Jackson Lake the first week of June
Mt. Moran when the lake was low (where I wish I am when I'm on the water)
Wolf!
Copious amounts of gear and snow
A Very Frozen West Thumb from Grants boat ramp
Photo Courtesy of Dottie from my first 5 day
Tis been a bit since I've written as life here has kept me mighty busy.
My time here in Jackson started immediately with a trip to the Kelly Warm Springs with some of the other guides one hour after I arrived in town. They went to practice rolling kayaks and I tagged along to relax and adjust to not being in a car after my drive from Olympia. This scenic adventure was fallowed by a trip to Bubba's for a feeding fest of ribs and texas toast.
This year I am the only new guide working for OARS, Jackson as the other newbies introduced me to a new level of flakedom and didn't show. But the training trip went on although abreviated with much of the returning crew and winter conditions.
Due to an enormous snow fall (about double and 328% of the average for the time of year) this winter much stayed well frozen and sub snow until the last week in June. The Solstice to be more precise. But now that it is warmer we are graced with afternoon monsoon esq thunder and light shows. eek. But I am yet to find metal objects buzzing so am much happier. Although when on a lake you are the highest point. However this afternoon as we were deciding to turn a trip around I felt the rumble of thunder on my kayak.
The basics of my job are to take people kayaking on either Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park or the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park. Organizing copious amounts of gear for multi-day trips ranging from one to five day trips and trying to keep people from flipping them selves over and other wise drowning. So far so good although there have been some close calls with flippage.
At times things can be frustrating such as when a client just didn't get that coffee isnot until 7, the guides sleep until 6 and they still get up a 4:30 every day on a five day trip. Then again that client inparticular somehow thought that they were signing up for a rafting trip and not a lake kayaking trip. Honestly didn't know what they had signed up for. Do they not read?
For the most part I've had some great clients such as the caving, distance backpacking and all around bad ass 75 year old grandmother, and the family that sent me home made cookies, a Michigan State t-shirt among other treats after our trip.
The people watching however is first class. For longer trips we swing by the madness that is Old Faithful, the boat ramps also provide some chuckle worth sights.
Rob a friend from Evergreen and I have been able to go climbing only twice since I arrived. Once was almost summiting Teewinot (12,325ft) neighbor to the Grand Teton. We got within 200 verticle feet of the summit but had to turn around due to degrading snow conditions. A great way to spend my one day off by getting up a 3 in the morning, but well worth it. The other time that Rob and I went out was to steal a few short hours of sport climbing at the Rodeo Wall before having to pack out for trips.
Rob's girlfriend Nancy and a friend of their's Jon came to visit. Between trips Jon and I got in one day of climbing at the Rock Springs Buttress above Teton Village. Was quite a hike after a morning run but well worth it. One of the best days I think I've ever had climbing even if we spent more time getting there than climbing because we didn't want to buy lift tickets. Was a dream of a day, blue skies and alpine granite before the hail (seriously big) and thunder arrived.
Between day trips on Yellowstone and multidays on Jackson I'm in a boat 5-7 days a week and loving it. The only problem is that there is not much time for my other passions of climbing, running and biking.
A super exciting recent event was that my parents came to visit for a few days. Sadly I was working for the majority of their visit but we still had two days of fun adventures involving a small road trip to the lakes around Pinedale, WY, hikes, picnics, and many many wild flowers. Our visit although short was very sweet having seen them for less than two weeks total in the past year due to traveling and living out of state. Couldn't have been better unless we'd seen the moose my mother wanted to see so badly which I say on my way up to the park for my next trip after they left.
I love it I love it here except that my trusty camera of 3+ years has ceased to take my abuse. So I can't say when there will be more pictures.
Cheers
