Week 7-8: Bouldering & Body-sledding
Update on all that went on during weeks 7 and 8 of my internship.
Hello Again!!
Welcome back to another two weeks of working at Grand Teton National Park. I am a bit behind as a trip to Glacier National Park this weekend took me almost completely off the grid for three days straight! As my 10th week comes to a close, I hope to be able to get a start on the newest update this weekend. Without further ado, enjoy this week’s update!
Work Week
We have officially began to transition to seed collecting this week! In other words, instead of killing plants, we are hoping to save seeds to grow them. In weeks 7-8, we worked at Mormon Row, Colter Bay, Spread Creek, Deadman’s Bar, and Elbow West. All were beautiful areas, but the Elbow West experience was one of the most unpleasant with the sheer volume of mosquitoes and biting flies that flew in and around us at all times.🫥
With my luck, the bugs seemed to specifically hone in on my face, flying by ears, into my nose and mouth, and dive-bombing my eyes. I even ended up with two flies stuck in my snack bag by the end of our not-so-enjoyable break time! In the end, I opted for a Wild West criminal look that helped me keep my sanity.
We also got to try trail maintenance for the first time! We went to Two Oceans Lake and hiked about 2.5 miles in to help expand the width of the trail to help those with accessibility needs to be able to maneuver throughout the trail easier. While trail work was hard work, I absolutely loved it! Also, being able to add trail maintenance work to the resume won’t look too bad either…
On one of the days, we were invited to an NPS staff wide Safety Day, where we learned about radio, risk management, extinguishing fires, mountain safety, how to change a tire, and other cool skills and safety tips. My favorite was the distracted driving station because we helped create and spray paint the different park animals that drivers may encounter when driving on the road at night. Apparently, bison do not reflect light at all, so always be careful when driving through the parks at night!
Camp Life
Life around camp has definitely been busy but also so much fun. We’re still doing a lot of fun group outings on Thursday nights when the work day is officially done, and we have to start the weekend off with a bang. The 4th of July was one of those Thursday nights. As I may have joked before, our crew has become something of “groupies” to a local Jackson Hole band called Strumbucket. We have been to their shows all around the Jackson area and even caught a show in Idaho when we hiked Alaska Basin. The 4th of July Fest in Teton Village was especially fun with Strumbucket opening followed by another amazing band called The Nth Power. In some very strange chain of events, we ended up taking all of our shoes off and putting them in a pile on the dance floor, which made other random celebrators put their shoes in the giant pile as well. 👟👡🥾
It was a memorable, fun night full of dancing, great music, and fireworks to end the night. 🎆
Off-Project Days
Aside from the Alaska Basin Hike, we spent a day in Yellowstone for one of our off days! I hadn’t been back to Yellowstone in 5 years, so I was excited to revisit some of my favorite sites and explore new ones. We went to the Grand Prismatic Overlook, which was just as beautiful and vibrant as I remembered.
As we continued our hike on to Fairy Falls, I was happy to see that there was so much greenery on the trails! Back when we first hiked Fairy Falls in 2019, the Yellowstone area was still recovering from the 2016 Berry Fire that burned and destroyed a lot of vegetation in the area. At that time, the landscape was still charred, but I was excited to see that new life has sprouted where destruction once was.🌱 The Falls itself was beautiful as well with its clear, cold waters. We enjoyed a quick lunch at the edge of the waterfall lake before we moved on.
Afterwards, we did a secret hike to Gibbon Falls for the first time and was able to swim and walk under the Falls as tourists at the overlook looked on in confusion. With the heat that has been ramping up in the park, the cold water has been so, so refreshing. It was the perfect day to end a chill and nostalgic day in Yellowstone.🌊🌋
I’ve also gotten a lot more into rock climbing by going with friends to the Teton County Rec Center. I have especially enjoyed bouldering and how much strategy goes into each change in hold. Also, the falling has been fun as well.😂 After this summer, I am hoping to make that more of hobby or exercise since I won’t be playing basketball competitively anymore.
Hike of the Week
I will be honest and say that I took a break from hiking last weekend. I know, I know, so boring of me. However, the alternative to taking a break and relaxing this weekend was going on the Triple Crown hike, which is a nearly 30 mile hike of summiting three different mountains and conquering 8,000 feet of elevation in a single day. Knowing that I would definitely be feeling it for the entire week next week, I decided I’d chill for the weekend. That being said, I am able to talk about the amazing 18 mile hike I went on the weekend before! This one was called Alaska Basin, which took place in Alta, Wyoming and was on the other side of the Teton Mountain Range. We arrived at our dispersed campsite the night before and set up our sleeping bags to be able to cowboy camp (sleep without tents) under the stars.
After a night under the stars, we were set to hike the Alaska Basin trail!
The beginning of the hike was easy enough with beautiful views of the valley and native wildflowers surrounding us. However, once we reached the fork in the road and chose the path of most resistance, that was when the hard part started. The section of the trail we ascended was called the Devil’s Staircase. Which was a very appropriate name.🫠 Luckily, after a mile of hiking uphill, we were gifted a mostly flat terrain. This terrain also happened to be covered in over a foot of snow.
In fact, the snow was so intense that the Sheep Steps, a mile marker within the hike, was completely covered in a hill of snow. Since walking was not an option and momentum was taking us downwards anyways, we decided to throw our hopes of a perfect hike to the wind and body sled our way down the hill.
We had a lot of fun the first time, so we did it for another hill on the way down the slope.
After these snow hills, we had to cross a four foot deep creek by jumping across, since there was no bridge for easy access and the water current was pretty fast. I vastly overestimated my ability to jump across the wide creek while wearing a full daypack and payed the price when I got splashed all over the front of myself. Cody graciously took the below photo of me after the fact.
As if our boots couldn’t get more wet from the snow, the deep creek, and the other creeks that hid beneath the layers, we also had to cross some of the rushing waterfalls that cascaded down through the basin.
So with wet shoes and exhausted legs, I was able to make it through the last couple of miles of the hike through spite alone. The view on the way back was beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but after 18 miles of hills and snows, the end was the only sight I wanted to see.😪
In conclusion, this was one of the most miserable yet fun hikes I’ve ever been on. It was necessary for us to roll with the punches and take every bump in the road (or 4 foot deep creek cutting straight through the trail!) as part of the fun. I would love to try this again in the future when the snow is melted to see just how different of a hike it could be!
End of the Week Thoughts
One of the best parts about this summer has been getting really close to all the girls here. All of us are crazy enough to be out here, and we all understand the girl struggles from being one of the few women in your science class to starting your period in the backcountry without access to restrooms.😵💫 Being able to have a strong support system of women during this unconventional internship has been such a blessing. I’ve loved our all-girl hikes, car rides with Olivia Rodrigo blasting on the stereo, lake days on the paddle board, getting made up on the car ride to a night on the town, and being able to speak our mind in girl talk without the others judging us for our thoughts or opinions. While the guys here have been amazing as well, it has truly been a privilege to be around so many strong, authentic women. As we continue to develop skills and have experiences that will help us in our future environmental fields, I also hope that we will be able to continue to develop friendships and have memories to last a lifetime.💚
With love, Alana Terry🌱
Two more really memorable weeks, Alana. And you were at Glacier? Michael, Danny, and I were at Glacier from July 21-27! Where were you? It’s such a huge park, and we were all over it, so not much chance we could run into each other. Very interesting that you got involved in trail maintenance. The three of us commented many times on the excellent trail maintenance during our hikes in Glacier. You are obviously doing some crazy hard hikes! I am super impressed.
I love that you went to Yellowstone. I think I told you that I worked there the summer after my freshman year in college, and I loved it. It’s another special place.
You are forming such strong bonds with the other girls. That has to be one of the most special benefits of this summer. I bet you will be friends for life.
Keep up the great work!
Love, Vicki