Wyoming Safari

Wyoming was wonderful.  We spent five days in Grand Teton National Park and we miss it already.  Day one was spent with the park service trail crew and the Youth Conservation Corps. They spend long, hard days to maintain and create the trails that we all enjoy and we owe them all a big thanks.  Day two and three was a fun and scenic trainer course with six trail crew leaders. They took us up Death Canyon to one of the trail crew's backcountry cabins for the course!  Great discussions, great food, and great hiking sum it all up.  We learned quite a bit from these leaders. Most of whom had been working in the park for at least five years, but one trail dog legend named Burt has been working on the Tetons trail crew for 44 years!  We rounded out our five days with three big awareness workshops for the Grand Tetons Lodge staff.  These folks work with park visitors every day and have great opportunities to pass on important information about their national park and Leave No Trace. Thanks to Gina and Pat for taking care of us while we were there.  

Our drives through the Tetons and Yellowstone were like an American safari with countless sightings of elk, bison, and pronghorn, about a dozen moose, and one young grizzly on an evening prowl.  Now we're way up in Missoula, MT for some fireworks on the 4th and we'll head to Idaho's Lolo Pass and the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness tomorrow.