Growing up, I did every club, every sport, every communal event I could get my hands on. Throughout high school as well I was never scared to try new things. I moved around a bit as well; moving from Iowa, to Arizona, later in fourth grade to Kentucky has definitely contributed to my wild spirit. I can still picture the days in third grade when my dad, older brother, and I would go to QT, grab a slushie, and head to the desert to spot out jackrabbits and scorpions. Both my brother and I soon became wildlife photographers as well. Growing up going to National parks and watching endless episodes of Wild Kratts until seventh grade; one thing has stayed a constant. I have always been passionate about nature, the environment, and anything that has to do with animals. Yet, all of these experiences are no match to what I did the summer after my junior year. Even Malaysia. After being rejected sophomore year to work in Yellowstone for Youth Conservation Corps; by fate, I was accepted the next year. I had never hiked more than five miles in one go; the first week I hiked a total of 15 miles to a ranger cabin to do maintenance on it and stain it. We were packed out by horses, the smell was of sweet grass, and one of my coworkers played his guitar as we sang Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan songs the whole way there. My pack was heavy but ready to start off this adventure. The cabin, once we got to it, was intensely mortifying. Mouse pellets piled so high you could barely see the floor. We soon realized this task would be much more than what we had thought; but after three days of scrubbing floors, finding antique trash, combined with literal blood, sweat, and tears with immense attachment to Pelican Valley; we had finished the job. Seeing a pack of wolves had always been on my bucket list, and before this job, I had never been to Yellowstone where the existence of wolves was beyond controversial. Four miles into the hike back, my friend Ben who is just as ecstatic about creatures as I am squealed so loud everyone stopped to turn around. Instantaneously our group of eight found ourselves jogging to the edge of an overlook with an underlying river. There, I saw my first pack. And; it wasnt just any pack, it was the Mollies Pack. We watched as they swarmed a wallowing bison, chased their tails, and eventually.. Howled. Close to the end of the summer, I found myself speaking with what seemed hundreds of people, in all departments within the park. Most notably, a man who worked for the Wolf Project. I told my dad at the dinner table one night as we argued over politics and environmental issues, “You wil not understand how much spirit lives within nature until you hear a wolf howl.” In all reality, it shook me to my core. Just as its mentioned in Think Like A Mountain by Aldo Leopold, “Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.” And although I have only had the opportunity to hear it once, that was enough to solidify that our Earth is what I care for, and want to put my whole lifes work into. And that I will continue to care beyond the time my fingers decompose.