Our First Few Weeks at Yellowstone

Rich and I are excited to share our initial experiences at Yellowstone National Park during our 2024 season.

We were working for Delaware North who runs eleven General Stores in the Park. We arrived on May 23^rd for our orientation in a snowstorm! After orientation we headed to out to our store, taking a longer way around due to snow related road closures. We arrived at the dorm area/employee campground and were able to meet most of our co-workers.

Friday May 24^th our store, which was located at Tower Fall, opened to visitors and we were both thrown into training and learning on the job. I was a cashier and Rich worked in the fountain. The fountain consists of ice cream as well as hot dogs and bison brats for food. The store carried a lot of merchandise like apparel, mugs, toys, souvenirs and grocery items.

The Tower Fall Store is in the northeast section of the park. During the 2024 season the Tower Fall/ Roosevelt Junction area was home to a lot of bears. We have had some visitors at the campground/dorm area! We also had numerous animal sightings at the store which was a lot of fun for the visitors as well for us. The animal sightings at the store included:

• Bison

• Bears – we have had multiple sightings of 2 mama bears with 2 cubs

• Black wolf

• Badger

• Bighorn sheep

• Deer

Talking animals….Overall the wildlife sightings were incredible! I think it helped that we arrived when it was still a little cold and the animals were more active. Our animal list included:

• Bison (although we never saw the white baby bison)

• Black bears

• Grizzly bear and grizzly bear with a cub

• Moose – 2 right outside the park near Cooke City and the other just inside the northeast entrance

• Elk

• Antelope (also referred to as Pronghorn)

• Marmot (with the cutest little face)

• Coyote

• Big horn sheep with babies

• Red fox

• Ground squirrels (these look and act like a prairie dog)

Exciting News for Rich!

After a few weeks, Rich was asked to be the Lead in the Fountain area and then was promoted to Supervisor! He is super fortunate to have a great team including 4 young women from Taiwan.

Check out the sticker we had made to highlight our adventures at the park:

Signing off for now. But don’t forget to check our Adventure Wisdom Hub website by clicking HERE.

Happy at Yellowstone,

Zoe’