Reflections on a winter in wonderland
Hard to have a bad day at work when this is the office!
It’s hard to boil down all the experiences I am fortunate to have had since I last wrote in November 2023, so I will do my best to summarize in a few bullets. As a reminder, right after Thanksgiving I left the east coast and moved to Yellowstone National Park for the winter season, where I lived at Old Faithful and worked as a snow coach driver and tour guide. Here we go:
People I met dozens of incredibly interesting people from all walks of life - high school grads who moved to Yellowstone when they were 18 and never left, recent college grads figuring their thing out, retirees, people like me who are kind of between things and also figuring their thing out, and everything in between. I wasn’t the most outgoing person this season in that I didn’t burn myself out trying to make friends from day one. Instead, I slowly but surely got to know a large handful of people really well and formed some awesome friendships. I also met some people with interesting stories who I didn’t go out of my way to befriend, and learned that that is okay too. It turns out that folks who choose to spend 100 days in a pretty remote, cold, snowy place generally have big hearts and are good soul food to be around.
Place I knew going into this season that Yellowstone is a special place and I had a strong feeling that being in a remote setting in the winter would be good for me, and that’s a big reason why I decided to go for it in the first place. But I don’t think I had a sense for just how healthy it is (for me, anyway) to be away from so much of the physical and emotional noise that we are used to in everyday life. Traffic, sirens, stop lights, commute times, and collective stress are some of the things I noticed an obvious lack of in the Park. And it wasn’t until the day I left that I appreciated how good life is without those things constantly adding to our distractions and mental chatter. Oh, and Yellowstone is spectacularly beautiful and throw a blanket of snow everywhere and you have paradise. So I feel grateful to have had this experience and also want more of that kind of thing moving forward.
Animals A big draw for Yellowstone is its wildlife. People flock from all over the world with the hopes (and small likelihood) of seeing wolves as well as bison, elk, birds, and so much more. What I loved about being in a wild place is understanding that to see a wild animal is both a product of sheer chance and is also quite grounding. To experience from a distance an animal going about her day undisturbed is a reminder that we are just like them and have basic life functions to tend to and those are the most important. They actually have it better in many ways because there aren’t these additional layers of complexity that have been added with technology and other advances. Wild animals are also great reminders of the constant change that we all experience as life moves along - nothing is the same one day to the next and, even though we wish we did, we have very little control over our lives.
Clarity One of my intentions for a winter in a National Park was to gain clarity on my future. I imagined countless hours of clear thinking and contemplation. It turns out I didn’t really do that at all because I spent most of my free hours skiing. But as I sit four weeks after leaving Yellowstone and look back, I actually gained a lot more clarity than I first thought without even knowing it. When I was present with my life and work in the park, I was free. There was no stress about finances, work deadlines, or what was next because, while not perfect, the work I was doing and the people I was doing it with was quite closely aligned with my values and interests. Would I do it forever? No, but being in a place that contains so much expanse of wilderness and protected land and sharing the power that being in such places with other visitors was special. Reflecting on that feeling is a great indicator for what will be the “right” thing to do next.
Skiing was a big part of my time spent while not working and boy were we spoiled with access right outside the door
Life in Yellowstone felt fake a lot of the time. It’s very much a bubble because little, if anything, from the outside world affected or influenced our daily life. I often had no idea what was happening in the news cycle or even with friends and family because I was immersed in this little world. Pros and cons come with that and I think, for the most part, it was a positive for me to shed the weight that comes with media consumption and just let it go.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me from this winter season is that it’s perfectly okay and doable to pursue a career in or tangental to National Parks or other public lands. This has been a bit of a struggle for me to accept because of some of the pressures I grew up with to make a lot of money and follow the good old American Dream path. While it may be difficult at times for me to see in the present moment the value of these experiences, it is clear if I think of future me looking back that I will not regret them one bit and surely everything will and already is working out. Onward!
Snow coaches are just like driving a big car with a much worse turning radius. It’s easier in some ways because of the lack of traffic and we don’t go more than 25 miles per hour. Good stuff!
In the blink of an eye, I have plans for the summer to work as a trail crew leader on the John Muir Trail with the Student Conservation Association (SCA). I am not sure exactly where on the JMT I will be but it should be a great time and getting paid to live in the backcountry isn’t so bad! If you’re going to be hiking thru, do let me know!
Thanks for reading and talk to you sometime soon!
-Ben Grannis
#EyesUp
