the interior

Yesterday we got up at 5:30AM to catch the 7AM snowcoach to Old Faithful. We took a mattrack coach, which basically is a passenger van with tank-like tracks in-place of the tires. It wasn't the smoothest or quickest ride we've ever taken for the 51 miles from Mammoth to Old Faithful, but it could have certainly been worse. There were parts of trip, especially closer to Mammoth, where the roads were clear down to the asphalt. Still, by the time we reached Old Faithful there was a good base of snow on the road.

We found our housing building and quickly realized that cross-country skis are to Old Faithful in the winter as Jeep's were at Wilton High School in the early 90s -- the coolest way to get from here to there.

After getting settled in our new living quarters, we waited till the cover of darkness for our first outing on our new skis. For those who haven't tried the sport for twenty years like me, the equipment is so much more advanced and user-friendly, but it still took us about 5 minutes to figure out how to get our boots connected to our skis. With that first test behind us, we attempted to ski around the housing complex: a solid half-mile loop. We made it around and back without any major mishaps and were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we tried to get our boots off our skis. After a good 10 minute battle of which the skis were the hands-down winner, the ski school instructor happened by, and with a flick of his ski pole, decleated us much to our embarrassment. Our egos shot, we called it a day.

Our confidence still smarting, we chose to start Day 2 with a walk, not a ski, down the path to breakfast. We did some training and setting up for our first day of work tomorrow and the headed out for a walk, not a ski, around the geyser basin which includes many marshy spots where the ground is too hot for snow to accumulate.

As we passed the lodge we almost ran right into a coyote who was making his way past us to the marsh and beyond.

We tramped our way through the snow (we at least should have worn snowshoes) to the base of the Old Faithful geyser which was smoking but not quite ready to do its thing. Just as we were moving on two coyotes ambled right past the geyser and disappeared.

As we followed the boardwalk around the geyser basin we kept losing sight of the coyotes before they would pop up again a little down the road. Finally they reached the Firehole River, which runs through the basin, and decided, after they tested the water, they would cross the river right in front of us.

After they disappeared again, we continued around the boardwalk and took in some more of the thermal features that surround Old Faithful

As we made our way back home the sun was setting in such a manner that it reminded us of the forest fires we saw this summer when we were visiting Yosemite (that's the Old Faithful Inn in the corner of the pic)

After a long walk home in the deepening snow we bit the bullet and strapped on the skis to travel the 1/2 mile each way to dinner. It wasn't the prettiest trip of all time but we were able to get the skis on and off with relative ease to even the score: SKIS 1, W&S 1.