I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I swear it's only partly because I've been lazy about it. The internet here at Canyon has been intermittently intermittent. That is, most of the time the internet just doesn't work at all - some problem with the router. But even when we "have internet," it cuts out so frequently that browsing the internet is frustrating at best.

That being said - I'm happy to be back 'home' for the summer. Here's what it looks like:
That picture was taken out at Cascade Lake - a tiny lake (currently frozen over) that's about two miles from our location. Cedar, Ana, and I snowshoed out to the lake in hopes of spotting some wildlife. The bears around here are just waking up, but unfortunately, we saw nothing aside from lots of scattered footprints in the snow from all sorts of creatures - wolf, bear, and coyote most notably.

A couple weeks ago, I attempted to snowhoe up to Pine Creek Lake, which is 45 minutes or so north of the park. Jamie and I hiked probably three out of the five miles up the ridge, which consists of icy switchbacks with occasional water crossings, before deciding to turn back for the trailhead. We did manage to see Pine Creek Falls, which were beautiful, and got some amazing views of mountains and the valley, 3,000 feet below.

Back at Mammoth (where Nadia is at the moment) I hiked around a bit with a few other friends of mine - Nick and Lisa. I finally managed to find my way to Beaver Ponds on the fifth attempt at getting there. I was apparently doing the loop in the wrong direction when I tried before, so the trail was much easier to follow this time around. We postholed a bit on the way, but nothing unmanageable (unlike our attempt at the Black Canyon). However, the real downfall of hiking early-season are the crowds.

All of the tourists in the park that want to get out and hike are shuttled into one of two trails at the moment: Lava Creek, or Beaver Ponds. The more popular of the two is definitely Beaver Ponds, and on the 6-mile trail we must have seen 20 people. Nothing ruins my hiking experience like some bozo clapping his hands and yelling "HEY BEAR!" repeatedly. In the silence of the wilderness, it is not uncommon to hear these people for 10 minutes before you even run into them, as their yells echo off hills for miles. Of course, whenever you hear this trademark, you can be sure the first thing they'll say to you (shouted from across a field perhaps, since when this happens I normally go out of my way to bushwack out of talking distance and go around them) is "Seen any bears back there???"

Perhaps I'm bitter because I scarcely run into any sort of wildlife while I'm on the trail. But every time I get asked this question I want to say "nope - and I sure as hell am a lot LESS likely to see them now that you've been tromping through the woods." But this is the price I pay (as do all employees) for working at Yellowstone - truly a park "for the enjoyment of the people."

Nick and Lisa at Beaver Ponds, which coincidentally have no beavers:


Sorry if this read like a summary - it was either summarize all of the trips or leave some of them out (which I did leave out a couple hikes, actually: Lava Creek with Nadia and Christine, and the Yellowstone River Picnic Area Loop which I hiked with Nick.) I'm going to try to be better about updating this thing now that our internet is a bit more consistent. However, I'm just about snowshoed-out, which means that I either need to travel 30+ miles to go hike, or suck it up and live with cold feet.

On the agenda: Mt. Washburn in snowshoes, and Seven Mile Hole Trail (but hell if I'm going down into the canyon - I'm just going to go walk along the rim).