How did I get here?

Well, one of my good friends from college just sent me an email, asking how I ended up coming to Yellowstone in the first place.  I guess it’s worth noting.  It’s a question my customers ask all the time, and when I have time to explain, this is what I say:

I’m the wandering type, as those who know me know pretty well.  It all started just before high school, when my dad suggested that I go to summer camp in Maine.  My sister had gone one summer as a “general camper,” and she loved it.  But talking to dad, I realized I wanted to go on more of an adventure.  I signed up to be a “tripper,” and do hiking trips and a canoe trip.  My dad had worked at Outward Bound when he was younger, and always tried to get his daughters into the wilderness.  So I gave it a try.  I got made fun of as soon as I got to the camp for being a “paddle head,” but my experiences there were life changing and worth all the name calling.  I canoed the entire Allagash river, and went hiking in the White Mountains with a group of awesome people.  It was the beginning of my love for the outdoors and adventures.

After that, I did something like it every summer.  I went back to Camp Hawthorne one more time, and then I started Outward Bound trips.  One summer, I guess it must have been after my freshman year in high school, I spent a month in Colorado, doing a Rocky Mountain Mountaineering course with Outward Bound.  It was incredible, and extremely trying on me–physically and mentally.  I remember counting the days until it was over, and also being pushed to the brink of my physical limits.  We climbed snowcapped peaks, and trudged through knee-high snow.  One night, we reached the summit of a mountain way too late to get down, and had to sleep on the other side of the mountain in our helmets against the rocks, under the stars.  It’s one of my most vivid memories ever:  the mountains looked like a bowl, and we were lying on the inner rim.  The sky was clear and I’ve never seen so many stars.  I didn’t sleep the whole night, partially because I was afraid of sliding off the mountain in my sleep, but mostly because I couldn’t stop staring at the sky.  In my young mind, I began to realize the context of the world around me.

After that summer, I went to Alaska for another mountaineering course.  It was a 2-month glacier mountaineering course, and I don’t think I’ve ever done anything as amazing as what I did on that trip.  We lived on the Harding Ice field for a month, which is a 1-mile by 1-mile stretch of glaciers and ice, high up in the mountains in the Chewgach range.  It was incredibly gorgeous.

The mountains would poke up out of the ice field, even though they are thousands of feet high.  It was incredible.  We dug out a campsite on the ice field, staking out a safe zone where we could walk without being roped on.  Outside of that zone, we’d have to walk in echelon to avoid death by falling into a hidden crevasse.   I learned how to face immense fear and sleep on cold snow each night.  One day, we got caught in a white-out, and 3 of the 4 tents we had imploded on themselves; the poles shot through the nylon, leaving 14 people stranded with only one tent.  We huddled for warmth in that one tent for a day and a half, until a helicopter came with re-rations and more tents.

Each day, we left our base camp, and ventured out onto the glaciers and into the crevasses.  We learned how to ice climb, and how to summit technical peaks as a team.  I remember thinking that I wanted to do this forever.  One day, I would hike the seven summits.

After we got off the ice field, we went hiking in the tundra.  We had a 4-day solo, during which time I was in heaven, just reflecting on my dreams and goals in life, and the person I wanted to become.  Perhaps there’s something about jumping into an endless crevasse, with nothing but pure faith and trust in your teammates and the anchors you’ve built, that makes a 14-year-old want to reflect on their life.  But I remember learning so much about myself during that trip, and especially during that solo.  I realized how much I like being alone, and getting to know myself.  I feel like the person I am is really the story I tell myself.  So with enough time alone, I could become whoever I wanted to be.  It was a good lesson.

After Alaska, I spent the next two summers at home in New Jersey.  I worked at a summer camp in New Jersey, leading backpacking trips in the Adirondacks and rock climbing trips all over NJ, NY and PA.  I worked alongside a NOLS instructor, who taught me everything about how to build “bombproof anchors” for  top-rope climbs, and it was really empowering to be in charge of setting anchors for a bunch of 10-year olds.  By the end of the summer, I learned to trust in my skills as a climber, and feel like I was keeping my campers safe.  I also lead a canoe trip one of those summers, down in southern NJ, but the name of the river is escaping me.  I just remember it being an extremely difficult trip.  Being an instructor for children who are sent on these trips against their will is not an easy thing.  I was drained by the end of it, and it wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to experience the outdoors.

So after that, I was in college.  I didn’t especially like college, because it was in a big city, and it was impossible to get out into the wilderness with the kind of schedule I had.  I was working two jobs, one as an ABA therapist for kids with autism, and the other as a waitress for an upscale restaurant in Northwest DC.  I had come from high school in California–a boarding school with a really rich outdoor program.  Each fall and spring, the whole school went on different camping trips for a week.  I went hiking in the Sierras, climbing in Joshua Tree, sea kayaking in Baja, and camping in Zion, among many other amazing trips.  And even when we weren’t on these long trips, each weekend at Thacher, we could take our horses out on trail rides in the Los Padres National Forest.  So going from that, to a school in the city, I was a little lost.  The only time I was able to get away in college was when my friends and I went tubing on the Shennandoah river.

Those were the best times of my college years–tubing and canooing with Pat, Daniel, and Griffin.  But about a month before starting my third year in college, I realized suddenly that these little weekend excursions weren’t enough.  I needed to get out of DC, and do something better.  I only had a semester and a half left of school, and I had invested too much time and money to drop out.  So I called up NOLS, and signed up for their semester in the Amazon, leaving in 2 weeks.  I was lucky to get a spot, after someone had called that day and cancelled their enrollment.  So two weeks later, I was on a flight to Brazil, and a leave of absence from American University.

I remember walking up to the hotel in Cuiaba, with tears in my eyes.  I got to the front door, and saw a bunch of Americans, my age.  I didn’t have any baggage, as the airline had lost everything, and so my new friends assumed I was upset about that.  No.  I was crying because I had had a 2-hour car ride where I was able to think about polar bears.  It made me sad thinking that they are drowning by the dozens because the ice caps are melting.  Strange, I realize now.

Anyways.  I was in the Amazon for 3 months.  It was amazing, and insane.  Each day was a struggle, in so many ways.  By the end, I learned to just put my sunglasses on while I was hiking through the thick jungle so that my friends couldn’t see me cry.  I read my journal from that trip now, and remember the terrible, terrible moments I had.  Being bit by bullet ants.  Stung by dozens of bees.  Swimming with caimen and piranas.  Waking up in the middle of the night covered in leaf-cutter ants (who also love to cut skin).  And so much more.  At one point, my friend counted over 485 bug bites on my body.  My eyes swelled shut from all of the histamines floating around in my bloodstream.

Man, it was tough.  But I got through it by telling myself it was all just part of the experience.  It’s the Amazon.  In 50 years, it will be all but gone.

I remember one day, spending the entire day alone in the jungle, collecting leaves that mezmerized me.  I found the most amazing leaves, and the most diverse array of shapes and colors.  I got lost in a dream world that day, with just me and my leaves.  I still have many of them, folded into the pages of that leather journal that Danielle bought for me before I left.

The Amazon taught me that there was nothing I couldn’t do in my life.  Not one thing that would be too difficult for me to get through.  I pushed myself to the edges of my capabilities, and came out of it unscathed.  I missed my flight back to the US, and stayed in Brazil for another 2 months, Couchsurfing throughout Rio and Sao Paulo alone.  It was all incredible.  And in Brazil was where I fell in love with Kurt Vonnegut.  I remember reading Breakfast of Champions, and Slaughterhouse Five on the beaches of the Amazon, and being unable to comprehend how a man could be so damn smart.

When I came back from Brazil, I had just 5 months of school left.  I finished in June, and went home in July.  Ready for something new, I hopped on a bus to Maine, thinking that I’d give the Appalachian Trail a try.  I hadn’t really planned it at all, and had no idea that starting July 21st, Southbound, was slightly ridiculous.  But I found myself on Mt. Katahdin, Maine on July 21st, and on Springer Mountain, Georgia on December 21st.

And those 5 months, in between those dates, all I did was hike.  Hike, and meet people, and hike some more.  I don’t really know how I did it, looking back on it, because it was extremely lonely and difficult day after day.  Maybe I enjoy that kind of misery.  But at the time, I was just trucking along, feeling like this was my purpose in life all along.  I had nothing to care about besides food, water, and shelter, and I realized at some point along the way, that these things would always be provided for, so there was really nothing to worry about in life.  I would always end up OK.

I had more time than ever on the AT to learn about myself.  As I saw people quit the trail, and go home to their lives that we dreamed were more comfortable, I realized that there was no where I’d rather be.  Nothing I’d rather do.  The mountains was where I belonged.  And not only that, but the people I met inspired me to love humanity in an inexplicable way.  Hitchhiking into towns to get food, people would go out of their way to put a roof over my head, or food in my mouth.  One day, I was sitting on my pack outside a gas station, eating some pizza, when a car pulled up.  It was a trail town, so I guess the person figured I was a thru-hiker.

“Are you hiking the trail?” the man asked.

“Yessir, I am.”  I said.

“Take this.”  He said, and threw $40 out of his window.  ”Good luck to you!” he shouted as he drove off.

I picked up the money, slightly dumbfounded, and almost resentful.  I thought to myself you know, I am hiking this trail intentionally…I’m not just some lost homeless person.  I don’t need your money.  It wasn’t until later that I realized it wasn’t about me needing his money.  He gave it to me because he wanted to be part of my experience, and do some random act of kindness.  I never was able to thank him, but I also never forgot him.  And I can’t tell you how many people I met that did similar things that shock me now when I think of it.  For all the people out in the world that do bad things, there are so many that just want to do good.

After the trail, I changed forever.  I straightened out my priorities, and for the first time in my life, I had an extremely clear idea of who I was.  I went to Cape Cod, to visit a friend I met on the trail, and fell in love with the beaches.  I had never lived in New England before, and I had no plan whatsoever after the trail, so I decided to see if I could get a job and just stay there for a little bit.  It was January, and the snowy beaches and quaint living really appealed to me for some reason.

Within a week, I had a job as an ABA therapist for two children with autism, and I was working for an amazing family, in a home program.  I loved the family like my own, and put my heart into the job.  If I hadn’t loved them so much, I would have left the Cape after that first summer, because I quickly learned that it wasn’t quite for me.  I met one friend, Sean, that became my best friend, but besides him, I was quite alone.  I had a hard time meeting people, because not many people move to Cape Cod in their early 20′s, and I was working so much that it was pretty much all I did.  I went to Graduate school, and just kind of spent three years there being a grown-up.  I got my degree, and a wealth of experience with behavioral intervention in autism, and realized it was time to move on.  I was sitting alone in my apartment one day, knitting, in the winter, and it occurred to me that I had my whole life to live like this.

Now wasn’t the time to act like a grown up.  I could play the part well enough, but I wanted to put aside my oh-s0-serious lifestyle, and get back to the adventures.  I wanted to be able to have that freedom I felt after the trail, like I could move anywhere and do anything.  I spent one summer away from the Cape, working at an all boys summer camp in the Berkshires, as the Nature Director, and I think that was the thing that truly made me realize I had to get back to the mountains.  After that summer, I knew it would be my last year on the Cape.  And it was.

One night, when was back on the Cape last fall, I googled “Yellowstone Jobs.”  A man I had met on the trail told me that he funded his adventures by doing seasonal work at Yellowstone.  I had always remembered that, but finally decided I would just give it a try.  I sent my application in in November, and by February, I had a contract with Xanterra.

OK, so I lied, this isn’t the story I tell my customers when they ask me in the dining room how I got here.  But it’s how I got here.  I always wanted to see Yellowstone, and I had never been out here before.  The vastness of the Park, and it’s place in the history of the US had piqued my interest from an early age. So I am here.

And I doubt this will be the last of my National Park employment experiences.  For as much as I complain about the job (and trust me, I will never be a server again in a National Park), living here is something I could never have imagined.  It’s such a privilege, and it’s where I belong.  I am here because I was called once again to the mountains, and the wanderer in me decided to give up on my serious life and give this a try.  It’s just another chapter in my book, but it fits well with the story of my life that I tell myself over and over.  I’m here because it’s new, and I will go to the next place for the same reason.

Thank you Rachel, for inspiring me to remember why I came here.