Yellowstone National Park is totally amazing and I am extraordinarily lucky to be here. It’s not everyone who gets to live, work, and recreate inside one of the world’s largest active volcanoes. I have come to the conclusion that if this supervolcano decides to blow while I am here this summer, I am definitely good with that. It can take me with it wherever it goes.
As I write this on Monday, Memorial Day eve, it has been snowing since last Thursday and we are adrift in a late spring winter wonderland of northwestern Wyoming. I am stationed at Grant Village and will be interested to find out what this place looks like when the snow finally melts – in August, perhaps? We are at 7770’ above sea level, at an area of Yellowstone Lake called the West Thumb. A smaller caldera inside the larger caldera, West Thumb exploded around 174,000 years ago, 466,000 years after the last supervolcano explosion of some 640,000 years ago.
My two week training period is over. I have been at work for two days already, staffing the visitor center, roving geyser basin trails, and working on any of seven programs I will be presenting over the summer. I will present programs primarily about the geology but also have an interest in North America’s largest rodent. Women in the early park service might also be one of my topics. We are renaissance rangers, to be sure.
I am definitely good with it all.
