Hello everyone and welcome back to year two! What a special treat it is for me to be able to share all my adventures with you all, and have so many wonderful individuals following along. I feel very blessed to be invited back to Old Faithful for a second year, and without further ado, here is what has been going on in my life!

This year, I had the honor of driving out with just my mother, and spend lots of quality time together. Our road trip was only about 16 hours, but Mom and I had a blast driving out together, talking about anything and everything, as I get older, I realize how much harder it is to spend quality family time or 1:1 time with everyone’s busy schedules, so I feel so lucky that my mom was able to take time off to be with me.

The way the road trip happened, we were able to spend my 23^rd birthday in Grand Teton National Park! We drove over teton pass and the views were astounding.

Then I was able to take my mom to get breakfast at my favorite local spot in Jackson before we headed up to the Tetons!

We hiked a local trail called Taggart Lake, according to the Moose VC Rangers, this was the only hikeable trail in the park without snowshoes or skis! Our California selves were shocked, but we enjoyed a beautiful 3.5 mile hike with glorious views of a frozen lake, the Tetons and lots of laughs from postholing in the snow!

I also got sworn in as a Grand Teton Junior Ranger and earned a little wooden birthday badge which was a fun moment!

The fun really began when I arrived back at Old Faithful! I arrived a month earlier this year because I was not bound by any college graduation duties, and I got put back into one of the modulars! I am living with a fellow returner, Paige, who was a great friend to me last summer and has been an epic roommate thus far! Boy it was good to be back and hug so many folks from last summer, I was grinning from ear to ear just thrilled to be here again!

Mom had to leave the next day after we arrived at OF, so I gave her a ride over to the airport and did all my grocery shopping. Although I was sad to see my mom leave, the adventure was finally beginning! I moved in on the earliest day possible so I had 5 days to explore the park before I was bound by any work commitments. I spent a lot of time exploring the park with my boyfriend Michael, if you all remember him we met last summer, hit it off and have been seeing each other for a little while now which has been swell! We had to see Old Faithful erupt (classic), failed to hike Lone Star Geyser due to too much snow, explored some local geyser basins and checked out the views at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone!

The day we watched Old Faithful erupt, I already had to shift into ranger mode and assist with an intense thermal trespass situation. You’ll never believe it but we had a gentleman actually think it was okay to walk up onto the cone of Old Faithful! At that time, Paige, Michael and I were talking to our fellow Ranger Steve who was donned in uniform when we saw this madness unfold. We were able to catch the trespasser, and Steve did a phenomenal job explaining the situation, talking the man down and handing him off to law enforcement. It was an unfortunate circumstance and a hard lesson to learn for this man as he will have to face the judge to find out his fate.

Otherwise, work has been good, we are all in training the first few weeks, so nothing exciting has happened, but it’s great to catch up with returners and get to know the new folks better. The staff this year seems amazing, and I am excited to get to know everyone better. In my classic extroverted self form, we have already had a few hang outs at my place, a karaoke night at the pub where 8 of us jammed out to Taylor Swift, and I was able to give an informal program example at Beehive Geyser to a crowd of 50 people with several new rangers watching me. I truly feel back at home and I have not belly laughed so long in a while. The women on staff are all amazing, and I am eager to start working and have another epic summer with these people!

Since all the new folks and returners are in training, we all get to have weekends off together, which is a unique beginning of the summer treat before we all go to our normal weekends. We have been taking full advantage of this, as I hiked Purple Mountain & Harlequin Lake with Dallin, his wife Nicole, Erin (my neighbor who is a geology TAPP Team ranger that we befriended) and Michael. Dallin & Nicole didn’t make it to the top of Purple Mountain as they were still adjusting to the altitude, but they were so fun to take to Harlequin Lake, and Michael, Erin & I were shocked when we got to the top of Purple. It was still COVERED in snow, and we only hiked so far before we said good enough, but still had the best time!

And now, the best part of the blog, wildlife sightings! It is so different being here in May, its much quieter and still colder, so there is so much wildlife out and about. During my weekend, we coordinated a crew of Rangers and we went out to Lamar Valley in the early hours of the morning to go look for wolves! Last year Lamar was closed because of the flooding, so I never had a chance to see a wolf, it was my last big wildlife item, and although I had to get up at 5:00am, it was worth it! A few of my ranger buds owned spotting scopes, and we were able to go to the wolf den sites where I finally got my first glimpse of the Yellowstone wolves. We spotted 3 or 4 wolves in total while we were out there, including the Alpha Male and Female of the pack (we knew this because they had a tracking collar for research purposes!) Seeing wolves was super special because I was able to witness firsthand the positive effects reintroducing wolves in Yellowstone had on this ecosystem.

In addition to wolves, we saw a variety of different predators and prey in Lamar Valley including coyotes, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bison, black bears and grizzly bears. I’ve also had some other wildlife sightings since I arrived around the park and I’ll include some of the best photos I took or was sent below!

That’s all I got for the first few weeks, stay tuned for when I get to put on the ranger gear again because Ranger Baer is back and ready for the best summer part 2!!