At the risk of sounding distastefully literary and unabashedly over-dramatic, I'll attest that this summer held the best of times and the worst of times. In the awesome column, we have my summer seasonal position as a friggin' NPS PARK RANGER, a dream come true and long, looong work-in-progress. To paint a picture for you, this summer I got to hike a mile and a half up a mountain every morning and spend most of my days in a wondrous cave system with interesting new people--totally cool. In the 'ugh' column, though, my workdays left me pretty pooped each evening and my schedule was quite hardline--no Saturdays or holidays off for this freshman ranger. All that being said, I creatively squeezed in some rad adventures this summer. I've already posted about flyfishing day trips and suicide-night-hike-one-point-five-day-backpacking runs in the nearby Uinta Mountains. Now check out a a chronicle from the semi-miraculous opportunity we had in August to play in Eastern Nevada's Great Basin National Park! (GRBA had been on our list all summer and multiple failed attempts made this successful backpacking-bristleconing-caving outing all the more sweet.)
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| Baker Creek Loop: the Beginning. |
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| The Ascent, from below. |
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The Ascent, from above.
(I take a lot of breaks disguised as photo opps.) |
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That there's a pretty great basin!!
(PS The poses took lots of trying and a measurable amount of convincing--heh, heh.) |
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| He's a pretty great one, too. |
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| Early twentieth-century mining camp refuse. |
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| The fanciest-pants pack meal I've ever accomplished. |
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| IT'S OVER! |
PS
My boyfriend is a nut who likes to decorate me with local specimens of shrubbery.
(Please note that I, as Ranger Jones, do not condone this practice.)
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| Awww... |
