Love letter from life

So I’m pretty sure that most people know that Valentine’s Day is not really my favorite holiday.  I’m always holding my breath from the end of January to the beginning of March to wait out the storm.  However, this year, it seems that things were working towards my favor.  And it caught me off guard.  I decided that I wanted to treat myself to a new pair of running shoes.  The place to go here is called Skinny Skis.  I looked on their shelves and I was very disappointed because I was sure that I would find something there.  Apparently, the snow season doesn’t bring much traffic into the ski shop… Go figure.  Anyway I asked a sales associate and it turned out that their spring shipment had come in, but that they hadn’t put them out yet because there was a sale going on to get rid of all their winter stock. Well, he talked to a manager, and he brought out this beautiful pair of Asics.  And guess what color they were?  Pink.  And, I still got the sale price.  Double score!

So then I knew that I would need spikes for my shoes so that I wouldn’t slip when I would run on ice.  So I got a pair of those too.  Guess what color those were?  Red.

I think St. Valentine was trying to tell me something.  But I wasn’t sure until I took myself out to breakfast and ordered a random fresh pressed juice off the menu and this was what came out:

A bright red beverage just for me on Valentine’s day.

I also got a very lovely package from my mother. She sent me a lovely truffle from Asheville in a handmade truffle dish, along with some good stuff to fuel my addiction.   In other words, she sent me some beautiful hand-spun and died yarn.

Not quite sure what I’ll make with it yet, but it sure is pretty!!

A long time coming!

So, again, I’ve been slacking and haven’t updated in forever and for that I apologize! And I guess i’ll go ahead and admit why… I’ve picked up a very nasty knitting habit.  Seriously, it’s become problematic.  I spend all my free time with yarn and my roommate, Stephanie.  Stephanie is a pretty talented knitter, so I’ve been making her teach me everything.  It’s been really fun.  All the mushers have been asking me to make them headbands/earwarmers so that the wind won’t nip their ears so badly.  I think they have turned out really cute!  Here’s Autumn, one of the Mushers, modelling one:

I’m currently knitting a dark teal one for Caitlin, one of the bartenders here.  I must say, with much gratitude, how nice everyone is here at the Lodge.  I’ve had so much fun getting to know all the mushers and the other staff members at the Lodge.  I recently found out that Bobby, one of the servers, actually used to live in the house that I’m living in right now.  It’s crazy.  All of the snowmobile guides are SUPER helpful.   They all do their best to try to help me out whenever possible so that I can curb the “sledneck” mentality a little sometimes.  These guys that go snowmobiling can be such douche-bags.  I apologize for the colloquialism, but I’ve never really met such a distinct group of dudes.  It’s totally hit or miss.  I’m getting better at dealing with the jerks… growing thicker skin and so forth.  The thing is, some of them are like, THE NICEST PEOPLE EVER, though, which is so strange to me.  I just wish they could all be like that.

I’ve been working a lot though.  Pretty much working and sleeping (and knitting when I get a few.) I finally got two days off in a row this week though.  The first of the days I went skiing.  The second of the days was spent recovering (haha).  Stephanie and I went to Grand Targhee Resort to hit the slopes.  It was a pretty good little drive to get there.  Oh yeah, and Grand Targhee is actually part of the Tetons, so these were some pretty serious slopes.  I was a little overwhelmed.  Also, by the time we got there, we were totally enveloped by a cloud so the visibility SUCKED.  I have to say I was a little scared, and I guess Steph was too, but she didn’t let on and totally faked me out.  We ended up having such a blast though.  It’s such a rush.  I didn’t really do anything too advanced.

I did kind of mess up my knee from slowing myself down in an improper way, though, which I’m now going to try to learn to correct.  It reminds me of when Paul and I were little and we were learning to ride bikes, and we would go down the hill in our driveway a little bit at a time to get used to the whole idea of rocketing down an incline.  I was telling a friend of me and Steph, Amy, about how I had been having trouble with the slowing down stuff, and she told me that they were putting me on WAY too small skis.  Then she totally caught me off guard and actually GAVE me a pair that is more appropriate for my height.  I was totally speechless.  Who does that?!  I will always be grateful for such a generous act of kindness.

As usual, it’s been gorgeous here.  I’ve got some more images for you all!

The Tetons.  Don’t let that mist confuse you into thinking that those guys are the Smokys…

Not exactly sure which peak this is, but skiing was on the other side of this peak, I’m pretty sure…

Kelly, WY

Another view of  Kelly

I saw the people who were riding the bikes the day that I found this track.  The bikes make for snow have these HUGE tires.  I cannot imagine biking in snow.  That kind of sounds miserable actually.

This is O’Malley, Caitlin’s dog.  He, Cappie and I went for a long walk along the Elk Refuge in Kelly.  He’s a very good boy.  When he wags his tail, he wags his entire body.  He and Cappie are almost the exact same size.

It’s hard not to be in awe every time I step outside.

Of course.  She’s such a model.  Cappie seems to be taking to the cold air pretty well.  We walk unleashed, and she gets way ahead of me.  It would make me nervous if more than 150 people lived in the metropolitan area of Kelly.

Moose poop at sunset.

All around goodness

First of all, I’d like to announce that I’m an AUNT!!  (No, not Paul and Melanie.)  This is Katie and Jon.  Katie’s my sister from another mister.  She and Jon just had their first baby girl on January 24.  Her name is Anna Elise  I’m so excited!!  When I get back from Wyoming, I cannot wait to meet this precious girl!

On to other news…   Things this week started out very slow, then they have picked up pretty well near the end of it.  It’s been snowing a LOT (for a Georgia girl).  This has been good and bad.  People LOVE coming to the lodge when we have fresh powder to come rip apart, but it also makes for very different picture-taking conditions.  The visibility is low, so I can’t get the dramatic views that everyone wants, but I think the pictures still turn out pretty glorious.  And the dogsledders don’t really seem to mind – it almost adds to the ambiance of the experience for them.

However, it’s disheartening when I ask some of the snowmobilers if they want their photo taken and the shove me off with an abrupt “I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THAT SHIT.”  As if I’m going to take an hour from their day.  Five minutes.  That’s all I need.  Too much to ask?  Not in my opinion.

One of the coolest things about living in a National Park is all the wildlife that lives around me.  I can’t get over it.  Here are some captures:

Coyote on the flats.

Female Moose

Bull Moose (you can see that he’s male because of the scabs under his ears.  That’s where his antlers have recently been shed-  btw I want to find a pair of antlers so bad it hurts.)

Knowing when to ask for help

Yesterday the phones and the internet at the lodge were out, in addition to the fact that the Verizon cell tower for the area apparently got avalanched, so there was no cell service either.  So if an emergency were to occur, I wouldn’t really be able to contact anyone, which made me a little uneasy.

So with new snow comes awesome opportunities for snow sports.  The snowmobilers are so eager to get out and destroy all the unmarred meadows, and the skiiers are PUMPED about getting to shred down the fresh powder.  However, with new snow also comes new dangers.  Avalanches are a very real threat to people out on the snow.  Plus the faceted snow underneath the new snow doesn’t really form a very good base layer, so getting stuck is still a huge possibility.  That being said, I was out photographing the dogs yesterday, and I got hopelessly and pathetically stuck about 4 miles away from the lodge (about as far as I ever go out).  After Josh and I went out and purposefully got stuck a couple of weeks ago, and I realized how difficult it is to get my sled unstuck, I decided I should avoid it at all costs.  So yesterday I tried everything that Josh had taught me, but because I was stuck in a drift (I was trying to turn around without leaving the trail and it didn’t work), it was just sinking deeper and deeper.  I freaked a little because I didn’t know what to do.  I couldn’t call anyone because the phones were out and I had no service anyway and I really needed to get my sled going because I needed to get back to the lodge to upload pictures so that I could show them to the customers.  But no luck… I was just… STUCK!!  (S.O.L. also applies.)

So because the dogs had already gone by and the ranch where the trail I was on leads to is closed, no snowmobilers were riding by, so my only option at that point was to start walking.  I was hoping a snowmobiler would ride by and I could wave them down and ask for help, but I had to walk around 2 or 3 miles (uphill… of course) before I saw a single soul.  I saw a guy in a yellow jacket on a yellow snowmobile and I started frantically waving my arms so that he would come over to me.  I explained the situation and he and his buddies offered to help.  I hopped on the sled with him and pointed him in the right direction.  All five of them rode with me down the trail to Turpin Meadow, where I left my sled and they totally rescued me.  I couldn’t thank them enough.  Today I recognized that yellow jacket and flagged him down again.  I told him to thank him and his buddies I would love to do a photograph of them free of charge.  It was snowing pretty hard this morning so the visibility wasn’t ideal, but I think it turned out pretty cool.

Today has been very slow because the dogs aren’t running, but I did get a few snowmobilers, so I’m sitting at my desk trying to get caught up on correspondence.   As per you guys’ requests, I’m including some pictures of the fresh snow.

This was on my drive to work yesterday.  The roads were not so great. but the sights were spectacular.  I’m getting better at this whole driving in snow thing.

Snowy trees!

Lots of snow, and more snowy trees

The Tetons were completely socked in yesterday, but the views were still quite dramatic because the visibility was a lot higher yesterday

My heros! Thanks Matt and the rest of his crew!

It’s snowing!

So it finally started snowing on Tuesday, and it’s not going to stop till next week sometime.  Today was the worst downpour so far.  In my yard we have drifts that are about 3 feet tall.  The wind is crazy so that’s why the drifts are so high.  It’s not that piling that high everywhere.  I switched my schedule around so that I wouldn’t have to work today because I really didn’t want to drive in this craziness.  The wind was gusting pretty terribly and since I don’t have 4WD, I figured it was a better decision to refrain from driving for an hour+ each way, especially since I would be have to get there at a dead crawl.  Let’s hope the weather is just a little better tomorrow!

SO.  I haven’t updated everyone in forever and I apologize for that. I’ve been taking lots of pictures of dogsledders and everything.  I also have gone skiing twice since my last post and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be a professional skier one day… haha…  Matt and Stephanie took me to Snow King for my birthday and apparently I was a natural!  I had so much fun, and wasn’t even very sore the next day.  The only that hurt were my upper thighs (quads).  All my fellow yogis- imagine chair pose for an hour!  Yikes!  I loved it so much I went again on my day off with my other roommate, Caitlin.  My birthday was just spent on the bunny slopes, but on Sunday I went up the mountain and skied down.  SO MUCH FUN!!  I can’t explain the rush you get from going to fast down all that snow.  Falling isn’t really very fun though; when your feet increase in length by about 4 feet, it can cause you to be a tad clumsy.  It’s called a “yard sale” when you fall and you loose all your stuff, because it’s spread all over the hill… get it?  I didn’t really have an official “yard sale” because I kept my poles in my hands, but I did fall once in such a way that both of my skis came off.  And might I add, thank goodness!  Because also, having all that extra length can cause your legs to twist in some quite painful ways!

So in other news, I GOT TO GO DOGSLEDDING!  What an experience!  I always get to photograph the people as they are sledding, but I never get to go!  All the guest always ask me “Have you gone?” and I had to say “No, but I’m dying to!!”  So Jodie finally took me out!  It was a slow day so it worked out great.  It was a completely different experience than snowmobiling.  The dogs are so awesome and hilarious.  They know how to poop and run at the same time so it’s pretty funny to see them go for it.  It can be pretty peaceful out there with just the sound of the dogs running and panting.  They truly love what they do.  They get so excited and all they want to do is pull that sled.

Also, I’m SUPER excited because my little cousin Sara is visiting me for her spring break!  We are going to have a blast!!

Me and Steph at the Tow Rope

Matt, Steph and me  in front of Snow King!

Me going for it!

Jodie harnessing one of the dogs

Butts!

Me driving!  Jodie took over as photographer for a little while! I think she did a pretty good job!

Pray for Snow

Since I’ve been here,  I have learned that there are many different types of snow; now, I’m not going to go all “Bubba” from Forest Gump and name all of them, but there’s such a thing as a wet snow and a dry snow and all that stuff in between.  What I have been told time and time again, however, is that our snow is totally inadequate right now.  The only thing that is saving us is that we have just about the most snow in the country right now.  What we need is a good “dump” (which is what everyone keeps saying very nonchalantly as if it couldn’t possibly mean anything other than a large amount of snow…) to cover all of this “faceted” snow that we have.  Faceted snow is snow that has gone through several temperature changes.  What happens is the composition of the water crystals change and it becomes something more like sand.  Any of you who have driven in sand know that it’s a total nightmare.  There’s nothing to promote traction and unless you are on an 800 which is built way higher and more powerful than other machines, you are just going to sink.  That being said… we all know my track record with 800′s.  Anyway, if you’re in the mindset, give Wyoming a little snow prayer so that we can get some quality snow sports underway.

This crap snow did provide excellent training for me though.  I asked Josh, one of the rental shop guys to take me out and train me on how to get unstuck.  I’ve been a little terrified on what would happen if I were to find myself stuck, so I’ve been playing it a little safe as far as locations for photographing the dogs.  Getting a heavy machine stuck in waist high snow is kind of exhausting!  You have to basically create a runway for yourself by pushing your body through the snow as wide as the snowmobile for about ten feet.  Then the basic idea is that you have to push the sled out while giving it full throttle and run along side and then just “hop” right on up there and ride out.  I would like to repeat what I just said a second… you are supposed to “run” along side your quickly moving sled in waist high snow…  then “hop” onto your sled which is now like 3 feet higher than your feet are.  Yeah, no.  Didn’t master that part at all.  As one of the fellows I photographed yesterday said to me “Your Mama and Daddy didn’t give you much height did they?”  I don’t know that my short legs will allow that to happen.  Now I do at least have a basic understanding of what to do if I sink, but I’m pretty sure I’m still just going to play it safe… If I need a workout, on the other hand, I know what to do!

I’m going skiing for the first time EVER tomorrow for my birthday.  I have never ever even touched skis before:  snow, water or otherwise, so this is going be an entirely new experience for me.  I really want to get into cross country skiing, because of the similar experience to running, but tomorrow, I’m going to just get my feet wet.  My roommate, Matt is a certified instructor and he got me the hook-up at Snow King (where he works) so he can give me a lesson.  I’m super excited… or maybe I should say “stoked” because that’s the jargon that the ski-folks use around here. Alright bros, I’m wicked stoked!!  (yikes… maybe I should wade in the shallow end before I dive right into all those words…)

The weather has been sort of bizarro lately, but it’s provided for some really neat photos!

This is what the view looked like yesterday morning.  The entire valley was “socked in” so on my drive up it looked like it was going to be a rough day, but then when I got to altitude, I the view was spectacular!

Snow bunny tracks… wonder where he was headed…

This guy was hard at work and making quite a racket while I was waiting for the dogs.

  

This was the view this morning.  Again the valley was completely covered in clouds, but the mountains were visible.  Today, though, a storm’s a-brewin’ and it looks quite a bit more dramatic.

New Beginnings

I feel that I have given my readers a dismal feeling after my last post.  I don’t want it to seem like I’m not thoroughly enjoying myself out here.  On the contrary, I’m totally loving it.  This past week was just a little hard on me.  I will always persevere through obstacles.  That’s just how I roll.  I feel incredibly lucky that I get to spend this time doing what I love in such a beautiful place.  I never want to take that for granted.  This is truly such a spectacular place with so many beautiful sights to behold.  I mean, on my way to work, I get to look out for elk and moose!  Being an animal admirer, it’s just awesome! I’ve seen enough deer in the South to last me a while, but wolves and bison?  I don’t know that I’ll ever shake the awe that comes from witnessing these creatures that until now I had only seen in zoos or documentaries.

Remember this guy?  My roommate identified her as a Sage Grouse. (UPDATE: 1/8/12 – It’s actually a ruffed grouse, which are not endangered and aren’t AS interesting, although they do have an interesting mating ritual as well.  The beat their wings on logs to produce a drumming sound to attract their mate.  This looks to be a male ruffed grouse.) Sage Grouse have one of the the most elaborate mating rituals of all birds where the male thrusts out all of his feathers and struts around doing a fancy dance to win the affections of females like this one.  This is of course, a spring behavior.  They are also endangered!  Development, among other things has been bad on this bird’s habitat.  But places like the Briger-Teton National Forest are great places for these birds to live because of the dense sage-brush growth and the insects that live here in the spring and summer.

There are lots of things t be grateful for.  Here’s a fresh batch of photos:

I don’t know what this guy’s name is, but I love the heart-shaped freckle on his nose!

This is Cialis, or Viagra.  Apparently when Billy named her and her lookalike sister, “It was just one of those days.”  Despite her name, I think she’s so angelic looking!

If you need any photographs… You know who to call.

I love the bar here.  It’s an aged red leather that’s been waxed for years.  It also has metalwork that is very gorgeous.

This is the name of the bar where my desk sits and I talk to snowmobilers and dogsledders over their hot toddies.

Such a strange week

This week has been trying to kick my butt and I’ve been trying to keep my thoughts optimistic and happy.  I won’t go into everything, but I will say that yesterday I took a day off because after I left work, I realized I had forgotten my coat and I turned around to go back and get it.  Well, I knew I was going to be late but I knew that I would need my coat.  Anyway, I get back to my house, go inside to get it, and then as I’m about to get back in my car, I slip on the ice and my legs fly out from underneath me and I bonked my head pretty good and my elbow and my thumb took the majority of the blow.  It hurt so bad!!  I rolled around a little bit yelling profanities, and then I realized I had landed in… well…  Dog “mess.”  In hindsight it’s a little hilarious but at the time – not so much.

I decided that I must be out of balance somehow and that I needed to gain it back.  I haven’t been to a yoga class in forever, so I decided that it would probably be a good idea to get my head right and go to a class.

I have never struggled so much in a yoga class EVER.  It wasn’t because the class was particularly hard or that the teacher was bad.  In fact the teacher was awesome.  The facility was awesome, but I kept getting so out of breath and dizzy.  I had to do child’s pose (a resting pose)  for about half of the warm-ups.  I felt pitiful.  But I know that at least the mental part of it was good for me.  It’s just the altitude.  I mean, I’m living at a little over 6,600 feet.  Asheville sat at about 2,200 feet.  Mount Mitchell, the highest peak East of the Mississippi River is 6,684 feet tall.  Then, in addition to the fact that I’m living at that height, I also work at about 9,000 feet.  Apparently my blood needs to thicken with hemoglobin before I get used to all of this.  And that can take a while.

I’m trying so hard not to get discouraged.  I know I need to get used to living at this altitude, but it’s hard when you can’t do things that used to give you no problem.

All of that being said… It hard to feel upset when I get to see this every day:

A queezy New Year

I’ve been working hard… really hard.  And let me tell you.  It’s been awesome.  I definitely feel so lucky to have such a fun job.  While my body has done a pretty good job of keeping up with my ambition, there’s been quite a bit of adjusting that I haven’t given it time to do. So when New Year’s Eve hit, so did the altitude sickness.  It’s a very strange feeling.  Being a runner, I don’t find myself out of breath very often, and when I would come up the stairs from my bedroom, I would get so lightheaded and short of breath I would need to take a second to recover.  It makes me feel out of shape!  But I suppose it’s only natural when going from 3,000 feet to 9,000 feet.  I also felt pretty nauseated which is just awful.  Oh, and before you say it was just the “brown bottle flu” I didn’t have a drop of alcohol.

Also, it’s crazy how draining it can be to stand in the snow all day.  The work that your body puts into keeping itself warm is pretty intense.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying myself thoroughly, but my body is like “WHOAAA!!! TONE IT DOWN A NOTCH!”  But it’s been so worth it.  The weather has been pretty gross.  Lots of rain and snow.  Togwotee is doing pretty good with snow, but Jackson is really in need of a good snow invasion.  But being a Southern Girl, it looks like massive amounts to me… I can only imagine how it will be once it’s at optimal levels.  I’m already wading through waist-deep snow at work as it is.  I can’t imagine ever needing more, but apparently we do.

So as far as the New Year goes… I normally have all sorts of resolutions and wishes I want to seek out for the year, but at this point, I’m feeling pretty darn good.  The idea of a resolution seems a little unnecessary, but for the sake of formality I suppose I want to challenge myself to live in the moment this year.  Take everything in and enjoy it all as it comes, take the bad in stride and absorb the good like a sponge.  I’d say it’s a pretty good time in my life to do this.

On my way home tonight, I saw a wolf cross the road.  They are kinda standoffish so you rarely see them.  I felt very excited to get the opportunity to see one.

Crummy weather

Never get tired of this being my work vehicle

One of the views

This is Chris, one of the mushers, with Miss Loraina, who is a total sweetie pie.

Pita and Bat Bat, two of my favorites

Frost on willow branches

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?  S/he was kind of fearless.  I passed her on my sled, and she didn’t budge.  Then I backed up because I was like “Is that a bird???” And sure enough she was just sitting there, still as a stone.  I took her picture and then took a few steps closer… still didn’t move…  Even closer, still no movement.  I was afraid she was stuck.  And I got about a foot away from her and actually reached my hand out and touched her back softly before she flew away.  It was crazy!

Letting go

It’s kind of funny; when you move you have to figure out what to keep and what to let go.   The same thing applies to when you have to move on.  My pants were scared off of me yesterday when I got back to the lodge after photographing some dog-sledders and my cell phone was nowhere to be found.  Of course I freaked out.  These days, cell phones are like appendages- like fingers.  I told all the dog-sled mushers and all of the snowmobile guides that it was lost and to please tell anyone that they could to keep their eyes peeled for it the next day.  I scoured the trail with my snowmobile, trying to find it with no avail.  It was too dark and my headlights only shine so bright.  Plus it was starting to snow.  Things seemed hopeless.  I called my boss and told her the situation and she told me not to panic and to give it a day to see if it would turn up. The only silver lining was that I knew my contacts were backed up and that my phone is insured;  however, I would lose all my pictures and text messages.   So I drove home last night, feeling pretty dismal about the situation, went to bed early, got up a little late and drove up to Togwotee ready to look for the stupid phone.

I spoke to the front desk- nothing.  Rental shop- nothing.  Then I went to the fireside room and spoke with Keith, one of the dog mushers, and he said “Now that I think about it, Billy [the owner of the dog team] picked something off the trail yesterday… I think he might have it.” So I run over to Billy and sure enough, he had it!  Thank goodness!  I nearly bowled him over with gratitude.

So I learned three things from this incident.

First, I need to zip my pockets.  Duh.

Second, I cannot let myself get so upset over some silly THING.  Yes it is an expensive item, and yes it has valuable information on it… but it’s still JUST A THING.  Here I am, in one of the most beautiful places in America (maybe even the world? Certainly one of the most unique!) and I’m being all depressed and getting so absorbed into the fact that I lost some stupid object.  What’s the point of getting so upset over it?  At least I didn’t lose my real fingers!  That’s a definite concern with all this snow.  Losing your phone sucks, but losing a finger to frostbite – much worse!

In order to explain the third, I feel that I need to give a little back story.  When I first realized that it was gone, Cynthia, one of the dog mushers, told me (and I will paraphrase here…) that you really have to think about why certain things happen.  Everything that happens has a reason for happening.  Then she explained that she lost her phone once, and she didn’t have her contacts backed up.  She said that it really made her think… “You know… maybe there are some people I need to let go of.”  That really resonated with me.  It’s not like I want to abandon good people in my life or anything, but I thought about it and I could stand to do some letting go.  (This is a little more personal than I would like to get on the internet, but I’m hoping this will be relatable rather than pathetic.) I mean, I’ve been hanging on to text messages from guys I dated as if they are these beautifully crafted love letters of passionate prose, and really it’s more like, “hey whats up” “nothin u?”  Not exactly beautifully crafted, and yet I’ve been holding on to them.  Well… Cynthia was right.  They all got deleted today when I got my phone back.  This is a pretty significant new chapter in my life and the last thing I need to be doing is living in the past.  I want to embrace my future and move on towards something greater. It’s time to let go and enjoy now.

Here’s some visual prettiness! These are from a few days ago.  Today it snowed… I’ll have to post some pics of that a little later on.  For now… I’m too tired to move!

Bison and The Tetons

Can someone please tell me what these tracks are?!

Mush!  This is the van that brings people from Jackson to go deg-sledding.  I think Billy (the owner who found my phone) did this, because he draws that little doggy head everywhere.