"There is delight in the hardy life of the open."--Teddy Roosevelt

I’ve been hanging around the hotel grounds this past week because I haven’t had much time off work. But, I’ve had a few adventures nonetheless. A few days ago, some friends and I (Jillian, Angela, Emily) had a short excursion to Fishing Bridge at dusk to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, we got there too late and there weren’t any spectacular colors. We did see an otter swimming across the river, though! Looking back, I’m not actually weren’t sure if it was an otter or a muskrat, but it was cool anyways.

Then, on Monday evening, I went to an interesting seminar about bears that was given for the benefit of Xanterra employees. Evidently, there are a few different types of bear attacks. One is caused by surprised bears. This happens when a hiker or a group of hikers suddenly come upon an unsuspecting bear and it feels threatened so it charges the humans. Sometimes the bear actually physically attacks and causes harm while other times it does what is called a bluff attack. A bluff attack is when a surprised bear runs up beside a person, barks a little, hits the ground with its paw and basically makes a threatening, defensive, but ultimately harmless display. A surprised bear will quickly charge (with hardly any warning) those who have disturbed its peace. They told us it’s no use to run away from a bear because they can run at about 30 mph. So, with a surprised bear, it’s best to either stand your ground (especially if it’s just a bluff) or you should drop face down on the ground with your hands behind your head and your legs apart (so you can’t be flipped) if it looks like physical contact is going to be made. Another type of bear attack is the curious/predatory attitude. When a bear is curious or predatory, it’ll approach slowly, maybe circling around the person a bit. In this case, it’s best to make yourself look big and threatening to the bear so it’ll think that the effort to eat you will not pay off.

I had no work on Tuesday, so Angela, Emily and I snagged some open seats on a bus tour of the southern half of the park. I think the official name is the Circle of Fire or something. There was so much to see and our guide was great. Our round trip went from Lake to Old Faithful to Canyon with many stops in between and a tasty lunch at Old Faithful. There was a lot of wildlife to be seen as well. At the West Thumb geyser basin between Lake and Old Faithful, we saw some elk. They were all female and one of them had a splay legged calf which was probably just a day or two old. Our guide said they like to give birth in this area because their predators don’t like to be in places where there is so much human activity. The bus passed a part of the forest which had been destroyed by a fire in recent years. Our guide tried to explain how the fires actually help the trees reseed, but all I got out of it was that it somehow helps the cones release the seeds that grow into new trees. At Old Faithful, we decided to treat ourselves to “real food” and ate at the inn located just next to most of the thermal features of the park. It was delicious food and we were all very pleased to not be eating at the employee dining room. We didn’t spend any time exploring Old Faithful, but we did see a herd of bison and a large bull elk near the village. A few miles outside of Old Faithful, the bus stopped so we could all see another herd of bison in a field next to the road and they too had calves. These young were far more energetic than the elk calf I saw earlier—probably because they’re older. They were running and jumping joyfully throughout the herd while the older and less spritely adults kept a watch for predators. On the road again, we spotted two ospreys, more buffalo and more elk from the bus window. Our next long stop was at the Canyon Village where we were for about 30 minutes total. The view of the canyon is absolutely breathtaking! The park service built a sort of overlook that provides an excellent view of a huge waterfall in one direction, a winding canyon in the other direction, and a white water river far below. See the pictures on picasa for a better description. Long story short, the canyon is quite large and its colors are beautiful. After stopping at Canyon, we drove home to Lake, had dinner and then went to a seminar about wolves given for the park employees. It was an interesting seminar, but the speaker used technical jargon and it was pretty clear that his presentation should have been given to fellow professionals researching wolves rather than a bunch of common people who don’t know the first thing about these animals. Apparently, wolves were completely absent from the park for a lot of the 20th century because they were all hunted and killed off, but they were finally reintroduced in the mid 90’s. Since then, they’ve been doing fairly well and their presence has made considerable improvements to the park’s ecosystem as a whole.

The next day, Wednesday (today), I went on two hikes. On the first, Jillian and I and two friends went hiking at a spot a few miles east of the Lake Hotel. We didn’t really know how to get to this trail, where exactly it led, or how long it was, but we decided to try it anyways. It ended up that we were never really on the correct trail and when we finally completely lost any resemblance of a trail, we ended up climbing straight up the mountain. It was probably an 800 vertical rise over 20 horizontal feet. For more than half of that climb, we were using hands and feet to keep going! The lookout from the top of all the mountains was spectacular, though. And, to top it all off, we got to watch a lounging grizzly bear for 20 minutes! The bear was about 100 yards from the path that we were supposed to take up the mountain (which we did finally find at the top). There were other people around enjoying the sight as well. We watched the bear and then walked back down the mountain along the (paved) path to our car. Needless to say, the walk down the mountain on the paved road was far easier than the scrambling climb up the mountain on dirt and slipping rocks.
Later in the evening, Jillian and I joined a group of Yellowstone employees for a moonlit hike up a nearby mountain called Elephant Back. The full moon and sparse cloud cover provided for a beautiful trek up the mountain and a fantastic view at the top looking overlooking the hotel, frozen lake and distant mountains. It was a bit snowy and at times I fell into the snow up to my hips! My boots served me well, though, and I miraculously finished the hike with dry feet. At one point, we could hear wolves howling in the distance! We had a group of fifteen people total, so no wildlife came close to us because of the racket we made. This was both a blessing and a curse as it kept the dangerous animals away but it kept peaceful ones (ie-birds) away as well.

I must get some sleep now so I can enjoy my final day off tomorrow. Shalom!

First time to Old Faithful

On Monday, Jillian, Meg, and I paid a visit to Old Faithful. It’s about 40 miles away, but with the park speed limits, it takes an hour to get there. The geysers were really neat and the view of the mountains was still incredible. I was a little underwhelmed by the location as a whole, though. For one, their EDR (employee dining room) was in the basement of another building and it grossed me out. Being Xanterra employees, we can eat at any EDR owned by Xanterra in the park. They were running out of food when we arrived (it was near the end of the food serving time) and the tables were dirty. I’m thinking (and hoping) the presence of so many minerals and chemicals in the air from the geysers gave me this impression of everything being dirty and that everything wasn’t actually that gross. Perhaps, if I worked here, my impression would change.

After dinner, we stopped by a public seminar type thing on the way to see the main geyser area. The topic of the presentation was whether or not to place more cell phone towers around the park. I don’t really have a strong opinion on this yet, but I’m leaning against the idea. I think it’s essential for the park to remain as wild as possible. One argument for the towers is that they would increase safety for those who wish to hike alone and, also, getting help in emergencies would be easier. But, there are ways to do both of these without cell phones. First, tell others where you intend to go, when you intend to return and stick to both of these. Also, there is not one recorded bear attack on a group of more than four people. Second, be wary of the wildlife and bring the correct supplies. It is a comfort, however, to know you have the ability to call help if you need it.

Since we missed the explosion of Old Faithful while at dinner, we had another hour or so to wait for the next one. So, we took a walk around the other geysers and hot springs. When we returned to OF, we met a few other employees from Lake and we sat with them. There are benches set up right in front of the geyser to make viewing easy. According to Jillian, OF didn’t explode quite as high as usual or as long as usual. None the less, I still thought it was cool! We did get a little water on us from the condensation of the steam as it drifted over. After watching this, we took a longer walk along the boardwalk around the geysers. This included a stop at the lodge. The lodge was really interesting. It’s all wood on the inside. The ceiling looks like it is completely made of logs. It’s basically a giant wood cabin. I tried to take a picture, but the lighting was soft, so the quality isn’t great. We walked around some more outside, saw some awesome colors in the springs, made fun of their seemingly off the wall names, and took some more pictures.

On our way home (Jillian was driving), we stopped to see the Kepler Falls. I didn’t take any pictures because it was getting dark. In total, these falls probably drop several hundred feet through a fairly skinny track with rocks and tall pine trees on either side. Needless to say, they’re quite impressive and beautiful. We’ve decided that we’ll definitely be returning to Old Faithful and the Kepler Falls and will be spending a lot more time at each.

Yesterday, it was overcast, cold, foggy, and it rained a little in the evening. Despite the weather, Jillian, I, my suitemates, and a friend down the hall (Angie) went for a walk along the lake shore. There are so many cool rocks there! Sadly, we can only take pictures (and I didn’t bring my camera), so no mementos came out of that expedition. In the evening, J. and I watched Leap Year with our suitemates and some Ukrainian students who live down the hall. The next morning, I woke up late (I’m not working today) and attempted to go running…and all I can say is that people aren’t exaggerating when they say altitude training is difficult. I ran for about 5 minutes and felt pretty light headed, took a small walking break and then ran (very slowly) for another 15. I saw no bears or bison (or anything except birds) and stuck close to the hotel grounds.

More later. Shalom!

dust has a mind of its own

So the internet is steadily getting slower and slower over the days. Picasa Web Albums has taken more than 20 minutes to load 5 pictures. I tried downloading the Picasa software, but that was ridiculously slow as well. This means that picture updates may be few and far between, but I'll do my best to stay up to date.

Today I cleaned from 9 until 3:30, but with a lunch break and two ten minute breaks at 10 AM and 2 PM. Every morning before work, the room attendants do stretches outside. This seemed a bit over the top to me at first, but I realize now how useful it is. It's a good way to wake up in the morning and the leaders make it fun when they crack jokes relating our stretching to modern dance moves (ie-"pop, lock and drop it"). Cleaning was frustrating today when the location managers came by and told us that the rooms and bathrooms we worked on for an hour plus each were not clean enough. What makes cleaning even worse is the dry air up here and the fact that dust settles in a matter of minutes (AKA long before we're even finished with the room) so its impossible to even have the appearance of a dust-free room. Oh well, its a good exercise in patience and attention to detail.

One of the coolest parts of being out here is meeting a lot of new people. My suite mates are a mother and daughter from Florida. They're Christians and Lisa, the mother, suggested having a sort of Creation Club here with the other (few) Christians at Lake. I'm not sure what exactly that entails, but she said something about studying the land and talking about creation. It sounds interesting and the fellowship is valuable anyways. A bunch of new people arrived the same day that Jillian did and I've been trying to meet them. Everybody is friendly and it's normal to greet people you've never talked to before when you're walking across grounds or through the hotel. Oh, I actually met another girl from JMU today! She's a rising senior who's studying geography (but it might be geology, I don't remember).

Because the pub at Lake is one of the best in the park, there are two types of employees that ended up here--"over 21s" and "under 21s." I didn't realize alcohol would be such a big deal, but since there isn't much else to do (especially for the uncreative mind and due to a lot bears and snow) it becomes a major source of entertainment. Fortunately, Xanterra (my employer) claims to be very strict on alcohol abuse (especially underage drinking), so I'm hoping to not have to deal with it too much.

We've been snow/bear bound to the area close to the hotel since arriving. All of the trails we know about are closed because it's "bear danger area" and to top it off, there's a foot of snow on the ground up in the mountains where the trails go. So, even if you did want to trudge through the snow...good luck getting away from a bear! To replace hiking, we've been walking along the paved roads. It's not the equivalent of a hike in the wilderness, but it's better than nothing and the photographs are still good.

I'm Now a Professional Maid

We’ve been practicing our cleaning skillz these past two days and have been “deep cleaning” all the rooms in the hotel. This consists of using our five Chemicals (Yellow-similar to 409, Pink-a stronger version of Yellow, Blue-like windex, Green-like Febreeze, and Ajax) and scrubbing the bath tubs, toilets, sinks, and floors in the bathrooms and dusting all the furniture in the bedrooms with Yellow. We’re also expected to stock the rooms with all the basic amenities of a typical hotel room in addition to YNP brochures and some wildlife themed objects (such as bear shaped soap and a bear stuffed animal for sale at $20! What a great deal…) We cleaned for nearly the whole day, got off around 3:30, then 9 of us walked to the General Store which is probably 2 miles from our dorm. There’s no direct foot path available going directly from our dorms to the store, so we had to walk along the road. There is an incredible view at a place called Fishing Bridge (where you can’t actually fish from) of a wide, calm river of clear water with snowy banks and evergreen trees and mountains in the distance. The General Store is basically an oversized gift shop with a small corner dedicated to groceries and other necessities.

Jillian arrived later that evening and stayed the night in the room. Lake is on her way from Jackson, Wyoming to Gardiner, Montana and she had to do employee check-in the next morning (today), so Lake was a sort of pit stop for her. Around 9:45 we went star gazing with some friends from the dorm. The view of the sky from the lake is incredible! It wasn’t quite late enough to have a really black sky, but there were still a lot more stars visible than I’m used to. We saw the big dipper, two planets (possibly), a few shooting stars and a few satellites. Unfortunately, my star gazing skillz aren’t quite up to snuff like my cleaning skillz, but I’m hoping to practice more over the next few months.

Today was spent in more “deep cleaning” of the hotel rooms. After dinner, I went walking with some other room attendants and a few food servers who just moved in today. We went down the road about three-quarters of a mile to see Lake Lodge and the employee rec. center. I took a few pictures of the view from the lodge. I’ll post them on Picasa because it would be nearly impossible to describe the lake, mountain, and cloud scene.

There’s a common room in my dorm right across the hall from my room where I am now. It’s got great internet access so people tend to congregate here. I’m hoping to do some skyping here too! Who's up for that?

travel and check-in

I have arrived at Yellowstone and am currently relaxing in my dorm room. (I have zero cell phone service so don't even try...) My flights went nicely with only a slight delay on the ground at Dulles. I got to the inn last night (in Bozeman, Montana) around 12, checked in, couldn't figure out the thermostat in my room, and consequently had a very cold night. But, I figure I won't complain because I should probably build up a cold tolerance anyways. In the morning I got to the bus stop around 7. Even though the bus stop was just across the street from the inn, actually getting to it was deceptively difficult. Not only was it four lanes across, but there was no cross walk! Fortunately, traffic was very sparse, so I did get myself, my broken frame backpack, and my 100 pounds of luggage across in a reasonable amount of time with no loss of limb or life. It was a chilly morning--probably around 30 F. There was a group of around 20 people total at the stop--mostly college age but there were also few older adults (one mother came with her daughter). Anyways, two official Yellowstone buses met us a the stop and we drove 1.5 hours from Bozeman to Gardiner, Montana. One of the buses was almost full when it picked us up because it had already picked up the international employees. I think they had been doing some sort of orientation yesterday. On the bus, I sat next to a nice woman named Cathy from Cleveland. She worked at Mt. Rainier in Washington last summer and enjoyed it so much she decided to work at YNP this summer.

The drive was beautiful! The snow capped mountains popping up out of the nearly completely flat land are breathtaking. Well, the mountains aren't exactly snow capped because it's more like a complete icing. The cattle fields at the feet of the mountains are clear of snow by now, though. The sky was a clear blue with a few intermittent clouds. Everything is beautiful despite the fact that the landscape is variations on the theme of brown. The evergreens aren't brown of course. I'm thinking everything will become a little more green in a month or so.

We arrived at Gardiner at 9 AM and proceeded to check-in and uniform fittings. With 70 new employees (most of which are from Asia and don't speak English as their native tongue), both of these processes took until 1 PM. I met three nice students from Singapore and talking to them helped pass the time. Needless to say, it was a long morning. My housekeeper uniform consists of a baggy maroon button down shirt and black pants with front pleats. It's not the most glorifying uniform to say the least, but considering everything, I don't mind it too much.

From Gardiner (which is about 300 yards north of the park), we went to Mammoth (which is a few miles inside the northern park boundary) where there was an official orientation for us as Xanterra employees. This consisted of basic safety precautions on the flora and fauna, letting us know about all the free tours we can go on, and the recreational equipment available.

From Mammoth, we split into our location groups and set out for those. It took an hour and a half to get to Lake where I'm stationed. My co-workers are all very friendly and good spirited. A few of them are returning employees. At Lake, we found our rooms and moved in. Jillian won’t be getting here until Saturday and she’s my roommate. The employee dormitory is very similar to a college dorm. My room shares a bathroom with the room next door. The window looks out on a few scattered pine trees on a small snowy field.

I should mention that I saw a lot of wildlife on the bus rides. These included a bison, a few elk (they’re everywhere, though), a few mountain goats, a bird that looked like a king fisher (he was flying along the creek that the road followed and he was going as fast as the bus-probably 35 mph), and two hawks nesting on a telephone pole just outside the park.

This evening I went to dinner at the EDR (employee dining room) with some guys and girls on my hall. Quite a few of them actually drove out here. One came from Massachusetts, another from Alabama, and a few others from other southern states. After dinner at the EDR (which is just behind the Lake Hotel) we went to see the lake. It’s enormous! I think it’s frozen from shore to shore, but that’s difficult to say because the lake is 14 miles across at its widest I think. It’s surrounded on most edges by spiky and snowy mountains. The clouds were spectacular as well. It was spotty cloud coverage and I could see snow falling in the distance.

That’s all for now! I have got to finish unpacking and get to bed early because I’m super sleepy. This is probably the result of jet lag, a long 2 days, and a huge elevation change. The Yellowstone Lake area is almost at 8,000 feet elevation!