Step After Step on the Sagebrush Steppe

Morning. Low clouds.  Misty mountains. Sunrise. SAGEBRUSH.  Most people would look out on the high desert of northwest Wyoming and say, "There ain't nothin' but sagebrush out there."  THEY would be wrong.  There are prairie dogs, golden eagles, horned lizards, the cutest baby pronghorns, night hawks, badgers, horses, beetles, and a man in a brown-and-gold plaid shirt pacing back and forth.  That would be me.  I have been conducting prairie dog surveys for almost a week now, and have been hiking transects through the sagebrush for a solid seven to eight hours a day, minus a short lunch break or a rerouting of the GPS. Not what most people would think of as summer ski training. But, at the end of the day, I can barely take the last step...so it has to be doing something.  That and a few strength sessions in the hotel workout-room will be my training for the next four days, followed by a deer GPS collar chasing session in the mountains, and the UW ski camp in Jackson.
  As I look out the window at the Wind River Mountains of all of the hiking in the mountains that I will do this summer.

For now, my feet will be firmly planted in the sagebrush steppe.  Actually they will be planted thousands of times...step, after step, after step, after step.....