
The YCP crew has had a busy two weeks in Grand Teton!
During their third week in the field, the team spent three days brushing trails throughout the park. Trail brushing involves cutting vegetation back from the corridor to create a more pleasant experience for hikers and horseback riders. YCP cleared brush from the south side of the Phelps Lake loop trail and the east side of Jenny Lake. While at both locations, the crew also worked on the trails to widen the path and address sloping issues to mitigate erosion.

Week four of the YCP season had one constant challenge throughout each day—the heat! This created some less than ideal working conditions at times, but the group was still able to accomplish all of their tasks.
On Monday, the crew cleaned drains on the loop from Grand View Point to Bug Canyon. They practiced the fundamentals of properly digging a drain, one of the most important and commonly utilized skills on YCP. The group was able to dig all of the drains on the loop and even got a bit of brushing done as well.
YCP hiked into lower Paintbrush Canyon on Tuesday, where the primary focus was brushing the trail corridor in preparation for park trail crews to go into the backcountry the following week. The crew was also able to clean quite a few drains before descending back to String Lake for a refreshing swim.
Wednesday was Safety Day for the entire park staff, and YCP was able to attend this year. The crew was split up into teams that included many other park employees from other divisions, which was a great opportunity for the group to meet new people and learn about a variety of different job opportunities within the NPS. Teams attended nine, twenty-minute sessions on an array of topics, ranging from safe mountain travel to defensive driving to bear spray use and much more. After Safety Day, YCP had a couple hours to spare so they joined the rest of the park trail crew to dig drains on the Valley Trail near Taggart Lake.

On Thursday, YCP met with park wildlife biologists at Uhl Hill to look for wolves, observe a golden eagle nest with a chick, and learn about the biologists’ career paths. The golden eagle chick was eight or nine weeks old and already bigger than most birds the group are used to seeing! YCP enjoyed their time in the field even though they did not see any wolves, and they certainly learned a lot. After they finished with the biologists, YCP went to Colter Bay to finish their day with some brushing near Heron Pond, and of course a much-needed detour to the Swim Beach.
