Hello Friends,If I don't tell y'all about last Tuesday I would be cheating you out of possibly one of the craziest days I have ever had at the park. Now as usual I was on Campground/Bear Patrol duty last Tuesday. And this is how the morning goes... I wake up to a phone call from a coworker, telling me that the back country patrol ranger has left a bunch of his stuff up here and needs it asap. So I had to gather all of his things, my campground supplies, and my bear patrol equipment and travel 16 miles into the valley to drop off his equipment (not a big feat in the city but out here that is a 30 minute job at least) I then had to turn around and head back to the first campground and collect the fees. As I'm doing this a car rolls over in the valley. I'm not called out to this but most of the LE and General Rangers are, so I head to the next campground. As I'm finishing, some of the Rangers are leaving the rollover and heading back to the station when we get a call about a medical on the other side of the district. So everyone heads that way. By the time I make it to the central ranger station for the district there is one LE Ranger and me and that's about it. We get a call out about a bear jam so we roll to that and clear it up pretty easily and then I finish my campground rounds and head back to the station. (Background)-For the rollover we had to call out the fire engine, which now had to be cleaned. For the medical we had to send the ambulance which then transferred the patient to the Mammoth district ambulance who transported the patient to the closest hospital, Livingston, so that ambulance is gone for sometime. As soon as I make it back to the station, we get a call from dispatch asking for assistant in the Mammoth area with reports of a person being struck by lightning. So they send out the ambulance with Rangers clearing the way. Meanwhile on the North side of the junction a bear has been paralleling the road for nearly two hours (nightmare in the eyes of us on patrol) and the bear is heading straight for the station. At the same time a bear is spotted behind the Roosevelt Lodge which is south of the station. So now we have 3 Rangers 2 vehicles heading to Mammoth; 2 Rangers hazing the bear at the lodge; and 4 Rangers trying to handle the bear heading toward the station. And low and behold, ANOTHER bear shows up just down the road at the Yellowstone River Bridge. This is now where I am dispatched to, but before I ever get a chance to see the bear, the storm that was in Mammoth is now on top of us. Lightning strikes the hill directly behind me. It is time to get these people out of here, so just as I yell to everyone to get back in their vehicles, the HAIL comes. Don't know if anyone has ever been stuck outside in a hail storm but it is NOT fun. I'm roughly 100 yards from my truck and I'm not making it back anytime soon, so for about four minutes I just took the hail, and I mean seriously, this stuff hurts! Luckily these storms don't last too long and it makes the animals run for cover as well. So I cleared the scene and headed up Mt. Washburne to see if there is anything there that needs attention. Lucky enough for me, I find a Grizzly bear jam! The best thing about this jam is that the bear is little, maybe 600 yards away, and there is no way people could see him without scopes, so it was a pointless jam. Just as I'm getting that cleared, I have a German group pull up right behind me and tell me they have a problem. Basically they struck a rock with the side of their vehicle and now because of automatic closing and opening, the van door keeps reopening because it can't lock itself. So I ask these people two simple questions, "Is this a rental vehicle?" -Yes; "Did you get the insurance?" -Yes. GREAT! I can help, so I go to my vehicle and grab my sledge hammer and pliers and I go to town on this door. Once I was happy with the work I pushed the door closed and held it till it stayed in place. I told the visitors not to use the door until it was fixed professionally and I was on my way. At this point in the day I am exhausted!! So I start heading back toward the Northeast, until again, fun finds its way to me :) About half way up the entrance road, I notice a truck pulling a horse trailer. As the truck comes around the corner it drops its right side wheels off the road and a big puff of smoke comes out. This truck is fifty feet in front of me, heading straight towards me, and it just had a blow out... nervous? A little bit... Next thing I notice, the wheel comes right off and comes bouncing across the road. I pulled my truck over to retrieve the wheel because it was in the middle of the road. They had sheared the thing right off the axle, just snapped right off. So now they are parked in the middle of the road and can't go anywhere. So I call in for back up and I begin directing traffic as these modern day cowboys try to jerry-rig a fully loaded horse trailer so they can continue (luckily they did have two more axles on the trailer). It took them about thirty minutes but they were able to do something with the broken axle so they could continue. So I continued on my way back home, when I ran into yet another Grizzly bear jam, at this point I'm tired and not amused, so I cleared the road, made sure the people were far enough away, answered a few questions ,and finally got back to the entrance station. After all of that excitement I was pretty hyped up, so I decided to go for a run (first time I got the nerve to actually run through the park rather than on the treadmill). It was a great run too! So I was feeling pretty great when I made it back to the residence area. As I started heading up the trail to my humble home, BOOM! Guess who is there to meet me but a nice little black bear right on my trail. I took a hard left and got as far off the trail as I could because I had nothing but an iPod on me and as great as that is I don't think it would protect me from a bear. Luckily when I got into the parking area there were three other Rangers; two LE's and my roommate. I told them about the bear and we went to find it again. See, when a bear comes into a living area, you have to haze it away; you don't want it getting comfortable there. So the bear did a loop of the area (we got some great pictures) and then the LE's opened up on him with bean bag shots and firecracker rounds. This scared the bear away and ended one fine day...
On Wednesday I had a group of my coworkers for dinner. I made roll-ups which were a huge hit; if you haven't had them yet ask my Mom about them or I could make them for you sometime, they're pretty good. We headed down to the campfire ring and hung out there for a while. Thursday I went to the doctor in Mammoth to take a look at my neck and back as I am still having pain from the accident. On Friday it was back out to Cody, the two hour trek to get groceries. Saturday it was back to work, a couple of my coworkers came down and we made smores in the wood stove. (Side note- IT'S COLD HERE!!! Highs literally are only in the 60s or so, and it is snowing up on the Mountains! We have had like one month of spring as far as I'm concerned...) After work I headed out to Cooke City to play some pool with my coworkers which was a good time.
Sunday brought more excitement! As I was just about to leave my place after my lunch break, my roommate calls and tells me there is a bear in the residence area again! So I'm assuming over near the trail down to the gate, so I grab my bear spray and stay as far to the right as I can. As I started down, I noticed the LE Ranger getting her shotgun. Still, I'm assuming this bear is way to my left; when I glance back to my right guess who is ten feet away from me and walking right toward me... yup, the bear! So I stop in my tracks, the LE notices me and yells up to me asking if I see the bear. My response is something along the lines of "Yeah he's hanging out up here with me!" So she starts heading up the hill with her shotgun and tosses a rock at the bear. Unfortunately she was not a softball player in her days... :) (Her words not mine!) So I pick up a rock and chuck it at the bear and hit him right in the leg. Anybody guess what the bear did??? Just looked at me like, "Seriously, who throws a shoe?" (Austin Powers...anyone?) Anyway, by this time the Ranger has made it up the trail, takes aim, and hits the bear with a bean bag shot, at which point the bear gets the idea and runs off.
So that was my past week, definitely the opposite from the previous couple of weeks. Hopefully, the bears have gotten the idea that this is not the place to hang out.
I hope all is well with everyone back home. I hope y'all are appreciating the heat at least a little bit; trust me, you miss it if you lose it for a summer. Good luck to everyone heading back to school soon! Kind of crazy I'm not apart of that crowd anymore. My grandparents are suppose to be here Thursday and Friday and President Obama will be here on Saturday so you know another busy week ahead I guess.
Until next time your busy friend,
-- Brent Everitt
Visitor Use Assistant
Northeast Entrance Station
Yellowstone National Park
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