Two weeks gone already!

So it has been around two weeks since I have first come out to the Park and they have suprisingly gone by quite fast! So since I was last on here I have went on two hikes, one for the overnight I mentioned before but then one over the holiday just for fun! The one I went for fun was absoltuly amazing!!! We hiked the first part of Bunsen peak and then down to Osprey Falls were there is a HUGE waterfall (I just posted pics of being out here so check em out). So we got to the falls which was a nice hike down but a pretty tough one back up but all worth it in the end, the fall is so big an so massive that when you get down to it so much water is comin around that it feels like you are being rained on! When we came back up the incline, which raised over 1,000 feet in elevation in a little under a mile an a half, pretty rough for my first hike in awhile lol. When we cam out we actually ended up coming back onto the wrong trail and hiked our way into Mammoth instead of over Bunsen Peak back to the car. This resulted in us having to hitchhike our way back to our car! But people are so nice here it took no time at all. The guys I was with Sean an Jason, are pretty fun so we decided to just go into the town for some good food, enter the Buffalo Burger! So delicious! If you have never had bison, you need to, it is so lean and about 100x better than a regualr burger.

The next day was a pretty lazy day, I treked up Elephant back which on a normal day is a simple trail, but not all of the snow had melted off so it made the climb just a little difficult, I was gettin into snow about hip high every so often. It was cool at the end though to look out over the entire lake!

The next day was my first trip into the back coutry to the Clear Creek Cabin an fish trap, a four mile hike in was pretty awesome, not to much wildlife was seen though. When we got there we did some stream redirection and some flow adjustment, nothing to serious and then just got to relax and I got to know Brian a little better, and he is a real cool guy, I look forward to working with him this summer, I know it will be a good time.

As for now though nothin else going on that is eventful except that I found out that Anni will be visting come the first week of July! I am pretty excited for that!!! Other than that I am having a blast out here but still missing everyone at home!!!

8,000 feet up and Loving it!

So it has been awhile since i last posted, mainly because I have had no access to a computer! I will start were I first left off though. When I awoke in my hotel room, it was 20 times less creepy because it was light out, and let me tell you the view from my room was incredible, the moutain ranges were absolutely incredible. I was picked up by Kate a former SCA and know a seasonal worker here in Yellowstone, and who eerily looks like Dr. Bohmler it is very weird lol. Anyways after some errands to wal-mart and getting another SCA from the airport we start to head to Yellowstone. Upon pulling into the park I see a pronghorn, something that looks right out of Africa, it was nuts! I meet my boss Brian who is a really cool guy and I have a feeling we will get along fine, I mean he's a Philly Phan it dont get much better! So after I meet him he tells me I'm staying in Mammoth which is the part of the park I'm already in and then I will move down to Lake then next day which will be my permanent home. So I arrive at where I am going to spend the night and there are bison in the front yard!!!!! It was plain awesome!!! Later that night I was also able to see a herd of elk moving through as well, its just incredible really.

The next day I roll into the Lake and arrive at my summer home, so dearingly called, the Fish Dorm lol. I meet my bunk mates who are all pretty cool for the most part. As the day goes on though it somewhat strikes me that this may be harder than I thought, I have no cell service, no car and no Internet, I start to get homesick, first time I think it has every happened to me this hard. I soon find out thought that the phone in the dorm dials out so this makes things a little better, also I find out that the nearby office has computer access so I am doing fine now. So far this week it has been nothing too exciting just a lot of talks and presentations as we go through our orientation here. Yes I did receive bear safety training, and sorry Ray the chances of me killing a bear are slim to none with slim on vacation lol, it seems that mostly there are very few predatory bears here in Yellowstone. However I have already seen one, it was a grizzly on the side of the road just eating, they really are beautiful creatures, I also forgot to mention that i saw a coyote run through the parking lot the other day, pretty wild stuff.

My work here seems like it will be a blast! I work a sweet schedule with 4 ten hour days, so fridays an the weekends off! This leaves tons of time to go camping an hiking. I must say thought that were I am living is crazy, when I say Lake you most likely thinks that it is close to sea level....WRONG!!!! In fact I am about 8,000 feet up in elevation which makes running crazy but Im gettin used to it!!! Since this monday is the holiday I do have off but tuesday I will be taking my first trek into the woods with Brian to do some observations on a nearby creek I will be out overnight and I am super pumped for it!!!!!!

As for now that is all i really have time for. Oh just know that I dont have access to facebook, thanks US government lol. But I will update this as often as possible!!!! I do also have a mailing address here if you would like a pen pal for the summer :) it is :

Alex Crouse
PO Box 3040
Lake Station
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190

Also any spare books or DVDs will be used i have TV where I am lol

Until next time.... “Only time will tell if it was time well spent” -Jimmy Buffet

Trip In Part 1

Most of you reading this already know what I am up to this summer but for those of you still in the dark let me fill you in. I recieved an internship with Yellowstone national park and will be there all summer studying the native cutthroat trout of the various streams and lakes within the park. My hope is to be able to access this blog at least once a week so I can share my stories and photos on here, but we will see how it all works out!

So today i left for the wild west lol. I flew from BWI into Denver which let me say is a huge and very packed airport! From there I flew on what had to be a 50 year old plane held together by gum and duct tape to Bozeman Montana, population, my cab driver. The ride to my hotel was an experience in itself, we droped a couple off who lived in a silo that had shadely been turned into a rancher, it was quite odd. However even more creepy was the little old lady behind the desk at the hotel im staying. It feels homie but it is in the middle of nowhere and looks like something right from the horror films lol. I am jittery for tomorrow though, I will be getting picked up and taken to the park and hopefully digging into my home for the next 85 days (thanks for the count Anni) either that or it will be crashing on my bosses couch for me!

I do want to take this minute to let everyone know that I am sorry if I didnt get to see you before I left York/Bmore it was pretty hetic but I will make sure to see you all when I come home!

That is all for now keep checking back for more updates, hopefully they will at least be weakly!!!