The End

8/4/24

Opal-

By the time you read this, we’ll have made it back to Columbia. We didn’t tell anyone we were headed home because Oliver wanted to surprise Henry for his Birthday. We took around three days to get back not rushing our drive at all. We camped in Southern Wyoming one night at a classic RV park that had a free mini-golf course (17 of the worst mini-golf holes either of us had ever seen) and in northern Missouri the next. We stopped at the Kansas City Art Museum around noon on the third day and are now headed back on I-70. So, our summer in Yellowstone has come to a close.

Flashback to two weeks prior.

I was tired of my job, all day every day I would say “Hello, how many today? Alright, you can follow me, just watch your step on the stairs.” Over and over again. It was repetitive and unsatisfying. We also began to realize how little time we would have to transition from home to school when we got back if we left when our contracts ended. The combination of these two things weighed heavy, and then when Maggie’s flight got canceled and she couldn’t visit I had made up my mind.

Our original plan was to spend a few days backpacking in the park before we left, but then Oliver realized if we skipped the backpacking we would get home just in time for his brother’s birthday. Now we find ourselves an hour from home.

This summer was like an escape. I got away from all the stress, got to disconnect from the world, and just enjoy nature with Oliver. It was honestly perfect. What I’ll miss the most is being able to share that with him.

Oliver here, Opal is now driving so it’s going to be me now. Leaving has been bittersweet. I am leaving some really good friends, work I liked, and a place that has become my new home. On the other hand, I get to go back to a family that I haven’t seen in too long and a place that will always be home. I think it says something for Columbia that I can leave a summer as wonderful as this one and have mixed feelings about it.

When I started college, I got this unpleasant feeling that my childhood was over, and life was going to be more about work and less about fun. I think I was right in that I’ve transitioned into adulthood and work is inevitable, but I proved to myself that this stage of life can be just as fun as any other. I went from basically never having a job to working full-time and still had one of if not the best summers of my life. I was completely in the present except for about once a week I would think to myself: there is absolutely nowhere else on earth I would rather be.  

Tomato Soup Geyser

7/31/24

Opal-

Today after my second to last shift I visited a place a bit off the beaten path. A place rumored to have a hot spring the color of tomato soup. I had heard of it through a friend of a friend who said "It's not quite legal, but it's not quite illegal." I went with a few people from the restaurant, Morgan a server assistant, and her boyfriend. We drove, parked, and followed a stream that led to the hot springs. It was about a mile-long hike until we reached our first hot spring. This one wasn't red but it was a deep pristine blue. We began to find more blue springs, some deep, some bubbling. You could tell how untouched they were by tourists. Everything seemed more beautiful here than on the boardwalks. Eventually, we began to climb a hill, cutting through trees and branches until all of a sudden there it was. A spring the color of tomato soup. It didn't seem real and was very tempting to stick your finger in and lick it. We knew there were more pools so we headed on and came upon another red hot spring, this one larger, and more unrealistic. It was weird being out there in the woods coming upon something that didn't seem like it should exist in nature. It made me wonder what else there was out there.

Wolves for real

7/25-27/24

Oliver-

I’ve wanted to do electric peak ever since we got to Yellowstone and I am just now getting around to it. Most reviews of the hike recommend a 5:00am start or earlier so we needed to sleep near the trailhead. After weighing all options, the best one we could come up with was to backpack as little as possible down the trail that takes you to Electric and camp somewhere out of sight. It was up at five for me, and Opal, sorry, to make sure I had enough time to get to the summit. The main concern with time is not that you can't do it in a day but that you will get caught in an afternoon storm. Electric Peak is aptly named. It's known for frequent thunderstorms and no room to shelter from rain or lightning. The first person to summit the peak noticed halfway up that all of his hair was sticking up due to the electricity in the clouds around him. All of this was enough to motivate me to wake up early and after a cold bowl of oatmeal I headed down the trail in the dark eager and nervous.

Opal-

After Oliver had left on his trip to the summit I went back to sleep for around 30 minutes. Then I woke up, packed up, and unloaded in the car. I was going to head to the Mammoth Employee Dining Room for some breakfast when I realized it was prime time to see wolves in Lamar Valley. I immediately changed course and headed over to Lamar. It took me around 40 minutes to get there and I arrived around eight. One of the wolf dens is at Slough Creek so I pulled in there first. There were a lot of cars on one section of the road, so I headed that way parking on the side of the road. A car pulled in next to me and a woman and her dog got out. She said some greetings and asked me if I’d seen anything this morning yet. I told them I had just gotten here. Then someone near us overheard and said, “They’ve made a kill just up the road from here, a bison.” We both got in our cars again and drove up the road. When I pulled in, I could immediately see the dead bison on the tree line. The woman pulled up next to me and started setting up a spotting scope. She couldn’t find the carcass in the scope, so I helped her find it. We got to talking, she was in her sixties and found it awesome that I was working in the park. She and her husband had done some seasonal tourist work once upon a time ago she told me. Then someone said, “They’re out”. She flipped her scope to the other side of the road where the den was. Then let me look.

Finally, wolves! Four tiny black wolf pups were romping around in the grass up the hill. Eventually, one of the adults came out and started herding the young ones around. About 30 minutes later they all went back inside. Laurie (the woman I had met) and I continued our conversation for a while, she was a strong believer in conservation. Eventually, She mentioned she was from Oregon. I asked her “You wouldn’t happen to know the Opal Creek Area, would you? That’s what I’m named after.”

She replied “No way!” Apparently, she and her husband had been a huge part of advocating for its protection from logging. I told her that it was my parent’s favorite place in Oregon when they had lived there. She was very touched. I could tell it was a full-circle moment for her. We kept talking for a while until most of the cars had pulled away from the road. She lived in a solar off-grid trailer on some land, traveled a lot, and loved wolves. She was what I’d call a modern hippy. The conversation renewed some of my faith in older generations.

After I left, I drove back slower, taking my time, stopping at points of interest, and eventually made my way to pick Oliver up.

-Oliver

While unbeknownst to me, Opal was seeing something we had been looking for all summer I had reached the base of the mountain. Here I took my first break and ate a couple granola bars and a half bag of gummy bears. The next mile was grueling. 95% of the elevation is within this mile and this is where NPS stops maintaining a trail so it's just straight up. Parts got so steep that they were imposable on the loose gravel-like rocks, and I had to hop from one larger rock to another like crossing a stream. Eventually, I got above trees and then grass, and to the hardest part of the hike, the scramble. I read about the scramble online but didn’t really understand what that meant and largely ignored it. Now it was impossible to ignore and worse than I expected. Between me and the top was 800 meters of rock climbing on a thin ridge with fatal drops on both sides and while I don’t love heights my mom raised men, not boys, so I lost the trekking poles and started climbing. The climb took an hour or so and came in waves of difficulty. Every section looked impossible at first but then I would find a route and carefully make my way up. There were a few spots to sit and catch my breath and take in the gorgeous view. One of the last sections was thirty feet where the ridge got so narrow you couldn’t really walk on top of it. Here I had to let myself hang off the side, grab onto the rock, and shimmy along until it flattened out. This was bad but the end was worse. I couldn’t figure out any reasonable way to scale the last section of rock. There were only forty or so feet left but it was all vertical. After determining that it was going to be impossible, at least for me, to climb the face I was looking at I figured that I would have to climb horizontally to find a more reasonable section. I carefully started this task making sure to maintain three points of contact and not look down. Most of the places to put my foot were only big enough for about half of it and my heel dangled over open air. When I would accidently kick a rock loose it would bounce until I couldn’t hear it. Once I finally started moving up things didn’t get any better, my foot and hand holds kept getting smaller and my chest was fully pressed against the rock, the wind was significant, and I could feel myself start to panic. Here I made a business decision that I had come high enough, and my life was worth more than twenty feet of mountain. The climb down had none of the excitement of the way up and all of my energy was focused on getting off the mountain safely. Eventually, I did and was thankful for the flat walk back. Twenty miles all together in a little under eight hours. I met Opal in the car, took some Tylenol, and fell asleep.

That night we camped on a mountain overlooking Gardiner and the next day we went to Bozeman to do some shopping. Those were both great experiences but it's getting late and Opal has work in the morning so they’ll have to wait for another post.

   Electric Peak

    Opal's Adventures

Eruption

7/23/24

Opal-

Today Biscuit Basin, just up the road from Old Faithful, exploded. When I say that I mean debris in the air, people running for safety. We have yet to drive by. Let's hope we're not next.

Really good moose habitat

7/18/24 - 7/22/24

Opal-

This weekend my dad came to visit and we made him camp every single night he was here. (He was perfectly fine with this, his new sleeping pad is basically a mattress.) After work on Thursday, I headed to Bozeman to pick him up from the airport. We caught up on the beautiful drive through Montana back to Old Faithful where he got to see our cabin. We picked up Oliver and headed down to Lewis Lake Campground on the south side of the park. It was dark by the time we got there so we set up and went to sleep after a quick look at the stars. 

The next morning we got up early and headed to the Tetons. Now my goal for this trip was to spend time with my Dad of course, but more importantly to see a moose. So every time we passed what looked like  good moose habitat on the drive we would say "Oh that looks like good moose habitat." 

We stopped at Colter Bay and picked up backpacking permits for Trapper Lake and some food. Then we attempted to park at the trailhead but it was clear that it was much too busy. So we decided to come back around 2pm and drove around the park stopping at Death Canyon to hike for a while. The drive to Death Canyon was full of "really good moose habitat." At Death Canyon we hiked up to the Phelps Lake overlook and on the way saw a black bear scaling a pine tree. We stopped and watched it for a while and a small crowd gathered. A few of them were kids and after seeing the black mass up in the tree said "That's the worst bear ever." Personally, I disagree, I've never seen a bear climb a tree before and it did it with such skill and so easily. At the overlook, we stopped for a while and listened to people talk about the "3,000 feet" of elevation gain that it took to get down to the bottom of the lake. In reality, it was around 600. 

Unfortunately, this summer hasn't made me any more fond of people, and this hike was bringing out my dislike.

Anyway, we got to our trailhead eventually and started the hike. It was around 4 miles in 4 miles out, flat, and mostly followed Leigh Lake which has gorgeous clear water. We stopped a few times for the views and arrived at the campsite around four. It was tucked away in some rocks behind which sat Trapper Lake. A creek flowed into the lake dammed by a beaver den. So went went upstream of the dam to refill our water (No one wants beaver fever). We were all hot and sweaty and the flies had come out so we decided to go for a dip. The water was freezing. The kind of cold that physically takes your breath away and makes you tingle when you get out. But we all got in anyway and sat around the lake for a while. Then we set up our camp and made dinner. We kept checking the lake for moose as the sun sank because it was "really good moose habitat" but no moose appeared. We did, however, see a beaver. It swam back and forth trying to figure out what to do about the guests near its den, and eventually decided the best thing to do was slap its tail on the water and wait. So we let it be. 

The next morning we headed out around 8:30am. Leigh Lake was glassy and calm in the morning with the Tetons reflecting on its surface. We were nearing the parking lot when all of a sudden my dad said "BEAR!" Oliver and I had walked right past it. It was a small bear but it was close. Around 20 feet away. I was getting flashbacks to my past bear experience. But this one was clearly uninterested in us and simply went on digging through logs and bushes. We watched it head down the trail for a while.

We got back to the parking lot around 10:30 and swam in String Lake with the rest of the Teton Tourists. Something that I've noticed is if you get just off the beaten path you are completely alone around here. String Lake was not off the beaten path. After swimming, in much warmer water this time, we got lunch at Colter Bay and headed to Grant to pick up a Yellowstone backcountry permit. Here we encountered Nina, an older woman who was even more tired of tourists than I am. It took us around an hour to get our permit. Luckily we weren't in a rush. Then we drove up to Canyon. We had decided on a shorter hike due to time, and my dad's newly formed blisters. The first half a mile was on the canyon rim and had spectacular views. Then the trail turns down for about another mile and a half to Ribbon Lake. Ribbon Lake is "really good moose habitat" with mosquitoes. We immediately started a fire to get rid of them and put our raincoats on to keep them off our arms. Throughout dinner, we had to beat ourselves with willow sticks to stop the swarms. Other than that though Ribbon Lake is beautiful. Every few seconds we could hear trout jumping, this agonized Oliver who had not brought his rod to any of the lakes we had been to. A mistake he will not be making again any time soon.

The next day we headed back to Old Faithful, showered unpacked, and gave my dad a tour. He saw the Inn where we work, the boardwalk and the recreation center. We got some ice cream and attempted to see Grand Geyser go off but by the time it was an hour late from its prediction we were ready to leave. We did catch Old Faithful though.

Then Dad and I headed up to Mammoth Hot Springs where we camped for the night. We had a nice dinner at their dining room, watched the sunset, and some deer meander through the camp. During the night we heard elk bugling nearby. Very loudly I might add. Enough to keep us up for a good while.

In the morning I drove him to the airport, stopping in Gardiner for a good old food truck breakfast, and at Auto Zone for a back windshield wiper. It was a very nice weekend, although unfortunately in all the good moose habitats no moose were seen.

Thank you Dad for all the food, thoughts, and jokes.

Trout-Arroni

7/12/24

Well, here is another dinner recipe that includes Mac n’ Cheese. We may be a little obsessed with it, I don’t know.

Ingredients:

2 boxes of Mac n’ Cheese (It was highly debated whether to use one or two)

One trout large enough to produce two decent fillets

4 broccoli clumps

Half a green bell pepper

Half a red bell pepper

Garlic powder

Butter

Salt

Pepper

Instructions:

1)       Sear the trout in butter, pepper, and salt.

2)       Chop the broccoli and peppers and add them to the searing trout.

3)       Boil water for mac n’ cheese.

4)       Add the pasta and stir in cheese powder and butter.

5)       Chop the trout.

6)       Add the vegetables and trout to the mac n’ cheese and mix until spread evenly.

7)       Add garlic powder.

8)       Enjoy!

This dinner was probably the best we’ve had this summer. Other than the Mac n’ Cheese we didn’t have to pay for it either because we sourced ingredients from the employee dining hall and Cache Creek.

Cache Creek

7/13/24

Oliver- 

Like many backpacking trips, we got a late start on this one, we had a couple of errands to run and groceries to get and the trailhead was as far from Old Faithful as you can get in the park. So, we found ourselves hiking through the Lamar Valley, without a spec of shade, in the heat of the midafternoon, on an unusually hot day for the park. Not long after we started hiking, we were swarmed by biting flies which persuaded us to keep moving no matter what. Thankfully though this trip ended better than it began and after we got to the campsite, we found plenty of shade and the flies let up.

The campsite was a large flat area next to Cache Creek sprinkled with enough trees to provide full shade with little undergrowth. On the opposite side of the creek, the bank rose 50 or so feet straight up so the campsite felt tucked away. Despite our late start we got there with time in the afternoon to putz around and decided to explore down the creek where, according to our maps, it met the Lamar River. I had heard good things about fish in Cache Creek, especially during the summer, and brought my rod. Despite being unsuccessful at catching fish it was a nice walk and soon enough we found the Lamar which was not nearly as big as it was when we drove over it earlier in the day. We quickly found a nice area where the river was split in two and on the opposite side it pooled along a bluff, it was a perfect swimming spot. The water was cool, but it still felt nice to get in and wash off the sweat and grime of the trail. We swam for a while and then laid out on the rocks which were still hot from the heat of mid-day until Opal noticed some clouds that looked like rain. I was offering some optimism when they shut me up with a loud clap of thunder. This set us off packing up and trekking back to where we had left our packs because while we were already wet, we did not want our dinner and beds and everything else to be wet too. Now this is going to sound ridiculous at the moment but right as we were setting off I saw a fishing hole that looked optimistic, I told Opal “One cast” and on that cast, I caught the largest trout of the summer so far. Despite being thrilled about this it left us in a hard place because if we were going to eat it I had to clean it quickly, the thunder was getting louder, the wind was picking up and we had seen a flash of lightning. With little time to think about it, I chose to fillet it which I got done in a few minutes and we were set off once again at an even quicker pace. Now normally bear tracks don’t make me too concerned but the ones we ran in too did for two reasons. First, I was carrying two fresh trout fillets which probably smelled mighty good to any nearby bears. Secondly, the tracks we on top of the tracks we had made when we came out and going in the same direction we were. If we had had more time I would have stopped and given it more time to move on but pressed by the rain we took to hootin’ and keeping the bear spray, that we thankfully had, in hand. If you were hoping that we had to fight for our fish, I am sorry to say that you are going to be disappointed. It may have been the noise we were making, or it may have been long gone by the time we were getting back but either way, our attention was quickly turning back to the storm which hadn’t gotten any less intimidating in the meantime. Sure enough, it began to rain and Opal threw up the tent as I gathered everything I could and shoved it under the rainfly. While we waited for the rain to pass we read and soon enough it did and it was time for dinner. Dinner was another whole thing and because it is already looking like this post is going to be long, I will let Opal tell you about it in another post. There is a post about it up on Instagram now though.

We wanted to stay in the valley until dusk the next day, so we had a lot of time to kill. I came up with the idea that instead of taking the trail back we could hike along the Lamar River which, after a couple of miles, would take us to another trail we could take back to the car. The river flows through a significant canyon which is still fresh from the floods that happened in 2022, many boulders feel out of place and the bluff faces are very fresh-looking. Luckily the river is not at its peak at this time of the year and at any time one side has a significant gravel bar. The tricky part of navigating it though is that whatever side does not have a gravel bar is a sheer vertical canyon face that is impossible to navigate. Also, these sides change at every bend. When the gravel bar runs out you can either cross the river or find a way up the canyon rim and traverse it until the terrain allows you to descend back in again. And that is what did most of the day besides two stops. The first was at the fishing hole of my dreams where I caught 20ish trout ranging from small to the new largest trout of the summer. Opal fished a little too and pulled out a really nice rainbow in only a few casts, her new largest trout too. The second stop was for lunch, I caught a nice rainbow which I filleted and cooked with butter and some dried morels we found earlier in the summer while opal swam. Besides those two stops the hike was not particularly eventful but extraordinarily enjoyable. I have often wondered how the first explorers would have felt coming through the park and I got a taste of that navigating through the canyon, looking for shallow waters to cross or animal trails to give us clues on where we might be able to get up to the rim.

That evening we drove out of the park to get dinner in Cooke City and while we were unsuccessful at spotting wolves we did see some mountain goats, and a grizzly and caught a beautiful sunset from the pass over Mt. Washburn. For me, the trip was the clear highlight of the summer so far.