Look closely at the bottom of this image. There you will see a mountain sheep and her brand new baby. That ledge is about 100 feet above the ground. Mom apparently gave birth on the ledge and we all held our breath several times as the babe learned to use its legs…and came so close to the edge of the ledge that we could see the rocks tumble under its feet. What a choice. This location is certainly predator safe-no wolf in his right mind could possible get there…but the chance of gravity causing misfortune is also very high. We’re going back today to see if they made it through the night

So….here goes….Yellowstone is hard work—but it’s fascinating because of the people you meet every day….and, of course the environment is worth every once of effort.  We are both loving it here…and we finally got to see a moose–what very odd creatures…

but here’s the s*(&(cky part.

Many of you know that, before I left, I was having some back issues.  I’ve been seeing an orthopedic in Bozeman  (a 2.5 hour drive away).  Things got better for a little while, but have since gotten dramatically worse…..he says I need surgery (some cool microdisk thing)….so…I go up to Bozeman (again) for a surgical consult on Thursday–from there we have LOTS of decisions to make–to do it here, to fly home and then come back out?  Just don’t have any answers right now…

The good news about all of this is that, if the surgery goes as I’m hoping it will (that he recommends the outpatient procedure) I will be out of work for ~ 3 weeks–and Xanterra (the company I’m working for) will let me take up to 5 weeks of leave  (but I will have to move out of the dorm)–so, with a little bit of luck this will just be a temporary hiatus…not a permanent one…wish me luck!

• My words fail me…

• My photography fails me…

• Inexpressible song fills my heart…

• I am inadequate…

• I do not have the art to convey the incredible, multi-dimensional beauty of this place…

• Come….

Chief Joseph Highway, May 19, 2010

Additional photos from this place

..too little time.

I can’t believe we are starting our “weekend” tomorrow–and I haven’t begun to process the images from last weekend–here’s a quick glimpse of our trip through the Lamar Valley and out to Cooke City. We are going to repeat the trip tomorrow–with a few variations. There are rumors of a moose carcass up by West Yellowstone, that the wolf pack has been feeding on, then we are going to head out to Lamar again–but this time we are going to go out of the park, take the Chief Joseph highway down to Cody and then end up back in the park.  (additional bear pictures are on the flickr site..hopefully we’ll get a little closer to a bear sometime soon…Tower Roosevelt opened up and we’re hearing lots of reports of bears in that area)

Here are a few quick images from last week.

Yes, I’ve spent the last three days working as a GSA (that’s a guest services agent-for those of you who need a new acronym for your vocabulary)– 7-8 hours shifts a day and it’s a real change.

The Old Faithful Inn was built in 1903 by Richard Reimer, the father of “parkitecture”  (the art of designing buildings to match the natural surroundings).  The Inn has 3 different sections and we have to know more than 14 different rooms types.  The rooms vary from $99/night–with a bathroom down the hall; to a $600 suite that looks like it’s in a mid-grade holiday inn–but the environment makes it all worth while.

So, with that said, what do I do?  I check guests in and out of the hotel….and right now we’re running about 30% foreign visitors.  What have I done so far?  Hmmm…today I managed to neglect to check a woman out of her room–so housekeeping didn’t get it cleaned until 2; I managed to not type the decimal point in a charge bill and charged a guest $3,624.00 for two nights instead of $362.40 and managed to miscount my cash drawer (because of a faulty calculator) and initially thought I was $50 short.  None of these seem like crisis–but, in this management structure–you don’t get a lot of mistakes….and right now I feel like a complete idiot.  The computer system is is copyrighted 1984 (an ominous date) and the idea of help menus are non-existent.  You MUST call a senior manager (someone who’s probably about 25) if there is any unusual circumstance at all; you are not allowed to problem solve and knowledge of how to fix common issues is reserved for seniors.

All the FLSA training makes sense–heaven help you if you clock in after only a 29 minute lunch..and you can’t clock in more than 5 minutes before your shift starts.

With all this said–the people make it all a wonderful adventure..but they are an extremely divergent crew.  One of my fellow GSAs referred to us as characters in The Island of Dr. Moreau–but I prefer to think of it as America in microcosm.  Who are the players?  A petite english major with a tendency towards goth and a penchant for anime; a bumbly nice kid from the southwest; two divorced women; one older, one younger; both looking for new directions in their lives; a wanabe author who has all the makings of becoming the Erma Bombeck of Yellowstone (I laugh whenever I read her blog); a mid-40 gentleman from a gambling town; a Floridian who experienced his first real snow-fall; and a few other assorted characters to fill in the gaps.  Somehow this motley crew is becoming a team; supporting each other when they make mistakes; buffering us from angry guests who are missing shower curtains (how do you not notice that until the morning you’re checking out?) and, in general, planning ways to make the long hours behind the desk go shorter.

The managers work really hard to insure that everyone had 2 days in a row off (“your weekend”) and usually the day before your weekend is an early shift so you are off by 2:30 and the day following your weekend is a late shift..so you can recuperate from whatever adventure you had.

We have our first weekend starting on Wednesday–so we’ll see how it works–but it’s being preceded by a night shift–I get off at 10:45 this evening!

The post office here is now open, and my amazon order arrived.  I’m barely two chapters into Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone and already know that learning as much as I can about the wolves here will be part of my summer.  Their life style and their impact on the ecosystem is amazing.

“To return the animal that was for thousands of years top predator of the Yellowstone landscape is to change nearly everything about the place….many of the park’s elk herds, for example–the primary prey species for these wolves–now face an additional risk of predation.  As a result, in some places, these elk have changed their behavior–moving away from certain feeding areas along park streams and rivers that have poor visibility.  Preliminary research suggests that such movements are allowing willow, cottonwood shoots and other vegatation to be “released” flourishing where they haven’t for decades.  With the return of such plants have come beaver, and , with the construction of beaver dams, a loose toss of back channels and still ponds perfect for muskrat, amphibians, fish, waterfowl and even songbirds like yellow and Wilson’s warblers.”

You come face to face with the idea that there are always unforeseen consequences, and benefits, to any action.  The fires, of course, are the other “big thing” that’s happened here….but more to come about that.

That paragraph made we think of this quote, which hung on my office desk for the past year and now hangs on my refrigerator at home

“When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days of the friends and colleagues I left behind;  I hope they find their open doors in the days ahead.

I spent some time this evening with the geyser basin all to myself. I couldn’t help but imagine what it might have been like to stumble upon it unexpectedly. It’s easy to understand how people “back east” didn’t believe the reports coming out of the west. (You can also see the inspiration for many a Star Trek episode). http://qik.com/m/v/6519648
Watching Old Faithful go with no one else around is a rare priviledge.
Tomorrow the Inn opens and I will start checking in guests. There’s a very long post being composed by my brain about how all of that’s going…it’s very odd and very revealing at the same time.

This afternoon I left Mammoth for my permanent home at the Old Faithful Inn.  We decided to take one last trip up to Silver Lake Flats.  Wolves from the Canyon Pack had been seen frequently in the area…but I hadn’t had any luck.  Later on I want to write a lot about the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone; both the successes and challenges–but I couldn’t wait to post this event.

We got there at the very end of a National Geographic story…a herd of bison were in the field,  gathered around a new-born.  Initially the newborn didn’t seem to understand that it needed to stay in between the ‘big guys’ and stay very close to it’s mother…so a quick prod from a rather large horn put it in it’s place.  The wolves tried three times to separate the baby bison from the herd–with no success.  The white wolf was a quite thoroughly butted by a bison.  The wolves  finally gave up and collapsed in the field as the bison crossed the road and moved quickly out of the area.

That’s when we came upon the scene.  We were told the story by several of the videographers on the side of the road  (almost every photographer in Yellowstone LOVES sharing their triumphs.)   Just seeing these marvelous animals put me on a high that lasted for hours.  I was so excited I could hardly keep my camera still.  At one point the female was less than 40 feet away…

More of the pictures can be seen on my Flickr site; just click.

Yes, I went out shooting tonight with a few of my new friends (we got a few bison, a northern flickr and watched an eagle soar)…and, once again, feel like I’m a babe in the woods.  We were talking about medical issues–and the altitude here can greatly aggravate existing conditions.  While we are charged $15/month for some very basic medical coverage it does NOT cover any diagnostic testing at all.  One of my friends needed to have some blood work and other tests done. The bill was right about $300.  The bottom line reality for him is that, if he has to have any more testing done, he will have to quit the job here and return home, where he will have VA medical coverage.

Having to make those kinds of choices is an obscene situation.  I take my medical coverage or granted.  I never have to put off anything because of the potential cost.  I am SO lucky.  Stories like this make it clear that something MUST change with the US health care system.  The current proposal may not be perfect but at least it’s a start…hopefully to a time when no one will be forced with these intolerable situations.