while.

Omaha and the Badlands

As you know, our first stop on the way to Yellowstone was my best friend Sarah's house so I got a chance to say goodbye to her in person. I also got to see her turn 21. It was great. The only thing I can say about  the two of us having a long distance best friendship, is that at least I'm getting used to having my bestie far away and I don't feel nervous about us keeping in touch at all. We have this distance thing on lock.

After our visit with Sarah Fae, Daniel and I got on the road and headed to the Badlands. Turns out we are both allergic to Nebraska and caught some kind of...something. I wouldn't say that we were sick, but there were definitely runny noses and sore throats involved. I also found out that I definitely did not have enough layers on if we were going to be back-country hiking, especially if we were going to be traveling more and more north. A quick run to Wal-Mart for another pair of pants solved that and then we were off!

Did you know that both Nebraska and South Dakota are both essentially the same scenery as western Kansas? Well it is. And it's kind of torture to realize this when you have been crazy excited to see horizons that Kansas can't offer. We did see approximately 3,000 signs for some place called Wal Drug, however, and after 6 hours of driving we truly came to hate this mysterious place and vowed never to visit it.

First pretty scenery 

There was some nice scenery on the border of South Dakota. It came out of nowhere :) But it reverted pretty quickly to stupid farmland. Luckily Badlands National Park was only a few hours away.

If I am being honest, the Badlands were the highlight of the trip for me. They honestly made me forget about the previous lack luster scenery we had before. I am actually not too much of a mountain girl. I definitely have a good appreciation for them and think they are beautiful to look at and play in, but I guess you could say they leave me cold ;-) The desert on the other hand really gets me excited though and the Badlands (though not desert) definitely hit the spot for me. When we were pulling up to the park I screamed a little with excitement and once we were in the park I literally could not stop saying wow. I was astonished...amazed...captivated...in complete  and total awe of the formations I was witnessing. There are really no words to explain how incredible I found the Badlands.

We intended to hike the Door, Shelf, and Notch Trails, but due to snow-melt from the storm the previous week we ended up only being able to hike the Door Trail and the Shelf Trail. We also did the Window Trail but it was so short I barely want to count it. The Door was my all time favorite. We got to hike on pretty much unaltered rock and take in the beauty from all angles plus it ended on the edge of a steep cliff. I don't know what is more epic than that!

The trail head :-)

After our hikes we drove along the scenic road to find out where we could camp. After exploring a little we decided it would be pretty difficult to set up anywhere in the back-country so we just used the regular camping area.

The night was COLD. I don't know if my side of the tent had a little extra ventilation or what but Daniel said he was fine and I was shivering most of the night. At one point I thought my toes were going to fall off. It was miserable. But it was still incredible to wake up in such a cool place. I would do it again anytime.

Anyway, after a pretty wretched night we warmed up at the Visitor's Center and looked through the mini museum they had and watched the award winning video they played for us in the theater  Daniel got a shot glass for his collection and we headed on out. All in all it was a delightful start to our adventure.

Learned Something Today

Daniel A. Truex has no concept at all of what its like for a congested asthmatic in high altitude to hike uphill for a mile. But I must say I'm glad he is not a slow learner or I would have passed out from lack of oxygen today...