The 2021 Bryce Canyon summer season schedule has begun, and we are busy. Actually it hasn’t slowed down much since Spring Break in March/April. Seems everybody wants to #FindYourPark. Which is awesome in so many ways, but not in other ways.
From RV window, grapple against the new leaves of Oregon Grape
Pretty much wrapped up two weeks of Ranger training the end of April mostly outdoors for COVID safety, even with cold and snow. The actual warm weather 2021 Bryce Canyon summer season won’t start until maybe June. In the meantime, a great group of new staff are eagerly working to learn about the natural and cultural histories and sciences at Bryce Canyon while creating Ranger programs/talks. We’ve only been offering and advertising two hoodoo geology talks a day presented by experienced staff. That will soon expand to Grand Staircase geology talks and evening programs along with more nights of constellation tours as our Astronomy Interns arrive. We are all working the information desk and counting visitors in and out the door to maintain a limit of 55 people inside the visitor center which includes open bathrooms, museum, and merchandise.
Garden soon to be planted behind the fence, outside woodfired cookstove, quarters in building above the buckboard wagon, they do currently pull a rake through leaving the pattern not sure that was done historically
One more full day of training included a field trip to Pipe Spring National Monument just across the border in northern Arizona, about two hours away. Our Rangers joined their Rangers to learn about the two primary cultures who still call this rather dry and desolate looking landscape home. No surprise this is part of the Kaibab Paiute Reservation as history shows the US government consistently put Indians on “useless land” while trying to break their cultural traditions. Yet these people are resilient and continue working to teach their history and language to their youth. They survived hundreds of years in this area hunting and gathering around a known fresh-water spring.
No Ranger lead tours, self guided only, limited numbers inside & not in small rooms, Ranger available
That rack of horns is 5-6 feet across, he’s friendly and doesn’t know how big he is
Mormon settlers arrived during the late 1800s and built a fort called Windsor Castle on top of the main spring and raised cattle for their tithing. It’s an interesting mix of history.
Before driving back to Bryce we took a side trip south on SR89A a little ways up onto the North Kaibab Plateau to the LeFevre overlook. The view north is phenomenal looking across the Grand Staircase, both geologic and monument, to the Pink Cliffs of Bryce Canyon on the horizon.
Glad I wasn’t driving for that long day as the next I had my own long day of driving 1 1/2 hours to Cedar City for groceries. Although looking a little winter bleak, SR14 is a beautiful curvy drive through forest, high meadows, a lava flow, and a couple of grand vistas. The SR143 turn off to Cedar Breaks National Monument, at 10,000 feet, with an anticipated early open due to lack of winter snowpack.
After too many hours in town I returned the same route and stopped at the turnoff to Navajo Lake hoping for some snow on the black lava under the winter forest. Yet it was wet enough not to wander into the forest with inappropriate footwear, and the snow was only in small patches though the lake looked frozen.
My second day off I wasted way too many morning hours trying to do anything online. So because I needed a propane tank filled in the adjacent town of Bryce Canyon City I took the laptop along and found WIFI. Sadly, a Windows update found me and put a stop to tethering my phone to the laptop when and if I could get a signal at home. That typically only happens before 7am and after 11pm, when I’d rather be sleeping.
Though the next day, I got a whole lot more sleeping than usual as I was home sick. Seems when I reached for the chicken potstickers I grabbed shrimp instead. I have a food intolerance to crustaceans and filter feeders. They tasted great. But I suffered the consequences fighting both ends for 24 hours and just trying to stay hydrated. My bad for not reading the ingredients label.
Made it to work the next day with mornings hoovering around freezing then warming into the 60s. Most of my day was project time, so worked on some new program ideas (shorties called popups) about trees and hoodoos around the world. Had lightning with rain in the afternoon that moved our outside information station inside the visitor center. Much harder to talk to visitors through a mask and plexiglass.
I know, I ranted. Lots of things building up on my mind. I’m not local enough to get local workers interested in fixing my poor broken truckcamper. I’m thinking of storing it the rest of the summer for repairs next winter in Quartzsite. Not willing to let go of it because I couldn’t afford to replace it. Does make a nice traveling home. It has to come off the truck anyway to replace the shocks, and so I can pull my 5th-wheel.
I lost a very good, long-time online friend last week who didn’t survive a ruptured aneurysm. Only 67 years old, same as me. A person so like me we joked about being sisters from different parents. She lived along the Atlantic coast and took the most beautiful photographs of sunrises and waves. She knew how precious life is and will remind me often.
My favorite boss ever is leaving the 2021 Bryce Canyon summer season after providing a wonderful training session and leaves our supervision in new capable hands. Todd was my first boss as a Ranger at Mt St Helens in 1992. He’s taking his skills, and beautiful wife and my friend, to Olympic National Park. He will be sorely missed here. But ah, maybe yet another excuse to revisit the Pacific Northwest.
Although I’ve solved the problem of tethering my phone to the laptop with yet another Windows update—why can’t they leave things alone–I doubt the signal is going to improve in my current location. It’s a struggle I’m going to have to live with as long as I’m here. Damn computer and internet have become my hobbies.
And maybe it is getting time for me to think of retiring. Although seasonals don’t retire with any benefits, we just don’t work any more. But then I have a wonderful day helping visitors plan their visit. Later a young woman finds me to say thank you. And that’s what makes it hard to stop being a Park Ranger. So here I go, for the 2021 Bryce Canyon summer season, and my 29th summer season as a Park Ranger. Guess it’s about time I took some photos.
Biggest problem for me right now is cold temperatures. It’s only the middle of April and at 8000 feet summer comes late, like maybe July. Not sure I own or could wear any more layers of the NPS gray and green and still be able to move. Then there’s Spring wind pretty much constant from 5-20mph with 40mph gusts. Stuff blows off the outside tables even when weighted with rocks.
