One Year Away from 1/4th of a Century

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

I've been working in Lightroom for the past few days. I'm far from an expert, but this is what I've come up with. I worked on a couple of photos to see if I could "bring back the color" and make it a little more vibrant. This is probably rookie stuff for all of you photo editors out there, but hey, I do what I can.

Other than working on the photos as of late, I've been doing a bit more running in the Grant area, which is nice with the roads and stuff. I did a little trespassing work and went down a service road that is only for the National Park Service, but it was a nice little incline and added some good time and distance onto the run. I'm hoping this running at 7,700 feet will pay off at some point!

I drove down to Old Faithful tonight to retrieve my birthday gifts that were so graciously sent by my family members. Thank you all. It is much appreciated. Mom and Dad, I've already began looking for an appointment to install the stereo so I can ride out from Yellowstone in style. This leads me to my next topic -- many of you have asked where I will be riding out to. That, I do not know. I would imagine I'll land back in Kansas for at least a few days/weeks. I would enjoy relocating to Bozeman for a little while as well. I think it would be great to experience the spring and summer up here. Anyway, I still have about a week and a half to figure that out. That's plenty of time, ain't it?

Back to the birthday goods. Grandma Linda, thanks for the book. It's mighty slow down here at Grant Village, so I will have some literature to keep me occupied. Bill Bryson is actually quite popular up here amongst my co-workers, which is kind of cool. I believe when I arrived in Canyon there were a few of us all reading a Bryson book. Susan, the lens filters are magical. This may make my pictures stop sucking. I'll work on getting some posted to see what kind of magic can be worked. Grandma, the cookies must have a little Kansas dust in them because I've already eaten half of the box you sent. Did I mention I also gained 8.3 pounds tonight? Oops.

What else? Paula, I'm still waiting. Don't you rush one bit. Also, tell Joe I'm sorry I didn't make the trek down south to Salt Lake City while he is there. The vibe needs to rest up for a journey to Billings, Montana tomorrow. I'm headed to a Tech N9ne concert as soon as I'm off work. It should be great to have a little bit of KC flavor in Big Sky country.

Jake, I've received a copy of NCAA Football 11. Don't practice too much, or else playing online won't be fun at all when I return to the world of high speed internet and flat screen, high-definition televisions. I appreciate your sportsmanship.

Oh yes, Sarah, I enjoyed the novel. I'm glad mom will cook any meal I desire upon my return. I will think of a glorious concoction that I can treat myself, as well as my siblings to. Noah, I have to be honest, I have no clue what I'm going to do with a zip lock bag full of coloring supplies. When I figure something out, you'll be the first to know! I am glad you were thinking of me and my artistic talents!

Alright, I really must head back to Grant so I am able to awaken from my deep slumber that now takes over my body at the ripe old age of 24. I will also then need to get my sweet Air Jordan's properly prepped in order to represent Kansas the right way when there is an insane amount of rap music taking over Billings, Montana tomorrow evening.

Until next time...

Death Canyon and Static Peak Divide

Top of Static Peak Pass (10, 790 feet)

Phelps Lake (7200 feet)


Static Peak Divide (if you couldn't read that)

Luke looking at some sort of fire. I still haven't figured out if it's a forest fire or something else...
Overlooking Phelps Lake

Autumn, have you arrived?

Death Canyon

Yesterday I had the day off and decided to go down to the Tetons to do some hiking. I don't know a lot of hikes down there, so I asked around the workplace and found that Death Canyon was supposed to be a pretty tough one. Needless to say, that's what I did. Luke, a co-worker from Canyon, also had the day off, so he met me down here at Grant early in the morning. We drove down to find Death Canyon not knowing much about it, other than we could hit up Static Peak Divide once we reached the ranger station located at the end of the Death Canyon trail. Were we rather under prepared as far looking at a map is concerned? Yes. But, we figured we could stay on the trail, and as long as we got back to the car by dark, we'd be a-ok. We were (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this...).

It is a 3.7 mile hike to the end of the Death Canyon trail, and then 3.7 back, obviously. I'd heard this hike was quite strenous, as I mentioned above, but I was surprised with the difficulty. It definitely wasn't a strenuous hike as all the websites I'd seen had ranked it. You start with a nice view over Phelps Lake before you head down into the Canyon to start coming back out. My photos probably do a poor job at portraying the beauty of the color changes of the trees and plants on the sides of the trails, but I did my best.

We reached the ranger station in 1 hour and 23 minutes, which was decent time, I thought. We figured we'd hike hard, to make sure we could at least attempt to get to Static Peak. Since we ended up not starting until 11:45am, we didn't know if we'd have enough time to make it that far. We packed our headlamps just in case it was after dark on the way back down. The ranger station had a sign next to it that said the divide was only 4 miles away, so we were feeling good about our chances to make it. What we didn't know was that it was 4 miles up hill, the entire way. Nothing like a little challenge, right?

It was a nice workout to get up the side of the mountain, and very challenging to say the least. We kept a decent pace for most of the way up. Once we had reached tree line it was getting a little tough to stay focused on getting to the pass because it felt like it was going on forever (kind of like my run-on sentences. Sorry to all the teachers in the family for that one!). At one point, right after realizing we were past the tree line, we stopped to overlook Phelps Lake again, and we were actually higher than the planes that were flying into the Jackson, Wyoming airport. We could see all of them below us flying in to land on the runway. That was a neat view.

Long story short, we made it to Static Peak Divide in just over 3 hours and made it back down in 2 hours and 45 minutes. The trail guides had said it would be a 10 hour hike, so we definitely made good time. It ended up being about 17.4 miles round trip because we parked 1 mile away from the actual trailhead. So, that comes out to just under 20 minutes per mile. Not bad considering most of the trail wasn't even on flat ground. I'd like to go back again and get to the stop of Static Peak which is over 11,000 feet. I think that'd be a great view from the top. The strenous rating I would say applied much more to the Static Peak Divide than the Death Canyon. The views and experience were definitley worth the struggle to get up the mountian/canyon.

Sorry this is a bit of short description of a great day of hiking, but as I've preached all season, the internet here is shaky, so I want to get this posted before something happens and I have to wait another week!

On a side note: I have to say, it seems like the Chiefs did well last week, but now they're trailing Cleveland at half time. They better get this figured out, because when I get back to having cable, I need to at least be in good spirits while watching them.

KU? Well, I don't think I'm going to talk about them. I do have a joke though!

Question: How many batteries does it take to beat KU's football team?

Answer: 1 double A. (A little crack at the loss to North Dakota State... and you might as well

throw Southern Miss into that mix as well...)

On another side note: The beard is making a comeback. Since my move down here to Grant the managers are less strict apparently on enforcing the "no beard rule". Thanks to the managers that I'll only know for two weeks, you have allowed me to continue to scare the ladies off with my mountain man apperance. I do appreciate it!

Until next time...

Welcome to Grant Village

Not much to post about today, but I'm going to post a few photos of my current living situation here at Grant Village. For those of you who aren't aware, I was told a week or so ago that I'd be leaving Canyon Village and finishing my contract (October 3rd) at the southernmost junction of Yellowstone in Grant. It seems alright so far. From what I hear it's very laid back for a combination of reasons. Here there are only about 300 rooms, where as Canyon had over 500 so the foot traffic is cut down from that alone. Also, the employee living quarters are well removed from the way the guests travel. The layout of the area is very spread out compared to Canyon, so it will take a little longer than two minutes to walk to work like I did at Canyon. Another reason it's much slower down here is just because it's not a central location. Being at Canyon, you are passed by all of the folks going around the upper loop, or even all the way around the park. Here at Grant, you'll only be passed by people who make an effort to come in to the area, even if they use the south entrance. You have to turn off of the main road in order to actually see anything.


My manager up at Canyon was down here last year and from what I've gathered it's 100 percent enjoyable. They have constructed boardwalks from the dorms/cabins for employees that go directly through the woods, so seeing elk and such on the way to work is not uncommon. We are only about half a mile from the lake, which is kind of neat. And as I mentioned above, the fact that we're so spread out makes it so guests aren't constantly around.

I'll be posting pictures of the cabin I've been assigned to, which they're actually trying to close. They were trying to put me in the actual dorm that is next door, but they're packed for the next few days while people leave as their contracts expire. Let me just say that the dorms here are luxurious compared to Canyon. Plenty of space, your own bathroom, own sink, two very large closets, no bunk beds, a wide open area on the floor to do your yoga, somersaults or pushups... It goes on and on. Anyway, they're wanting to close the cabins so they can shut off the water and all that before it gets too cold out here. The temps drop below freezing just about everynight, so I can see why they're in a rush, especially with these quality cabins they have provided! I know a girl through a couple of friends from up at Canyon and she also works at the front desk and she's leaving on Thursday. I've already created a plan to sneak into her room pretty much the instant she checks out so I'll get into the dorm. It's not really a huge deal, as I can easily survive in this rustic cabin, but if they're going to make me move, I might as well get in there sooner rather than later so I don't have to live out of my bags for the next 7-10 days.


They have an outdoor basketball court here. So beware, I'll be practicing my long ranger jumper to hopefully become a force in whatever pickup basketball game I decide to participate in. They've got an elliptical machine, I have yet to spot a treadmill, yet I haven't investigated fully. The running seems like it will be much easier around these parts because there are plenty of roads going around the village with limited traffic, so that's kind of exciting. I haven't done much running at all, so hopefully I can whip myself into shape here in the next couple of weeks and take advantage of the fact that I'm living at 7,700+ feet. That will make me a tough whippersnapper to beat come races down at elevation... if I can find some the weekend I come home. Alright, well, I think that's about all I've got to write home about. So, until next time...

Winter Wonderland

I haven't had any outrageous demands for blog updates, therefore I scaled back for a few days. Actually, that's not the case at all. I had some issues with my photos, and have been having trouble getting them onto the computer and in the correct format to post them here for you, my lovely followers. I apologize for that.


What has been going on? Well, I'll try to recall what all I've done that is noteworthy. I finally took a visit down to Grand Teton National Park. It was glorious. The only drawback was the fact that it was raining almost the entire time I was there. Welcome to late August/early September in the mountains, I guess. I was able to get a few photos, but it is a bit of a bummer because I wasn't able to see the actual peaks of many mountains due to the low cloud cover. I did one very short hike. I hiked Taggart Lake which is located in the southern portion of the park, and it was only about 3.5-4 miles round-trip. It did provide a spectacular view. I do have photos of the lake, but unfortunately they have fallen victim to my image transferring troubles. I promise, once I figure out that situation, you will see them!

A few days ago I was up in Bozeman and experienced the Bozeman Farmer's Market. That was a good time. I ran in to a guy I work with at the Market and he was up there trying to "hustle" his photos. He takes great shots and they really portray this area of the country well. I'll link to his page when I can find it... It seems like you can't go too long around here without a trip into town, being that things are a bit more expensive in the park it just makes sense (or cent$?) to go outside of the park to gather new things. Bozeman is usually the city of choice because it's the quickest drive. Cody is closer in terms of mileage, but the time it takes to get there is much longer.

Two days ago I hiked Little Gibbon Falls. It was a very short hike out to a 25 foot waterfall. I stopped to take a few photos of the Falls, and continued on the trail behind it which leads to Ice Lake, Grebe Lake and even Cascade Lake. I was a bit strapped for time, so I stopped at the junction and decided to come back after a short rest.

Last night it began getting very chilly, and the forecast was saying rain and/or snow. I woke up this morning to probably an inch of snow on the ground. Not a lot, but enough to make the trees look great. I headed out to snap some photos, but Dunraven Pass was closed. Dunraven Pass is the road from Canyon Village up to Tower-Roosevelt, which is the next junction north. It is a stretch of 19 miles that takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 hour to drive. The road has a lot of turns and curves and spinny-type action that make you have to be a cautious driver. It passes Mount Washburn and travels above Amphitheater Valley where many different types of wildlife can be seen. It's probably one of my favorite drives in the park. I headed out to a different trailhead than I usually take for Cascade Lake and took some pictures there. I hiked a little ways in, but I hadn't packed gloves, so my phalanges were a bit chilled and I decided to head back to the Pontiac Vibe for warmth.

I have yet to mention that it is now rut season for the elk in the park. Many of the bull elks have "claimed" their females for the rut season, so while driving around the park you will see a male with up to 20 females nearby which he will mate with throughout the season, which ensures that he will pass his genes on to another generation. This is different than the bison rut where each male pairs up with a single female to pro-create. Just some differences that are noticed throughout the park when it comes to the mating of the many types of animals that live here.

Anyway, I've posted some pictures from the snowfall last night. I also attached two pictures from Little Gibbon Falls. The one with me balancing my way across the log is just past the Falls. I set my self timer on the 'ol Nikon and scampered my way to the log about 15-20 feet away and jumped on hoping I made it in time for the snap of the photo. I did. My arms were out because I was about to fall off, but don't worry, I caught myself. I may not be able to hear with my ears, but at least they can still keep me upright!