Lizzy's Fantastically Funny Female Friends

This year for Lizzy's birthday, we promised her a trip to the cabin with friends over Memorial day. Last year we were in Hershey, Pennsylvania on her birthday, and we never gave her a Sweet Sixteen birthday party. So, this year we said she could invite a few friends. As she looked at who she wanted to invite, she could not limit the invitations to just three or four. Too many girls would feel bad for being left out. We had to bring practically the entire girls cross-country and track team. This meant driving two cars and allowing an older sister of Candace to drive up a third car early Saturday morning after the Senior Cotillion Dance.

Dave Ward had been to the cabin at the end of april, and there had been four feet of snow still on the ground. He told me that he doubted very much that we would be able to drive all the way in. for several weeks prior to our trip, I check the snow levels in Island Park at http://www.islandparknews.com. The levels went form 40 inches down to 2.5 on the day of our departure.

We left after school on Friday, getting away at 2:15 p.m. The drive to Ashton was pleasant as the girls are very fun to be with. After getting gas at $3.89 a gallon, we proceeded up the hill to Island Park. At first we were encouraged because there was no snow on the ground. As we ascended higher up the mountain patches of snow began to appear in the trees. As we crested the hill and drove through Island Park, there were small patches of snow in among the trees.

We turned onto big Springs road, and now the ground had one to one and a half feet of snow, excpet right around the trunks of the trees the ground was bare. I had come prepared with two sleds and two snow shovels in case we could not get past the snow field that is in front of the Barrus's cabin. When we turned onto Fransen Mill Road, we were at first encouraged because the road was clear. as we made a couple of turns, we were met by a foot of snow on the road. Pulling the trailer, and driving the Honda we decided we should stop and examine our options. We were still a mile and a half from the cabin. There was too much snow to shovel. We had only two sleds to carry in bags for nine people. Five more would come up in the morning. There were fresh snow cat tracks on the road, so Katherine and I decided to walk in and see if someone would bring us in. As we were walking along the snowy road, the snow cat came out, driven by Scott Gilbert, who owns the new cabin up on Joel's hill. He gladly agreed to drive us in. He was bringing in Dave and Pat DeYoung, who bought Coyote Cabin three years ago from the Barbers, and he co-owns the snow cat with Scott, and the Petersons who bought Joel's cabin. By the time we all got into the cabin, it was 9 pm. We had a yummy dinner of Taco Soup. No one stayed up too late, as we were all pretty tired.


This is what it looked like in front of the cabin when we woke up Saturday morning. Snow was everywhere. It rained all night Friday, and was raining Saturday morning. Dave DeYoung drove the snow cat out and picked up Marissa Eddy, Candace's older sister who had driven up early Saturday morning with four more girls. Kristin stayed home, so with Katherine and me, there were fourteen.

Since it was pretty difficult to hike around the cabin, we decided to drive to Yellowstone. We left the cabin around noon, and walked out to the cars, which were parked on the side of the raod.


It was raining, and there was a small creek running along the side of the road











No trip to Yellow stone would be complete without a trip to Buckaroos Bill's for ice cream. They serve Moose Tracks (vanilla with fudge ripples), Montana moose Moss (mint ice cream with mint cholcolate chunks), Graham Slam (graham cracker and caramel) Pecan Praline, Huckleberry, and many other favorites.

After our ice cream, we drove into the park, looked at elk herds, then drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs where there is less snow; we were optimistic of a snow-free hike.

Hiking up the Beaver Ponds Trail above Mammoth. We started up the muddy Beaver Ponds loop above Mammoth. This is a five mile loop, but we only completed a two-hour portion as we wanted time to visit Norris Geyser Basin, and Gibbons Falls.

This is the entire group of girls on our hike along the Beaver Ponds Trail above Mammoth. It rained off and on, but was nice and cool for a hike.

Sunday, we decided to hold our own church services inside the cabin. This is the breakfast crew, cooking up a healthy breakfast of bacon and eggs. This seemed to be our favorite breakfast.

Sunday afternoon, the sun finally came out. As you can see, there is still quite a bit of snow around the cabin. The snow was firm enough to walk on; sometimes we would sink in up to our ankles. We decided to walk downto the creek, and explore the area around the cabin.

Where the snow ends, the creek starts. Our bridge is just about entirely under water

Looking upstream along Lucky Dog Creek from the bridge.

The meadow is clear of snow, but the areas protected by trees still have a foot to a foot and a half of snow. Where there isn't snow, there is water.

Lucky Dog Creek is about three times as wide as usual.

These are the girls that came with me and mom up Lucky Dog Creek. It was pretty tricky walking along the edge of the creek, as the ground was very wet. We had to find places to put our feet where there wasnot too much water.

These three girls crossed the bridge and walked up the north side of Lucky Dog Creek. They follow us upstream, and when they came to Mom's Creek, they took off theor shoes and socks, and crossed. They continued up Lucky Dog Creek, and when they saw us on the other side, then again removed their shoes and socks, and ran across the creek to us.

Drinking from the clear cool waters of Lucky Dog Spring.

Hanging from the logs that support the second floor. I think that they were driving each other "batty".

Here is the whole gang all sitting on the couch at the same time.
Everybody wants to sit on the couch at the same time.
Washing and folding sheets on the last day at the cabin can be made into a game.
These girls have a special way to make each other look epsecially beautiful.
The girls had a great time just playing in the cabin. Here they are pulling each other up into the loft from the main floor. We had a fun time despite the snow and weather. all of the girls are good girls, very gracious and grateful. Katherine and I were tired, but we can't wait to return.