Work, Work, Work

I feel like all I have been doing lately is working. Not too bad of a deal when I have such a sweet job. My outings in these two weeks have taken me all over the park. The first spot that I went to was to revisit Coalpits Wash. This time I took a trip up Scoggins Wash since I had not been up there for a couple years. It was how I remembered it except drier and saltier. I met up with Coalpits Wash eventually and went up it as far as my limited time would allow. This was all in response to a cancelled trip through Keyhole due to Scott's (the VIP) dad being up. The next day the same thing happened. I was supposed to go through Keyhole with Delynko, but he had Taser training. Instead, Annette and I went through Keyhole. It was what Keyhole usually is, filled with water, downclimbs, and some short rappels. Once again I wore too thick of a wetsuit and it made life miserable on me. We went back up to try to find where the dead deer was. We found it up canyon a ways. When I got back, there was a SAR going on. I stuck my head in the door to see all the important SAR people talking. Eventually I got the call and got to go out to the Subway to be radio relay. I sat at the Hoodoo Pass and relayed everything Rob and Cody said to the whole park. The guy that was hurt had a badly broken leg. It was an exciting job considering that the whole park noticed what I was saying over the radio. I got to stay out overnight and got quite a bit of overtime. In the end, everything went smoothly as we short hauled the guy out of there by helicopter. Immediately after that Jacqueline and I went down to Mesquite, but I was disappointed by the place. The next week saw many great trips. I went up to Observation Point and the East Mesa area, where I actually got a better view from a spot on the East Mesa near Mystery canyon, simply because it was a view I had not witnessed before. The next day I was supposed to go through Left Fork. I got a call saying that we had a search for an elderly couple instead. They were overnight in Coalpits and I was actually the one who located them in Coalpits Wash. Way to go me. They were fine and in surprisingly good spirits for the age and having spent the night out. Seth (fellow backcountry ranger) and I finished the day up with some arch site monitoring on the Kolob Terrace Road and a hike out to the Northgate Peaks. The following day, Seth and I left for an overnight on the West Rim. This is exciting because I have got to do very few overnights. The West Rim was its usual with beautiful views of the Left Fork, Right Fork, and all the mountains and temples in between. We cleared a lot of old dead trees out and even a whole house made out of dead trees from the campsite. We camped for the evening and I slept fairly well in my bivy sack. The next day we put up some trail counters that included a jaunt up Angel's Landing. It is funny doing that trip in my park uniform. I feel like I should not even think about being worried about it and frankly I wasn't that worried. It just seems so strange that people will do Angel's Landing so frequently, but not venture out into some of these more interesting places in the park. To end it all, we picked up a rattlesnake that was living right next to the trail. We moved him even though he would likely return sooner or later to the same spot. That finished it up, but I definitely am starting to feel as if I am returning to mid season form.

Update: Before I could post this, I got to go out on yet another SAR. This time to Echo Canyon where two canyoneers were stuck because of heavy snow conditions. I got to be the first on the scene. They were not injured and so really my main job was to let them know that someone was coming. Then the rest of the team showed up (Tom, Eric, Rob, and Vid) and we rigged a system up to yank them out. We lowered an attendant and then pulled all three back up. It was a great SAR and kept me out until 3am.