Quinn Endicott/SWC
110 9th Street West
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
6/11/21
Today I finally worked something different than 3-11 and got off of work at 6pm! I didn't have much planned so I ended up meeting up with my ministry partner and seeing if our friends from West Glacier had arrived at their campsite for the weekend. They weren't there so we went back to our EDR (employee dining room) and saw the security guard friend (we will call him R) of mine and invited him to join us later. He ended up grabbing his guitar and playing some music to kill time. He wrote a few original songs and played them for us and it was very applicable to the environment around us. Later we checked again for our friends and they had arrived. So we joined them for a small campfire and continued to listen to R play guitar for a while. It was a pleasant evening with great company.
6/12/21
Today was my first day off in a while and I ended up deciding to join a group that hiked to Cracker lake. The hike itself is a total of 13.2 miles. We left at around 2pm and planned to be back before 9pm, having the recommended time for the hike being 6 hours. We started off in a misty/rainy atmosphere in a very heavily wooded area. Additionally, the beginning of this trail is the most popular horseback riding trail so there was a lot of horse poop mixed in with mud. We found a few creeks on our way along the trail until we stumbled upon a beautiful overlook of Wynn Mountain. We continued along the trail with Mt. Allen to our right. I was joined by two housekeeping guys and the maintenance guy that I had summited Mt. Altyn with. We stopped for a brief lunch along the river bed and listened to the stream flowing over the rocks. We continued along the trail occasionally gazing up at Mt. Allen until we hit a number of snow fields. We trudged through the snow to finally reach Cracker Lake. We were greeted by a Marmot as we were mesmerized by the blue of the lake. The lake is surrounded by Cracker Peak, Mt. Siyeh, and Mt. Allen. I ended up taking a quick swim in the glacier water and almost instantly got a brain freeze due to it being so cold! I tried to air dry but decided to put my clothes back on before I was fully dry. We ended up hiking back after hanging out on the rock for a while and we maintained a 17 minute mile the entire 6.4 miles and got back in 1 hour and 45min! It was a great day and officially s now my favorite recognized trail.
6/13/21
Today was the third Sunday that my ministry team led services. I was able to recruit my friend R and another co-worker to assist with the music again and we had a special celebration because one of the co-workers decided that he wanted to be baptized after the service! We went to Swifcurrent lake and my ministry partner, who is fine with being named now, Amos, baptized our co-worker. We had a decent sized group from the service show up and it was an amazing morning celebrating with him. Later that afternoon we went to Red Rock Falls and saw a moose about 40 feet off of the trail. A few minutes later, Amos, our friend, and I jumped in the lake for a quick swim! It was a great day filled with much laughter.
6/14/21
Today was another Monday here at Swiftcurrent with nothing out of the ordinary happening. However, we do have a lot of construction happening this week beyond our control. The road that leads to Swiftcurrent was supposed to be done before we opened for the season but they fell pretty far behind so they are now trying to catch up by implementing a night shift of construction. Additionally, we are prepping for a power outage tomorrow morning for a utility pole to be replaced. So tomorrow will be an interesting day but today has been quite regular.
6/15/21
This morning I joined my security friend, R, for kayaking out on Swiftcurrent Lake. It was fairly chilly but the sun came out and warmed us up a bit. The view was fantastic and I am now looking into getting a kayak sometime in the near future. The power outage made work easier rather than more difficult because we had no way of operating the system and checking people in. So, we more just answered guests questions and then talked about life between myself and my coworkers. Overall it was a pretty good teambuilding experience. I got off work at 8pm and went to bed at 9pm because I had to work at 6am the next day.
Me out on Swiftcurrent lake.
6/16/21
The sunrise this morning lit up some of the mountains around the valley and made an amazing walk to work. The morning was mostly quiet with the occasional check-out but once lunch hit we were exceptionally busy. The day was sunny and the weather was perfect for hiking. I really enjoyed working the morning shift because I got off of work at 2:30 and then had the rest of the day! I ended up taking a nap before dinner and then was so tired that I just read for the rest of the afternoon.
Grinnell point lit up from the Sunrise.
6/17/21
Today I worked the morning shift again and it was another pleasant day of work. Once I got off of work I spent some time working on a Dungeons and Dragons map because I am going to lead a game for some co-workers here at Swiftcurrent. Afterwards I grabbed dinner with Amos and we had a great conversation about life and what life goals look like at our stages in life. We then joined a group of co-workers by the boat ramp to Swiftcurrent lake and shared in some funny stories from years passed. We were then surprised by a female moose coming out of the brush into the lake and taking a drink. We all got up and put some distance between ourselves and her until she had fully passed by. We then went back to Swiftcurrent for the night and enjoyed a few games of Bananagrams.
The spot we hung out at by Swiftcurrent Lake.
P.S. -The main snack around here is pocket cookies.
P.S.S. -Also there was a couple of hikers that were followed by a black bear for a mile on one of the trails!
P.S.S.S -My pictures are not uploading from my phone due to bad WIFI so I am behind on having all my photos available.
"What is a Canada?" - a guest in 2017
I can’t believe how close the moose was! Beautiful pictures Quinn!
ReplyDelete