After we left Moab, it was time to head to West Yellowstone, Montana, where Randy was due to report on April 1st for a seasonal work camping job in Yellowstone National Park. We stopped for a couple days near Salt Lake City so we could provision at Costco and the grocery stores and from there made our way to West Yellowstone where we would spend the first 3-4 weeks of the season.

Work camping is quite common in the RV lifestyle world. It’s where individuals or couples work temporary, seasonal jobs in exchange for a free campsite, paid wages, or both. Randy enjoyed work camping last summer in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so this year when he was searching for jobs he focused on jobs that would get us close or into a national park. In his research, he found that there are 2 main companies that manage the stores, restaurants and lodging in Yellowstone National Park: Delaware North and Xanterra. While Xanterra manages the hotels, lodging and restaurants in the park, Delaware North manages the park’s 11 general stores. He applied for work with Delaware North and secured a job in maintenance for the general stores. This position starts in early April and goes through Nov. 1st. For the maintenance team, it’s an hourly paid job working a minimum of 32 hours per week and comes with additional perks like an RV campground site at no charge and healthcare coverage for a minimal fee (compared to what we were paying for private insurance).

While the park doesn’t officially open until mid-April and the general stores don’t open until May, Randy and the maintenance team was needed to start early April so they could begin to dig out and get the stores open and operational. Delaware North HR offices are located in West Yellowstone and they have a private RV campground for employee use. This is where we spent our first 3 weeks. After a few days of orientation and training, Randy and the maintenance team started the process of driving into the park each day, visiting the stores and digging them out from snow. Thankfully, the winter’s snow was lower than usual so it didn’t take as many days as it had in the past. Once the snow was plowed and dug, the guys would need to remove the store shutters, reassemble plumbing fixtures, turn on the water and electricity to get the stores operational. Some of the general stores in the park are historical landmarks and very old, so you can imagine there would always be a few hiccups in this process, like leaks, floods, etc. Nevertheless, the maintenance team prevailed and got everything up and running.

While we were in West Yellowstone in April, we got 14 inches of snow! We hadn’t seen snow like this in decades and for Florida folks from the tropics it was quite spectacular. It made the maintenance guys jobs a little harder because they would have to shovel out areas they already did earlier in the month.

Once all the general stores were open, it was time for us to move to our spot in the park. Randy was placed at the Fishing Bridge and Lake Village location along with his partner, David. There, they would be in charge of maintenance for the Fishing Bridge General Store and dorms, the Lake General store and dorms as well as the smaller Bridge Bay General Store. Our RV would be located at the LERV, which is the Lake Employee RV Campground. We have full hookups and are very lucky to be at the only campground with propane hookups, which has been wonderful since we’ve had to run the heat quite a bit. The day we moved to our new place, it snowed, or course. Thankfully, it was safe enough for us to be on the roads. The part of the park we were headed to was not open to the public yet and Randy had to unlock the gate for us to get through.

My first official visit inside the park

Right after the west entrance of the park officially opened (and before we moved the RV into the park), we took a drive into the park. While Randy had already been in the park multiple times and had his bearings, this was the first time I got to visit. We first drove to Old Faithful to watch the geyser and stopped at Grand Prismatic Spring on the way. After that, we drove toward Canyon and Hayden Valley. The Hayden Valley and Fishing Bridge/Lake area were not open to the public yet but Randy was allowed open the gate so we could drive and I could see the Fishing Bridge area where we were going to be staying. It was very cold that day but so cool to see the park with snow cover, especially in contrast to seeing it now in July with wildflowers.

While in West Yellowstone, it was nice to get to hang out with some of the maintenance crew. We invited a few of them over for beers and to get to know each other and a couple times we would meet up at the Buffalo Bar. We also went on a hike with “the kids” (nicknamed since they were all under 25) on Gneiss Creek Trail which is a 14 mile trail that takes you over the park’s boundary and into Yellowstone. We hiked about 5 miles in before turning around. It was a beautiful crisp cool day and the perfect introduction to hiking Yellowstone with scenic snow-capped mountains, open plains and bison. To say we were stoked about having all summer to explore this amazing place is an understatement!