(Angry) August

Mt Teewinot from Moose Ponds Loop, Jenny Lake District, Grand Teton NP

August quickly slipping away. The park's been particularly busy and being on the southside with major road, parking lot and trailhead renovations & closures has put some extra strain on the preserve. Doesn't help that a 5-year old TikTok video is telling everyone to go to a particular spot on Phelps Lake to enjoy the water. Now add the park - with the most innocent of intentions - telling everyone via social media that the trailhead & parking lot for that spot is closed for the season and to use the preserve's parking lot to get to that spot on Phelps Lake. Add in flaggers, guide cars and a 25-45 minute wait time at each flagger and the mixture boils quickly. And it's not just our district.

When we're on patrol, volunteers get a park radio where you can talk to anyone in the park (law enforcement, dispatch, other districts for example). Just listening to the radio is just, if not more, exciting that any reality TV show. You get to hear things from a temporary road closure where they block off the road and wait at each end to ticket anyone who had parked illegally on that section of the road, to someone who is too entitled to wait at a wildlife jam and drives on the wrong side of the road and has a vehicle accident. Now mix in the usual speeders, wildlife jams, wildlife/visitor conflicts, accidents, parking violations, DUIs, conflicts between visitors, food storage violations, camping out-of-bounds, and the rare law enforcement assistance needed to euthanize a horse with a broken leg and we get a national park (one of many) that's strained at both ends.

Sometimes you arrive each day wondering where the chaos is going to occur that day and glad (hopeful?) that it's unlikely that it's where you're assigned. Expect it all to get worse next year. 

This past weekend seemed to be a change is the type of visitor. Now our typical visitor at the preserve is older. Early evening parking at Jenny Lake is more available (though still busy). Expect the park to be packed for Labor Day weekend. Colter Bay Marina (highest elevation marina on Jackson Lake) closed a few weeks ago due to low water in Jackson Lake. (Significant amount of water in Jackson Lake is intended for agriculture usage in Idaho. Idaho needs that water and is using it. This results in low water levels for Jackson Lake. Colter Bay drains out first.) This frees up a lot of parking at Colter Bay and Donna & I always recommend people go there when their "Plan A" isn't available.

So August almost over. We're about a month away from our departure time. We're fine. We plan to travel to New River George when we leave here. Plan to be in Fredericksburg, VA by mid-October. As always, that's the plan. Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us! David