Hello Again!!
Welcome back to The Adventures of Alana! After spending Sunday working for hours to figure out how to summarize my week without sounding boring, I think I’ve been able to find a writing style and format that will make life a lot easier and can help me write these posts a lot faster. Also, if you haven’t already seen it, I uploaded my two week academic update to my page that goes into more detail about the type of work we’re doing out here. If you are interested to know exactly why I need to kill so many plants, that will have a more in-depth explanation. With that in mind, let’s get into Week #2!
Work Week
Our first day of this week started with some good ol’ manual labor using the pickaxes again. Today, the antagonists were the invasive musk thistle and houndstongue.
After a whole day of hacking away and yanking at the roots of these plants, I could still see the thistle every time I closed my eyes. (Seriously, it was a problem.)
The next days were devoted to the McBride Project, and our goal of this project was to remove invasive smooth brome from our project site to allow a bird called sage-grouse to safely practice their mating dance in a flat area.
For more information, I explain this project in more detail in my 6/2 Academic Update in the link below!
Since the field was wide open and meant for sage-grouse to mate naturally, there was no plumbing and no bathroom we could use, leaving us quite literally “without a pot to piss in.” Luckily, there was a designated pee tent that offered a small amount of privacy, if you could ignore the smell.😵💫 In addition to the interesting bathroom situation, in typical Alana fashion, I had to have my eyes flushed out for ten straight minutes by an NPS worker because my eye had something in it. When working with herbicide, that is definitely not something you can take lightly. While it was not the most pleasant experience in the world, the woman who was pumping the water for me was keeping things light with jokes. Which also caused me to get waterboarded a little when I opened my mouth to laugh, but it’s the thought that counts!
Later in the week, despite some weather issues, we were able to cover a lot of ground. Unfortunately for me, I also ended up covering a lot of ground when I tripped and fell over the sagebrush fields not once but twice with my herbicide backpack sprayer strapped to my back. I don’t know how I looked when I fell, but I can definitely say it felt like that one commercial where Taylor Swift is trips while running on a treadmill and face-plants. After I tripped the second time in front of one of my close friends, who helped me by doubling laughing, she confirmed that the T-Swift commercial was exactly what it looked like. Wonderful.
Despite the couple of spills and weather conditions, it was a very productive week for the ACE Crew!
Camp Life
After our day of using pickaxes, we used the remainder of the day to hike through the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve. Most of the group went ahead of us, but a few of us veered off the trail for a bit to identify different plant and tree species. So while all of the other crew members got to see a real life mama bear and her cubs, the five of us stayed behind and learned the difference between fir, pine, and spruce trees from their needles. So I must ask you, who do you think were the real winners here?
When we got back from the hike, I was finally able to put up my own hammock and make the triple hammock tree into a quad hammock tree with the other girls. I also made some delicious stir fry and kept busy with games such as Egyptian Rat Slap, hacky sack, and frisbee.
Off-Project Days
I hit a milestone on my first off-project day of this week: I went to a laundromat and washed my clothes! While not the most exciting milestone in the world, it still gave the crew time to relax and plan out the rest of our “regain our bearings” Friday. After a few hours of necessary shopping, however, I began to feel antsy and set out for a hike the moment we got back.
The next day was devoted maily to our 13 mile hike, but we were able to still have a fun girls’ night on the town with a dinner of chicken Thai fried rice at Thai Plate.
After our dinner out, we bought all the fixin’s for s’mores and roasted marshmallows around the campfire. Not for a long time, though, because that hike had me hitting my sleeping bag like a rock that night.
The next morning, I woke up to a new roommate that I called Melanie. Melanie is (what I hope was) a wolf spider that somehow got into my tent and thought she could live there without paying rent.🙄
I let her be for the time being since my day was mostly devoted to finishing last week’s newsletter anyway. That, and the fact that she disappeared immediately after I made this TikTok. After I spent several hours in a coffee shop getting work done, I returned to her crawling invasively through my laundry, so I decided she had to go. If you’re going to be my roommate, I expect a little more decorum! I used my dustpan to sweep her up and let her outside, so she could look somewhere else for a sublet.🕸️
To end the weekend, we had, yet again, another beautiful sunset over Gros Ventre that I had to fill my camera roll with.
Hike of the Week
I was feeling a bit adventurous and in need of a challenge this weekend, so I went on not one but two hikes. The weather was finally nice enough that I was able to wear a tank top and shorts for a majority of the time! The first was a Saturday hike around Jenny Lake to popular trail points such as Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. Though I am still confused about the name “Hidden Falls” (because the falls were far from being hidden), they were absolutely gorgeous!
At an elevation of 7,200 feet, Inspiration Point definitely lived up to its name; you could see the entirety of Jenny Lake just from that point! We took our break at Inspiration Point and had to fend off fat squirrels who learned they could swindle unsuspecting tourists out of their snacks. Remember: keep wildlife wild and don’t feed them! Developing a dependency on tourists for their source of food can endanger both the squirrels and the visitors. Not to mention how irritating they can be when they get greedy.🐿️
In addition to the fat, greedy squirrels, we also saw other wildlife such as a marmot that was sunning itself on a rock at the Point, and several moose that were minding their own business on the trail. Overall, the hike ended up being around 6 miles or so, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to visit Jenny Lake. I would put the trail at the moderate level of difficulty, and the trail takes you right along the lake and up some decent hills. The trail has excellent views at nearly every turn, and it is definitely a must visit when visiting the Tetons.
Like I said before, I was feeling a little more adventurous this week. So adventurous, in fact, that I thought it would be a fantastic idea to follow up a 6 mile hike with a 13 mile hike!😀 While the idea sounded daunting, I was so glad I did it because I had never done a hike that long before.
The elevation change was a lot more gradual than the hike from the weekend before thankfully, but we were still able to reach a pretty high height at the Phelps Lake Loop that started at the Granite Canyon Trailhead. After we made it about halfway, we stopped at the Phelps Lake Overlook to enjoy both lunch and the view.
Afterwards, we descended down to the beach and decided to forget about the 60 degree weather and take the plunge into the freezing cold water. After hiking for about 4 hours at that point, it was a perfect shock to the system that helped wake us up, and I even used the lake as an ice bath to reset my legs.
Out of all of the miles on that hike, the last two were the most difficult, with our legs and feet aching from the other 11 miles. The mountains were at our backs at that point, so the only view left we wanted to see was of the parking lot.😮💨 We were on the trail for about 7 hours, and my fitness app told me that I had walked 29,189 steps in that time🫠. After that long of dragging my feet through the dirt, we finally made it to the parking lot, where most of us looked and felt like our friend Maddie here below.
Overall, I really enjoyed this hike for the challenge, the views, and the opportunity to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather! One of the silver linings of sleeping on a thin sleeping pad is that my bed is not comfortable enough to sleep in late, so getting up and being active early in the day has been an excellent habit for me. I would say that even though the ascent of this hike isn’t too difficult, the length is more rigorous, and I would put this hike at the level between moderate and difficult. Also a bonus with warmer weather, Phelps Lake has several areas where you can go cliff jumping, which is why it will definitely be a spot we come back to!
End of the Week Thoughts
Before I even arrived at Grand Teton National Park, I wondered if I would ever get tired of the view and of waking up to mountains everyday. I am two weeks into this internship, and I still haven’t lost that awe or wonder. Every time we come up that hill from Jackson and see those beautiful, snow-capped peaks, we can’t help but fall in love with the place all over again. There have been many times where we just say to ourselves, “And we live/work here right now.” There are always new sunrises and sunsets to photograph, new cloud covers and clear skies to admire. It truly has not gotten old yet, and I hope it never will.
With love, Alana Terry🌱
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Between the waterboarding, two different falls, and a spider for a roommate, you had quite the challenging week, but luckily don’t seem to be any worse for the wear. And you had some fabulous experiences and hikes. Good to know that you are actually near civilization with restaurants and coffee shops. Love and keep up the good work! Vicki