most epic weekend. EVER.

The date is July 31, which means I have 17 days left as an employee in Yellowstone. Although my time here is winding down, my adventures are not. Take last weekend for example: My friend Jonathan Spear from school (who is working down in Jackson Hole, WY for the summer) came to visit for a few days. We went moonlight whitewater rafting on the Yellowstone River (for freeee because now we know this girl who is a raft guide up in Gardiner, MT) for my friend Rachel's birthday. We stayed overnight with our raftguide friend (Tara) and her family and woke up to a delicious breakfast of home-cooked omlettes (beats eating in the employee dining hall!). Jonathan and I hiked a 5 mile loop trail in the Mammoth area of park, then our group drove down to Lake area for a parkwide ACMNP picnic at a sandbar (2 free, delicious meals in one day!). (I am using a lot of parentheses () and exclamation points!!!!). The next day Jonathan, and my Czech friend, Jirka (Jiri) embarked at 7 am to go to the Tetons to find a mountain to hike up. We talked to a ranger and decided to climb Static Peak: elevation 11,303 ft. Siiiick.

This, I believe, was the most epic hike of my life thus far. 2 miles in we came to Phelps Lake, which has a HUGE rock put there by God for the purpose of jumping off of it into the lake and taking epic pictures with mountains in the background. So of course, we did just that. A couple miles up the trail we came to a fresh mountain spring river waterfall that we hiked along for about a mile. We filled up our bottles with water, using the handy dandy purification tablets from my dad. A few more miles up, we had a picnic lunch in the shade and there was an adorable ground squirrel flirting with us because we had food. He jumped on my shoe.! and we took pictures. And after a couple more hours, a few more miles, and a lot of hard work, we reached the top and took lots of epic pictures of high altitude lakes, a view of the Grand Teton Peak, Buck Peak, and awesome beautiful things. Then we hiked down about 10 miles in 3.25 hours. I got back to Grant after midnight and had to work the next morning... sigh. Totally worth it though.

After a 4 day work week, it is once again my weekend and I am sure that more adventures await, because everyday here is full of adventure of some kind. Within the week, some of my friends will be leaving and going home, and soon after I will do the same - which will be weird and bittersweet (because I only get to be home one week before going to school to student teach!) But it's not over yet!