Pub & Inspiration Point

Friday June 8th - A lot of kids here like to request the weekends off, and the company is very flexible when it comes to giving people days off with their friends, so mostly everyone has their days off with their friends, if not the weekends. Friday night at the pub was the most crowded I had seen it in the three days I had been there. Some kid ran up and down the hallway knocking on doors saying their was a Toga party, so my roommate said she would take me to the pub and introduce me to some more people. When my roommate came to my room to pick me up, she was already drunk, which disproves my conception of how hard I thought it was going to be to get alcohol around here. We walked over to the pub in the pouring rain(at least it wasn't snow!), but then we got separated and I ended up their with a couple of her friends. At first, I sat down at a table while I waited on my roommate to arrive. The people are seriously so friendly; one guy sitting at the bar waved me over and after learning that I was from the Philadelphia area, just exploded with conversation about the Flyers (I'm a HUGE FAN!!) He was a 'native' from Montana, but only by his standards. I learned from the conversation that in order for the locals to acknowledge you as a "montanian" they want to know where your parents are from, and where your grandparents are from. Most people who are from Montana, he said, have several generations who lived in Montana before them. Then he asked me if I had ever been sledding, and my immediate reaction was duhh what kid hasn't been on a sledding on a snow day off from school? But then he had to clarify that his sledding and my sledding was two different things. My sled was yellow, probably three feet long and cost about $14....his, on the other hand, was a snow mobile that cost roughly $3400. So sledding out here is really snow mobiling. There are a lot of different slang words and phrases out here that everyone uses, some are relative just to park terminology and others I guess are regional, like, 'get off my koolaid', which I had never heard until I came out here. There are lots of phrases just people in the park use, like crack, the honey-mustard, mayo hot sauce combo dip that is great on pretzels to everyone except me...and lot's of people yell corner when they are walking around corners, or behind you when you're behind someone who can't see you. Mostly these are just used in the kitchens, but sometimes you'll hear it outside the workplace. Another thing I noticed is that people like to touch you when they talk to you. At first I thought maybe it was a guy thing, then I figured maybe it was a drunk-at-the-bar thing, but girls do it too. Most people place a hand on your back, shoulder, or arm when their talking to you, especially when introducing themselves, and that was a little uncomfortable at first considering I'm not used to people doing that, and I didn't know most of the people who were doing it to me. I also noticed that when the people I met introduced their friends to me, the touching increased. Guys especially gave each other handshakes and hugs, but  I didn't observe many girls doing the same.
  I also met some more people from the East Coast. A guy from Connecticut road his motorcycle (for the first time) all the way to Yellowstone, and told me about his last night on the road before coming to Gardner. It was sleeting and snowing for most of the last day's ride out here. On his last night, he stayed in a hotel where the pools outside were heated by hot springs, and there was a swim-up bar, and he told me how he went in the 107° pool in the snow and ordered a shot and it was the coolest thing he had ever done and how there is nothing like that on the east coast.

                                                                           Saturday June 9th
Today was cold, but the wind chill factor made it reallllllly cold, especially with the canyon nearby (it gets really gusty). After work, I took a hike up to Inspiration Point with a couple of coworkers and one of her friends. For those of you who don't know, two days earlier a girl fell 400ft to her death into the Yellowstone canyon. She had literally been at Canyon for 2 hours, unpacked her stuff and went out on a hike. She went too close to the edge of a cliff, apparently trying to get a picture, when the loose rock fell out from underneath her.
Yellowstone Park Worker Fell 400ft to Death

The girl was Russian and had just moved into my dorm, only she lived on the first floor. A boy had taken her and two of her friends out to the Canyon, and from what I heard from some friends around the dorm, he tried to pull her back or at least told her not to do it and she wouldn't listen. He was so distraught that he had to leave and went back home. Needless to say the two other Russian girls went home. Park rangers left the girl's body in the canyon from 5PM until about 8AM the next morning, and didn't successfully reach her body by helicopter until about noon Friday. It was a really tragic accident that no one would ever wish on someone. I can't imagine how her friends and family must feel, and while no one deserves a death like that, but her actions were asking for it. She took a risk against hundreds of signs which warn visitors to stay on the trails, and unfortunately, though I've seen many people stand ontop of huge boulders and get away unharmed, she has to be the example for everyone. I've been out to the canyon at least three times so far, and probably 95% of people stay on the trails, some will go just over the guard rail where it looks okay, and only a rare handful have I seen actually scale a boulder or go where I would deem 'too far'. Most people stay on the paths because you can get find a couple thousand dollars for breaking park rules (considered federal laws, and you could go to federal prison), and if you do survive one of those falls, you will probably still get a hefty fine on top of your medical bills.
Walking on the trail we saw a total of 6 people. The trail is just short of two miles, and I would estimate most of the trail was about 20-30 feet away from the cliff of the Canyon. It made for some really spectacular pictures. One of my coworkers is studying to be a geologist, so it was cool to hear her talk about the different types of rocks and what the colors meant.... for a little while... It was just soo windy and sooo cold! We walked back on the road and attempted to hitchhike (lots of people do it out here...doesn't mean its safe and I'm not promoting it in any way) whenever a truck passed by (the plan was to get a ride back to Canyon by riding in the bed of the truck, since riding in the back of a truck is legal out here) but only two trucks passed us and we were too chicken to wave one down. Here are some pics of our trip

The 'point' of inspiration point

Fenced off area around inspiration point

         

View from Inspiration Point

 View on the hike to Inspiration Point