Talent Show

The past three days have been our 2nd Annual Astronomy Festival here at the park. To start things off Thursday night, we had a ranger talent show. It was very entertaining. A HUGE thanks to Nicole for giving me pictures since I am a totally inept photographer.

This is our superintendent, Andy Ferguson. He's pretty awesome. He recited the poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee". It's a personal favorite of mine.
Joseph played and sang a song about bats that he wrote and sings at his campfire program. It's a great song and Joseph's pretty talented. Joseph is in interp. with me.

The only non-ranger who participated was Matthew. His mom works in resource management. He sang the most adorable rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" I've ever heard. His mother was sitting next to me in the audience and she was so proud.

Brian played and sang a song I didn't know. He works in resource management and loves snakes.

Steve is another interp ranger that I work with and he played and sang "Follow the Drinking Gourd". He has the best laugh! We all got to join in on the chorus.

All entries had to be night/stars/moon related, even if it was loosely. I played "The Music of the Night" from "The Phantom of the Opera". It didn't go so well. As you can see, it's dark. I couldn't see the music, I couldn't see the keys, and it wasn't a full keyboard. People sang along so at least my mistakes weren't too noticeable. Tara, an interp ranger, turned pages for me. She also read a poem.

Wheeler is also interp and she sang a song by herself, then she and Joseph sang together. They sounded awesome.

Finally, Kelly, (interp again) closed the evening by reading a poem. He's in charge of this whole event and it's gone really well. Not only do I work in an awesome place, I get to work each day with some pretty spectacular people too.

My Office

Today was my day to rove/hike the alpine day use area around Wheeler Peak. I think I've mentioned at least once (maybe twice) that I work in an absolutely beautiful place. I hiked and talked to people I came across, gave them trail condition reports (plenty of snow but I didn't get lost today!) and just enjoyed being above ground. (Don't worry, I still love the cave.)

I hiked up to Stella Lake, then over to Teresa. It was beautiful!
There was a dead tree that had fallen right into Teresa Lake and I walked/wobbled my way out onto it to get this shot. I was glad I didn't fall in in uniform; that would have been really embarrassing and hard to explain why I was all wet to my supervisor when I got back to the visitor center. Behind me Wheeler Peak rises 13,063 feet but looking toward the valley, you have no idea the lake is located at over 10,000 feet!

10,230 feet to be exact.

I'm getting pretty good at finding a good branch on which to set my camera, setting my timer, and skittering like a big horn sheep over the talus before 10 seconds are up.My end goal today was the Bristlecone Pine grove. I made it! I got up to the grove about 12:30 and found a nice place to sit and eat my lunch. These trees are amazing! I'll get more photos of the grove and do a post simply on their age and perseverance.I hiked back to Stella with time to spare before I needed to head down to the trailhead parking lot and took some time to reflect and chat with other hikers in a nice mountain meadow by the lake. One visitor told me I had "beautiful blue eyes" and totally made my day. The shot below is takin' it all in at Stella. Every time I get out and explore, the more I want to share it with friends. If you can escape your office a few days in the next two months, I'd love to show you mine!

Stella Lake

I survived the 4th of July weekend! We were pretty swamped Friday to Sunday, and then slow on Monday. We all wondered if people thought we were open. Friday also marked the start of the full summer season schedule. I had my first campfire program Sunday night and have my first alpine trail rove and bristlecone pine grove talk coming up soon.

While getting paid to hike is the most awesome thing in the world, the past few days, rangers have come off the mountain saying there's way too much snow still and they spent most of their time rescuing lost hikers. There was also an incident with an injury caused by falling through slush. I was getting a bit nervous to go up there and decided to do a test run on my day off today.

The sky was rather suspect when I went up, but made the green colors look all the more beautiful.
Reports said Stella Lake was accessible. The road is only open to the Summit Trailhead at the moment, so I got up there, parked, and started my hike. It was beautiful and cool and smelled wonderful. It was a short hike, and although it was over 10,000ft, I was fine. I came up to Stella and it was beautiful!

I found a fallen log that was willing to snap a photo of me by the lake. I had lunch and just marveled. I also had my first encounter with a limber pine and it was so fun to play with those incredibly flexible branches.

I couldn't get over the colors! The aspen and the pine and the mountain meadow grass...all those different shades of green were absolutely beautiful. Add the snow, and the sun reflecting off it, or the dark rain clouds, it was nature at its finest!

Not wanting to take the same way down (I have a goal to hike every trail in the park by the end of the season) I headed toward the Wheeler Peak Campground. However, I soon found the trail to be covered in snow and lost it completely.

I followed the footprints of some other soul who I hoped knew where he or she was going. The snow was kind of slushy in some parts and I post-holed it a few times and thankfully didn't step in a stream or get a tree branch stuck in my leg.

I finally made it to the campground and was only a few yards from the actual trail. I decided I'd had enough and didn't want to try for the Bristlecone grove. Maybe by next week when I have to do it in uniform, there will be less of that white stuff.

And if you're tired of summer heat and need a break...any and all visitors welcome!