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Hi. I’m Ben Benton from Flagstaff, Arizona. I believe that you will enjoy my daily journal from Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1999. I left downtown Flagstaff with my saddle and duffel in early July and lighted in the horse corral at Mammoth Hot Springs. My journal will continue through September 20th, unless the weather shuts us down earlier. You’ll read about adventures on the back country trails, Yellowstone history, people I meet, and anything else I can think of to write about. I’m the author of “National Park Employment Data,” a guide to working in national parks, which is available for purchase on my web site at www.gorp.com. I’ve been working in national parks and ski areas off and on for over twenty years. Because I want the data in my book to always be fresh, I continually test the concepts, employers, and tips that I provide. Right now, I’m working for Amfac Parks and Resorts. They are a top notch concession company because they place employee training, morale, and amenities first. |
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July 12-16, 1999, Off to YellowstoneWith my pickup engine newly rebuilt and my my daily responsibilities all taken care of for the rest of the summer, I set out for Wyoming with my saddle, duffle, and laptop computer. My plan was to sign on as a wrangler in the Tetons or Yellowstone and to write a daily journal for posting on the Internet. You’ll soon read how it all turned out and you’ll be able to come back everyday through late September for events on the trail, some descriptions of this magnificent area of the west, and tales of people I meet along the way. My ol’ forest-service-green Ford stepside has close to a third of a million miles on it and just got its third engine. It ran flawlessly from Flagstaff to Provo on Monday, July 12, as I passed through the southern Utah canyon country on US Highway 89. Having written the book on how to get a job in the national parks (available, by the way, on GORP at www.gorp.com/nped), I wasn’t worried about finding a job in Wyoming this late in the season. There’s always a certain amount of attrition after the Fourth of July. Some employees have received two or three paychecks by then, get antsy to go backpacking for the rest of the summer, and bail out. Of course they loose their eligibility for rehire with almost any park concessioner after that, but they don’t stop to think or maybe they just don’t care. I continued from Provo, Utah to Jackson, Wyoming where I checked on wrangler jobs at Jackson Lake Lodge, Colter Bay, Flagg Ranch, and the Heart 6. “Nothing available. . . Should have come last week, we just hired two. . . Might have somethng in August.” I continued on to Yellowstone. Twenty bucks to get in! Yikes. And the place is absolutely packed. What are they doing with all that money? They’re sure not patching the roads fast enough. Good thing I have everything in my truck bolted on tightly. I stopped at Grants Village Hamilton Store, just a couple miles from West Thumb, for lunch and mentioned to the hostess that I had been a lunch counter server for Hamilton’s West Thumb Store 20 years ago. The West Thumb Store was built on a thermal area and steam often came through the cracks in the old wooden floor. The Park Service finally insisted that they tear it down and move to Grants Village. The hostess said they were in need of evening servers and asked that I seriously consider coming back to Hamilton’s Stores. I reminisced about my time there in the 70s. The family-style meals in the employee dining room were cooked by Mary, who had to be in her 80s, and served at one long table by Mary’s helper. Mary would accept any employee’s cutthroat trout catch and serve a fried or baked trout dinner once a week. Since I had a split shift, I would fish — 50 yards from the store and dorns — all afternoon and take the catch to Mary. We served canned chili and pork stomach hot dogs at the lunch counter. But when the dinner bell rang in the store (twice for two settings, since only half the store could leave at any given time), it was time to enter Mary’s world of delectible cuisine. Customers in the store, asking what the bell meant, were told only that it was a bear in the parking lot. The customers would rush out to look while we ducked into the dining room for dinner. Madison Junction was my next stop, where I found Tom Sperry working the the NPS Resource Management in the Madison Ranger Station. Tom’s been working in parks for over 25 years, from Florida to Maine to Arizona to Wyoming. You can read Tom’s story in my book on page 31. I asked about wrangling at Canyon Junction and Roosevelt/Tower Junction and was given the phone number of the corrals manager for all of Yellowstone, Tom Venable, but no real encouragement from any of the head wranglers. I called and left a message for Tom. Getting a little discouraged, I went to Hamilton Stores personnel office the next morning and applied for evening server at the Grants Village store. They asked me to return at 3:00 P.M. Just about an hour before returning to Hamilton’s, I checked voice mail. Tom Venable said he needed me at Mammoth Horse Corrals. By Friday I was in the Yellowstone National Park Lodges personnel office getting signed up. Before I left Flagstaff, I bought four brand new long-sleaved shirts with snappy-poppy buttons. One rule of trail riding is “cover your skin.” Wear long sleaves and wide-brimmed hats. Guess what they issued me on the day I signed up? Four brand new long-sleaved shirts with snappy-poppy buttons. Oh well. |
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