The Mountains’ Apology// End of Smoky Days

For the last month it has been incredibly smoky from all of the nearby wildfires. For a couple days it worsened until we could not see the mountains at all. It was like re-living Mt. Rainier when the cl0uds would come in and you would never even guess there was a large mountain right in front of you.

For days the air would be semi-clear during the dawn and dusk hours, but around noon the smoke would be so thick even Donoho Point was but a silhouette. A bunch of people here have had sinus problems. To the east of us one of the culprits can be seen – a great cloud of smoke billowing into the air, from a fire in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It’s close but contained.

When the smoke cleared several days ago, it was like when you get miserably sick and then recover. You appreciate your health so much more! As if apologizing for being watercolor silhouettes for so long, the mountains were vivid and glorious. And the sky was incredibly blue, and the clouds… it was all amazing.

Had that sky always been that dark blue?

I didn’t work until 5pm yesterday, so made an adventure for myself. I walked along the shore of Jackson Lake to the dam, and from there cut through Willow Flats towards Jackson Lake Lodge. This took a bit more time than I thought it would – I started out in shallow, green grass and had to wind a bit around bushes, following animal tracks. I made a lot of noise crashing through the brush, which was good as that area was well frequented by animals. I came across several small streams that were easy enough to cross and finally, as the lodge grew larger, came to a large field of thick grass that was up to my waist and very difficult to step through.

Finally, I reached the lodge, where I ate lunch and used the fast internet to Skype my family. When I headed back to Signal, I walked on the road. I had had my adventure through the brush but now my legs were scratched enough, thank you. It reached 4 o’clock and I knew that to get back for work on time I would have to hitchhike. So I said a prayer that I would not be picked up by a murderer or rapist and stuck out my thumb. Quite a few cars passed by but finally one stopped. Praise the Lord, it was a sweet, elderly couple from England. They dropped me off at Signal Mountain and insisted I take a British newspaper with me (they brought them to give away), and several UK coins. Thank goodness, that all turned out all right – and I was back in time for dinner & work.

Tomorrow I don’t work until 5pm again, and I will spend the time packing. Friday morning I will be heading up Cascade Canyon, walking behind the mountains and through the Alaska Basin, before heading back down Death Canyon. I am planning on spending Friday night and Saturday night in the mountains, and coming back Sunday before my evening shift.

By myself? Yes, no one else had the same days off or was free for a backpacking trip. But I don’t mind. 🙂 I am very excited and ready to head off – the last couple nights I have slept restlessly, as my mind zips around planning everything I should pack.

I will be documenting the trip so I’ll give you a full report when I get back. 😉 Praise the Lord it’s clear now – I should have some great views!

Well it’s gorgeous outside and I am off of work so the whole evening is before me – time for this blog post to end.

-Sarah

Halfway Through! // Life of a Busser

I am now *more than* halfway through my summer. Eeck! Time is going by so fast – it’s crazy to think I only have about 8 weekends left. Instead of trickling in, the people here are going to start disappearing out, on to their next job or school or the next thing in life. While I love this place and the people here, I am excited to go to Ecola this fall, and for all of the adventures and learning that awaits me there!

Since I’ve passed the halfway mark, I thought I would share with you – *dun dun dun duhhhhh!* – A Day in the Life of  a Busser!

I took my camera with me to work Thursday and snapped a few pictures. Let me describe to you my day.

Let’s start with the alarm clock, shall we. That shrill, annoying alarm clock… going off at 6 o’clock in the morning.

I am blessed with the ability to immediately sit straight up in bed when my alarm goes off – like I was hit with electricity, and the grogginess comes later. So I turn off my alarm quickly, which is important when there are 3 people within 10 feet of me, sleeping soundly.

6:14 am – Hair brushed. Teeth brushed. Nametag – belt – non-slip shoes – khakis… check, check, check. Ready for work!

Taking pictures of myself in the mirror makes me feel like on of those people on Facebook, ick! But it’s essential to show you just how awake.. and lively.. I look.

I left 3 snoring roommates behind and tromped to work.

6:21 am – Down the pathway

Through the woods and across the ‘bridge’, past the C store

The sky was beautiful, pearly shades of light blue to lightest blue. And I’m not waxing poetic here – it really did remind me of a pearl.

As I walk past the lodge to the back door, I can already hear the sounds of the kitchen awaking through the high windows. Since we close everything down at 11 and open it back up again at 6, the restaurant kitchen only gets about 7 hours of darkness and quiet… then the ice machine, the ovens, the dishwasher, all are back to constant use.

6:25 am – I pause outside the door before going inside. The mountains are like my mother. They always look beautiful. 😉

Clocking In

There are few people meandering through the kitchen – they are still wearing their coats and their eyes are not quite focused. We do not talk. Blurgh.

My co-busser Ben shows up and we make sure everything’s ready.

6:44 am – The Trapper Grill

All ready for coffee-guzzling people

Then to breakfast! The only days I am actually awake and at the EDR early enough to have breakfast are days that I work early, or days that I go on a long hike. Or days that I wake up before 9… oh wait, those days don’t exist! 😉

6:55 am – Breakfast. Pretty much the same thing everyday.

Ben and I had to gulp down our breakfast to get back to the restaurant by 7am. The tables slowly trickled in – mainly couples – and we kept the coffee brewed and the maple syrups filled. Cleaned and set the tables.

During the slow hours there was a bit of “wrestling” between the servers. The practical joke in the kitchen is to grab someone’s nametag as you’re walking by. The nametags are magnetic, so the magnet on the inside drops to the bottom of the person’s tucked-in shirt and they glare at you as they work it up and reattach their nametag. This particular day there was a war between Ben and Jared the server as to how many times they could knock off each other’s nametag (sneakily.) The score ended 7-4.

After 11 o’clock, our famous “Signal Mountain of Nachos” began to appear on the tables, and I headed to lunch.

The sun was now high and the morning shadows were completely gone.

11:56 am – Kayaks heading out from the marina

EDR

11:59 am – Baked ziti, grapefruit, and some strawberries I saved from the night before

After eating I went by the marina to sit in the sun, eyes closed, for a while. Probably a mistake as that and my full belly simply made me tired. Everytime I come back to work after lunch (3 more hours to go), I feel as though all my energy has been draaainnned from my body!

12:26 pm – Whistle Pig by the dumpsters

Back to work.  The deck is now open, as well as the bar, so the atmosphere is much busier. Everyone knows we are in the last stretch.

One of my tasks. Carrying these two 6 gallon buckets, full of ice, up a flight of stairs.

We did have a bit of excitement around 2 o’clock. There were two moose that showed up in the grass right below the deck, then meandered their way into the lake, where they stood and contentedly gazed at their admirers. No one I was working with had ever seen a moose walk through Signal like that, so close to our buildings!

1:52 pm – Moose(s!)

Everyone gravitated to the windows to take pictures and exclaim, leaving all of the tables in the restaurant empty. Ben and I stood and examined the restaurant, and could not tell for sure which tables were permanently vacated. Mike, my manager, told me “don’t buss any tables, Sarah.”

Sure, no problem! 😀 Can I remember that command the next day I work? Sorry, Mike told me not to buss any tables… 😉

2:06 pm – visitors to our marina

The moose closed down the business in the marina for a while, too. No one dared to take boats in or out, as the moose were right smack dab in the middle of everything.

So that was a bit of unexpected excitement.

We were fortunate in that no one was seated near closing time (2:30pm), so we were able to clean up and leave a bit after 3pm. The day was warm, sunny, and now all mine! It was the start of my weekend.

3:21 pm – back to the dorms

My roommates and I went to dinner, where the EDR staff rocked our socks off! BBQ chicken, beans, some sort of grated & cooked potatoes, and cornbread. Eat a bit of everything in every spoonful & it was delicious. 🙂

Unfortunately from this point on in the day, I forgot to carry my camera around with me. I did, however, take a picture of dinner with my roommate’s phone…

*picture coming soon* 😉

After dinner, I came back to the dorm room and talked with my roomie Alissa about teeth and whatnot for a while, then we went to the marina to lie on the lakeshore with other roomie Anna.

The sun was incredibly warm, and the clouds drifting above the mountains were dramatically gorgeous. We shared childhood stories, mainly about injuries, and Anna emphatically stated for about the tenth time that she never wanted to grow up, and always wanted to act like a child. (One of her favorite books is Peter Pan, if that gives you any insight into her character 😉 ) It was about then that she started throwing rocks at me, and putting them down the back of my tank top. I responded by splashing her, and before we knew it we were both in the lake having a full out splashing war!

We were both soaked and laughing hard when we stopped, and came dripping wet back to the shore. Where I discovered that my cell phone had been in the pocket of my shorts. As I’m typing this it is now (hopefully) recovering, inside of a ziploc bag filled with rice.  My second phone out of two phones owned with the dot turned red, I am proud to admit.

After we laid on the shore for a while longer, futilely waiting for the sun to dry our clothes, we made our way up the hill to the EDR and enjoyed the dessert we had not eaten earlier – some sort of fluffy orange cake with an inch thick, airy frosting. It made me think of Esther’s famous orange marmalade cake from the Mitford books, and how Father Tim had cut and eaten a thick, cold slice… and then had to go to the ER since he had diabetes. Except none of us went to the ER, we just had happy sighs and smiles.

We all came back to the room, where we changed into dry clothes and spent the rest of the evening lounging and reading books.

Good day, or what??

Don’t be afraid to snatch nametags off of your co-worker’s shirt, to splash your roommate, to enjoy that sugary goodness, to keep your distance from moose, and to get that little dot on the back of your phone – RED. 🙂

…I hope my cell phone will work again….

South Landing

I didn’t work until 5pm today, so went on a hike by myself this morning. While I know it’s safer and more fun to hike with other people, sometimes I just need to hike by myself. Today was one of those days.

So rather than take a trip to the EDR, meet people who ask me what I am doing and then invite me to their plans (or I have to tactfully avoid saying that I do not want them coming along with me), I just ate a granola bar for breakfast and packed not one but 2 PB&J sandwiches for lunch (you can never have too much PB&J!), and set out around noon.

If one sets out from our dorms, passes the basketball court and takes a small trail that heads south, they will find themselves at the boat launch. And if one continues to head south, there is another small trail that follows Jackson Lake’s shore for about 2 miles to South Landing Campground. I had hiked a short part of this trail earlier to set my hammock on the hill overlooking the lake, and now wanted to hike the whole thing.

The trail quickly rose above the lake so that to my right there was a drop-off to the cold water below. The day was sunny and warm, and though I had brought my iPod with me, I never wanted to use it. I wanted to listen to nothing – or rather the birds and the waves and my footsteps.

Butterflies are everywhere at every hike I’ve been on – orange ones that graciously pose on flowers, small blue ones that are attracted to dung and will not sit still for photos, and large yellow ones that leave a breeze when they zip past my ear.

After a while I stopped to straddle a fallen log and dig through my backpack, only to find I had left my sunscreen behind. Which spelled disaster –  a terribly sunburned face at work that night! Fortunately I began to hear voices as I drew further away from the boat dock and on the lake Donohue Point glided behind me. I came upon a father who had taken his two children fishing. They gladly shared their sunscreen with me and we struck up a conversation.

The children – a girl about eleven and a little boy about seven – pulled the fish they had caught out of the water and showed them to me. Showing no signs of squeamishness, they ran their hands over the glassy-eyed fish that were still alive and gasping for water. I ooh-ed and ahh-ed and the little boy pulled out a piece of gum and gave it to me with a smile, probably because I had shown the proper admiration for his fisherman skills. They told me they had caught fish before and I told them they were lucky to have such a great dad, and I meant it.

A half-mile past the fishing family I came to a parking lot and a road, and crossed the road to walk among the sagebrush. Sagebrush is great for walking through because unlike a hedge, the bushes do not grow up next to each other but keep their distance – and little grows inbetween. So while you have to weave a bit, you’re pretty much guaranteed a good path through the brush.

I climbed a little hill, pausing a bit when I heard a noise that I couldn’t determine if it was a birdcall or not. I talked aloud a bit, just to let any mountain lions know that I was there and would not appreciate being jumped on. Then I set forth on the scout for some good hanging trees.

There are a lot of things to look for in good hanging trees. If you’re spending the night in a hammock, you want to look at the weather and what side of the hill you will be on, and whether you’re in a low swampy area, etc. I just wanted to hang for a few hours, so I was just looking for a few trees about 12 feet apart, with minimal lower branches and no brush inbetween that would snag the hammock. They also had to be large enough to be sturdy, yet small enough that I could easily wind the rope around.

I pulled my hammock out of its stuff sack and began the search. There was a rustling noise behind me, and I quickly turned to give a small jump and gasp at a snake right on my heels….. Which was actually just the rope of my hammock, trailing behind me. Dang it, now I know I’m one of those girls who will squeal at a snake. Maybe I just squeal at false snakes, though? 🙂

Once I had the hammock strung I ate both of my sandwiches and began on Frank Peretti’s newest book, Illusion (which I checked out with my wonderful library card!). The earth shifted and the sun shone on me full force, and after a while I got up and sat in the shady grass, continuing to read. The smell of pine needles filled the air, and while I could faintly hear the cars on the road, I was off the beaten track and the place where I sat was untouched. Setting aside the strict hype at Rainier about stepping off the path, I felt as though this was how national parks should be used – people scattered throughout the woods, enjoying the solitude and natural beauty of the untouched. Making sure not to feed the bears or birds while they were out there… 😉

I packed everything up around 3pm and left the area just as I had come. The fishing family had left their spot and, I’m sure, would be preparing the grill that night for their fresh catch.

Good, beautiful day. 🙂

1/2 mile to the campground, that is.

The two trees I hung my hammock from.