Over Labor day weekend, Jeff and I joined his family in Yellowstone. We stayed in this nice 8 bedroom cabin that was located in West Yellowstone, MT. I LOVE West Yellowstone. I have lots of great memories from there. Most of them involve the smell of snowmobile exhaust and frozen nose hairs... For years my family and I would go to West Yellowstone in the winter and snowmobile our way around MT and the Park. So, I am no newby to Yellowstone. It was always such a fantastic experience, but Yellowstone in the winter is SO different from Yellowstone in the summer. First of all, you see far more animals in the summer than you do in the winter.
We saw black bears, massive elk, coyotes, wolves, and of course bison. In the winter you pretty much only see the bison.
We spent 3 days in the park.
The first day we headed to the Paint Pots and Old Faithful. While in the parking lot for the paint pots we had a very interesting experience. As we were loading into the various cars, Jeff's mom came running up to us telling us that some people were looking for someone with medical training because a woman was slumped in her car and having trouble breathing. I hurried my way over to her to see what the problem was. When I arrived the woman was completely unconscious and not breathing at all. The poor husband wanted to move this woman, his wife, to the back seat so he could get her to the hospital. I bluntly informed him that his wife wasn't going to make it to the hospital and that we needed to do CPR. I had them lay the woman down on the ground. As I was checking for a pulse I yelled to see if anyone had called 911. Everyone just looked at me blankly. Apparently there was absolutely no service in that part of the park. After yelling at them to find service I jumped right into CPR. It felt so natural and I guess all those years of being certified on the CPR dolls and working in the hospital paid off. Unfortunately I didn't have a respirator or a mouth guard. No one offered to do breaths and I didn't think twice about it. I just started doing mouth-to-mouth for this woman I had never met. No one wanted to switch me out, I guess I don't blame them. There is really no way to explain the sensation you get when you give mouth to mouth. I won't go into detail, but it can make even a strong stomach weak. (Let's just say that I chewed a lot of gum and ate a lot of mints afterward.) We continued CPR for 25 min. We never got a pulse on her. Jeff's sisters had driven up the park until they received service and called for help. Once the EMT's arrived I turned the resuscitation over to them. I gave my statement and was sent on my way. I don't know if she ever revived or what happened to her. All I can say is we did all that we could and we did our best. After this experience we went to Old Faithful, saw the geyser, and took a nice long walk to some other geysers. We had a great time in the sunshine, but we paid for it later with sunburns.
On the second day, we drove up to the falls and around Yellowstone lake. I honestly didn't know Yellowstone had a lake.... I guess I have never been up that far before. The lake was massive and picturesque.
On the third day, we headed to Mammoth Hot Springs. This village contains Fort Yellowstone. It was inhabited by the military for 30 years after the park was first made a national park. They moved the military in to protect the park from poachers and people trying to capitalize on selling broken off pieces of geysers or hot springs.
We had three very full days. I think the hardest part was having to wake up at 7 am every single morning. BLAH! I am so not a morning person....I think they know that now. =)
