Au Revoir Yellowstone

Hello Everyone!

Well the time has finally come for me to end my time here at Yellowstone National Park. Honestly, I can't believe tomorrow is my last day. This experience has been one of the best in my life and I will never forget the memories I have made here.

My last week here was pretty fun and filled with a relative amount of excitement. Last Sunday I actually got to work a bear jam again. It was really great - best bear I have seen all summer. This guy was at least 3, maybe 4 hundred pounds easily. When I arrived on scene, it was a mad house. I was the first one to arrive and there were literally cars everywhere. There were tons of people on the road and many of them were WAY too close to the bear. After I got the cars out of the roadway and got all of the people back to a safe distance, it really became an enjoyable experience. I had a bunch of people offer to send me pictures, and there were tons of people asking questions about the bear and what he was doing. Animal jams can be very stressful times and a lot of them this summer were pretty taxing, but every now and then you get one where you can be an interpreter and really teach people about the Park and the wildlife. Really the best part of the job.

Last night was also very exciting as well. I got to go on a medical call with the ambulance. Crazy turn of events led me to this occasion. My supervisor called me late in the day to tell me to leave the patrol vehicle at the Tower Ranger Station, so that she could pick it up in the morning. I was then supposed to get a ride with one of the general Rangers who lives in Silver Gate just past the NE gate. Well, as it turns out, they were having an end of the season pot-luck at Tower, so we stuck around to join in the fun. (Tower is a sub-district of the Lamar River District, so I had worked with these folks all summer long). About an hour into the party, there was a medical call over the radio. John (the Ranger that was driving me home) responded that even though he was off, he was prepared to bring the ambulance up if need be. The patient was at the Buffalo Ranch in the valley. After radioing that along, he asked me what I wanted to do as far as getting back to Northeast. I told him, that if he didn't mind, I really would like to ride along and see how everything works when the ambulance responds to a call. Well, John is a great guy and said that was fine with him as long as the night shift supervisor (NSS) didn't have a problem. About ten minutes later the call comes out that they need the ambulance. So we gear up, say our goodbyes, and head up the valley with the ambulance. When we arrived on scene, John and I helped the patient into the ambulance and set him up on the stretcher. After doing an initial talk through with the patient, we had a short briefing. The NSS told the other LE Ranger, Amanda, to drive the ambulance and he wanted John and me to ride in the back with the patient while he stayed and patrolled the district. So we took off heading for the rendezvous point halfway between the North Entrance and the hospital in Livingston. The patient was not critical, but he had a head wound and was in what seemed to be an altered state of consciousness. He continuously asked the same questions and had a very hard time remembering anything from his day. I did a lot of talking to him so that John could focus on keeping him stable. It was truly a first hand learning experience for me. John showed me everything he was doing and I got some first hand experience dealing with a patient as well as putting some of my first aid knowledge to work at the same time. We made it to the transfer point around 11pm and made a very successful transfer. I am happy to report also that although the patient spent last night in the ICU he is now stable and in a normal hospital room expected to recover fully. It was a great learning experience which I took a lot from. I am definitely committed to furthering my Emergency medical services training; now more than ever.

There is a very large fire burning in the Park right now as well. The fire started last Wednesday and has grown to 9,300 acres and has shut a road down. Luckily this is the first major fire in the Park this summer and we are expecting snow tonight and 2 to 5 inches during the day tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be able to contain the fire so that it does not threaten any visitor services or developed areas of the Park. I find it ironic, though, that the first day I was in Yellowstone it snowed and the last day I will be in Yellowstone there is a 90 percent chance of snow! High of 35 degrees tomorrow! Which of course is my cue to get out of Dodge...

Let The Great Adventure Part II: The Return begin!

I will be in touch soon. I plan on taking a week to get home and making the most out of the journey.

Brent Everitt
Visitor Use Assistant
Northeast Entrance Station
Yellowstone National Park

Newlyweds and Nearly Deads...

Hello All...

I know many of you have been looking forward to the next email. Don't worry, I have not forgotten about y'all! Unfortunately there just isn't much going on out here. It is the season of Newlyweds and Nearly Deads as one of my coworkers put it. The Park is having one of its busiest falls in recent history, but the animals seem to have mellowed out. The bison rut is over and the herd has begun to break back up into its separate groups farther and farther away from the road. The elk rut has begun; if you have never heard an elk bugle (mating call) it is pretty cool to listen to. Some nights it sounds like they are just 50 ft from my place. I can only describe it as one long drawn out "neh" that becomes a whistle. The first time you hear it you are just sort of dumbfounded that a sound like that has just come out of the woods. It is a great experience to be here for it but it doesn't affect my job much at all. The bears have literally disappeared! I haven't seen a bear or heard of a bear-jam in over a month. The story is that the bears are at the higher elevations feasting on moths, apparently a bear will eat 1000 calories worth of moths in a day! That has to be a huge amount of moths! However, we have been getting reports of sightings over the past couple of days and apparently one of the berries that bears just love is just now blooming, so they could be on their way back toward the roadways soon. We'll just have to wait and see. The wolves have returned to the valley which is a bonus for the visitors but again, they stay far off the road so they have not affected my work routine much at all.

On the human front, things have begun to close down in the Park. Even though we are extremely busy, it was not predicted. Three campgrounds, two hotels, and a dozen other restaurants and stores have already closed for the season. Life in the gate remains pretty much the same. Not handling quite as much money, but the number of cars has not decreased - they just all have senior passes. :) I have had some interesting people come through but again nothing like the Canadians at the beginning of the season. We have already had three employees leave; another one at the end of the week heads off. As for me, I have two weeks left here in the Wild West before I begin the next leg of my Great Adventure. The travel plans have not been set in stone but considering I planned my entire trip out here in three days, I figure what's the rush? As long as I have my phone and my Garmin I can go anywhere! The general plan is to return to Charleston by the 9th of October.

Well I'm sorry it is not as exciting as previous emails but that is the life of the Park Ranger. :) Maybe Yellowstone will give me a big send off with lots of excitement that I can share with all of you. Until then here are some pictures I think you all will enjoy...

Until next time,
Faithfully,

Brent Everitt

Visitor Use Assistant

Northeast Entrance Station

Yellowstone National Park

This is a Black Bear just behind my place, roughly 50 feet from where I'm standing, safely in a doorway of course.
This is a picture of the river I had to ford when I drove those backcountry Rangers into the wilderness. (Note the warning sign)

Road Trip!

Hello All!

Well the excitement continues...

Not too much as far as work goes. I've been working mostly in the gate lately, which is fine because it leaves me with the energy to go out and do other things. My one world-saving mission and example of Government brilliance happened last week on my patrol day. After I went to each of the campgrounds in my district and collected the fees I was to go to Park Headquarters and pick up five bundles of Park Newspapers/Newsletters. (For those of you who do not know this those newsletters are an essential and vital link that makes Yellowstone work. :) haha jk, but they are helpful) Basically what happen was that we were suppose to have 5 bundles of newspapers waiting for us at the Supply Center. When I got their they told me someone had taken them. So I spent the next two hours of my day hunting down and literally stealing newspapers from other locations in the Park so that our gate would have them. Total excitement!! :) However, like I said my lack of having to do labor intensive work out here has allowed me to get out more. On Wednesday after work I drove to Glacier National Park. It is roughly a 6 or 7 hour drive from my station so I got up there around 10:30pm. My friends Adrien and Addie were kind enough to put me up for the weekend and we had a great time. On Thursday we started by heading out to Many Glacier, and doing a four mile round trip hike (Picture 1) out to the Red Rock Lake and Waterfall. It was a great hike and very beautiful one as well. After we did that we drove up to one of the Visitor Centers they work at on Logan Pass which sits at about 6,646 ft on top of the Continental Divide. From here we hiked five miles round trip out on a trail called the Highline (Picture 2). This was also a great hike because for a good deal of it you are just hiking along the edge of a cliff looking down on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Which I had fun with because every time one of the Old School Red buses came by with their tops rolled back, I waved at all of the people in the bus. :) I found it entertaining - Adrien said I'm going to be the type of parent who embarrasses the heck out of my kids, which in my experience is what parents are supposed to do. :) Love you guys! It really was a great hike, we picked some huckleberry, which I had never had before, so that was a new experience. There was one occasion where we had to get off the trail because a goat was heading in the opposite direction. Really cute because as soon as the momma passed us the little kid came running down after her. After our hike, I earned my very first Junior Ranger Badge and was sworn in by the Ranger at Logan Pass. I have the badge pinned to my backpack and I wear it to work everyday with pride. After Logan Pass we headed to the West side of the Park and saw the Cedar Forest in the Park (Picture 3). Apparently, it is the furthest cedar forest from the west coast on the continent, something like that. Anyway, I had never seen Cedar trees before so it was cool to see. We spent our evening sampling the local night life, which I'm pretty sure includes one bar called Charlie's Place, great pizza and great beer so really can't go wrong. I left Glacier on Friday and made my way back to Yellowstone. It was really great to get out of the Park for a little while (hadn't done it since June) and the drive there and back was spectacular! That's about it as far as my adventures this week. The wolves have started to move back into the Valley, the bison are all over the place, and it is getting cooler so the bears should be on their way back down to our level as well. So their may be some excitement to come, but basically the season is just about over, we have already had three people leave and three more will leave before the end of the month. Hope everything is well with all of you. If you haven't written me (or even if you have) I'd love to know how everything is going, especially those of you that have returned to school.

Until next time,

Best wishes,
-- Brent Everitt

Visitor Use Assistant

Northeast Entrance Station

Yellowstone National Park