Hey. It’s been a while, it took me a minute to decide if I wanted to continue the blog after two amazing summers at Yellowstone. The truth is, adjusting from your first park to your second is really hard, and I didn’t think my life would be exciting or interesting enough for people to want to read this time around. But I realized documenting my journey is for me, my family and friends reading this is just a bonus. So let’s go, winter season here we come!

I made it here on October 6th, after a multi-day roadtrip, and it was different. I had no idea what to expect, I just knew I was excited, anxious and ready for change.

I got in on a Friday and didn’t start work until the following Tuesday, so I had three full days to explore the park, get groceries and settle in. The canyon was a very overwhelming experience for me my first few days, you’re looking into the vastness of a natural wonder, and my brain could hardly comprehend what was happening.

However, it was really fun to start to explore a new park. I got to walk parts of the ‘Rim Trail’ which parallels the Grand Canyon, I went into historic buildings and became a South Rim Junior Ranger!

I started work on a Tuesday, and had a couple days of training in ‘civvies.’ During this time, I got to know my coworkers and we went on team hikes, watched the solar eclipse at 87% totality and just explored. My boss let us go adventure in the park so for a lot of free time during training I got to ride different shuttles to viewpoints, explore the entire south rim and take it all in, it was pretty cool.

After training and getting adjusted to the park I had to do a big hike. I decided I was going to do the main canyon hike: go down South Kaibab out to the Colorado River, check out Phantom Ranch (our backcountry ranger station at the bottom of the canyon) and hike out on Bright Angel. This hike was no joke, it was about 18 miles roundtrip with 5,000 feet of elevation change at the end. But despite how exhausting it was and how I felt afterwards, during the hike was scenic views and I’d say one of the coolest ones I’ve done! I started at 5:00am on South Kaibab and ended around 3:00pm on Bright Angel, what a rewarding experience!

My body definitely hurt for multiple days afterwards, but this was a cool hike and I am so glad I got to check it off my bucket list! My next few weekends afterwards I kept it pretty mellow, I stuck to exploring local areas and finding out what these gateway towns had to offer. I spent some time at Walnut Canyon National Monument in Flagstaff, and got to see some ancestral cliff dwellings which was epic!

The next weekend I stayed more local and just went down to Williams, closer to the park and got to see Bearizona! it’s a drive through wildlife park and rangers get free admission which was pretty cool. I also learned that Arizona historically has had jaguars in the state and there have been 8 sightings since the 90s! After that I went on a fun little self controlled rollercoaster and had a blast.

Ranger life has been good, like I mentioned earlier adjusting to a new park is definitely different and interesting but I have liked it so far. Nothing beats catching a sunset over the rim of the Grand Canyon, it’s pretty special.

This recent weekend was my first ‘friends’ trip, as we all went up to Tuweep, a remote offshoot of Grand Canyon and to get there its 60 miles on a gravel road each way. However, it had some of the most stunning views of the Grand Canyon and is unique because you get views of the Canyon rim while being below it by 1,000 – 2,000 feet without any hiking. It was quite the adventure that I got to go on with my coworkers Maggie and Aiden, but we had a ton of fun and only got one flat tire in the process!

After our chaotic adventure, I laid low again and stayed local, doing a short hike up to a fire lookout tower in the forest land right below us. I went out to Red Butte Fire Tower and got interesting views of the surrounding area, but it was nice to do a light hike.

Life is good here at the Grand Canyon, it’s an adjustment, just takes time to meet new people and get settled into a new place, but overall I am happy and excited to see where this new winter season will take me!