The wayside panels that I have been assigned to complete are as follows,
1. Bryce Canyons International Appeal
2. Weathering and Erosion
3. Lightning
4. Ponderosa Pines and rim receding backwards
5. Famous hoodoos

Walking the route

Everyone who is working on the panels got together and walked the rim where we want to do the self guided rim-walk. The goal is to have it be bidirectional so it doesnt matter which end you start on. We were able to come up with about 10 different stops. Some of them single panels and some double panels. We figured out what we wanted to talk about where and now need to divide up the responsibilities of who does which ones.

Brainstorming for the Waysides Signs

We had a meeting about how we want to redo the signs and which ones need to be done first. They have an idea of creating a self guided rim-walk. Meaning on our Ranger guided Rim-Walks we all talk about different things relating to Bryce. We will stop in front of things we want to discuss and then move on to the next thing. So we want to have panels up at various locations along that same route. So that way when we are not around to give people information they can still learn all about the area. That is the top priority and once that is finished then we will all begin to focus on the other panels around the park.


This is an example of an old sign to be replaced

Field Trip Week!

Learning here at Bryce is always happening. Yesterday we had a botanist named Dr. Bowns take us on a field trip to teach us more about the plants here at Bryce Canyon. He is a teacher at Southern Utah University and really knows his stuff. We began at Mossy Cave and learned about the plants growing in that ecosystem and then continued up to the burn zone from last year and on to the highest point in the park by Rainbow and Yovimpa Point, encomasing 3 seperate ecosystems.

Today was a geology day. Gale Pollock is our resident geologist and took taught us so much about the incredible forces that shaped this area and made it what is is today. We started with the oldest layers and worked our way up to the youngest layers found here. In the Tropic Shale formation we got to dig for fossils on some private land near past the town of Tropic. That was a really neat experience. At the begining we were all so excited when we found little fossilised oyster shells on the dirt. After an hour or so and about 1000 oyster shells later they werre not too exciting and everyone was digging for something more rare. Almost everyone found something they were happy about. This is what I discovered while digging around...



We continued our way up the layers and ended around 4:00pm with the conglomerate at Boat Mesa layer from Fairyland Point. It was extreamely informative and I learned so much about this area. A big thanks to Gale Pollock and all the preperation that went into this field trip!!!

Astronomy Festival

Bryce Canyon has an Astronomy Festival comming up on July 7-10th. We have been working on some of the publications for it, and the project I was assigned was the banner that would go across the Enterance Station and the Visitors Center. Below is what I have created for it.

New Housing Arrangements

I just got moved out of the Astronomy dorm that I have been sharring and now have a little bungalow(cabin) of my own. It is in the historic housing section meaning it was built a very long time ago, but I like it and am excited to have my own place.
This is the wayside sign not too far away from my cabin and it talks about the cabins in the area and their historic significance.


The Rim Walk is getting better and better and now it is time to start working on my Kids Program. I think it will be related to the wild animals in the park. Maybe they could pick their animal that they get to represent for the hour and learn everything about them. Then after all of the different projects that help them learn about their animal they get to come up and tell everybody something they learned. Hmmm... any suggestions would be welcome. Junior Rangers and little kids interested in nature and the parks are so cute!

The Rim Walker

My background check ended up clearing Mon sometime so I started work officially on Tue and only lost 1 day! Wow what a relief. I got my uniform allowance on fri of that week and placed my order that day. They expect it will take at least 2 weeks. In the meantime there are a few extra uniforms that pleople have donated in the past that they are letting me use until my order comes in. I was lucky to find everything I need that was pretty close to my size, but it will be nice to have my own.

It looks like my duty breakdown will be 25% Visitors Center Desk, 25% giving Rim Walks / Kids Program / project time to prepare for them, and 50% Wayside Exibits. Now of course that breakdown of duties happens at the beggining of June. This month is more of the rim walks and visitors center.

The rim walk has gone a lot better than I expected. I have given 2 so far and will be doing my 3rd today at 5pm. The Rim Walks consist of 1 - 1.5 hours of talking about various facts about Bryce. It starts at Sunset Point goes .5 mile and ends at Sunrise Point. I talk about geology/trees & shrubs/history/lightning/the paiute people & legend, and a few other things. I thought the massive crowd of around 40 people was going to be very intimidating, but it turns out you always have a few people who talk and contrubute and I end up focusing on them and the ones up close and everybody else is just listening in. Now eventually I need to find a way to involve everyone but for now the people in the back are not a big deal.

Ranger Cami has finally finished training and is ready to go - sort of

So I completed my 2 weeks at Bryce Canyon National Park. The department im working for is called the Interpretation Dept. Meaning, they interpret all of the information about the park and find a way to tell it to people in an interesting and informative manner. They give talks and demonstrations on the geology, random Bryce facts presented during the Rim Walk, astronomy programs, star gazing nights throught telescopes, a kids program, and evening programs on all sorts of things.
They have been wonderful in bringing everyone up to not only having good Interpretive talk/presentations but having the best. Main thanks to Kevin Poe and his expertise. They went extreamely in depth on how to best convey information to best suit the audience, keep them interested, have good opening/closing sections, good transitions. Awesome public speaking tactics. Now I only have to put together 2 different presentations, and then the rest of my time will be devoted to waysides, and working the visitors center.

Ahh lots of well needed training and I cant wait to get out on the rim and out to the Visitors center desk to talk to the visitors and help them understand the Bryce Canyon majesty they have come so far to see, and I have studied so long to understand. Only problem is that my background check still has not gone though yet. Turns out they are mass hiring the census people and have to clear all of their background checks before anyone else. So in the meantime I am in limbo and can not officially start work until it goes though. Could be a day or two or a couple weeks nobody knows. Hopefully it goes quick I submitted the background check 2 1/2 weeks ago.

Starting work at Bryce Canyon

Ok looks like the summer should be full of all sorts of fun adventures. Bryce is as beautiful as I remember and the people I will be working with are wonderful. I can tell already that I will have a lot to learn from them. My only complaint is that the job description asked for a designer to only help them make their trail wayside signs at Bryce Canyon, nothing else was advertised in it. So I applied and got the job, and now i am going to be playing the part of an official park ranger. I must have missed that somewhere, but it will be a good experience anyway and im really excited about it. I also did not know what an Interpreter even was or what they did.

So I will be in training 2 weeks and then getting comfortable working as an Interpreter after that I will start working on signs at the beginning of June. I feel bad that I applied for a job that I knew little about. (as far as the NPS and Interpretation) Luckily I have a background in guiding horseback rides at National Parks and Resorts chating about the area, so it seems like that area should be a fairly easy transition. Only thing that concerns me is that it seems like most of the other Interpreters I work with have voluntered at Bryce before, and worked at National Monuments and such and then moved up to being an Interpretive Ranger. I have not done either and hope I am not in over my head. I think it will be a really good experience no matter what, and plan on doing whatever it takes in order to get to the point I need to be.