the rooster crowed at midnight: day two on the trail

Thursday, March 02, 2017

day two on the trail

So, I managed to get out for the second day straight. I am impressed with myself. Why? Well, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And, as my best friend says, when I get there I will be driving a dune-buggy.

All the tracks on the trail from yesterday were covered with snow unfortunately, so no pictures of my suspected lynx/bobcat/cougar tracks. There were some new tracks though. Some new deer/elk tracks in the same area I saw the other ones yesterday. As the ground was frozen and there was only a thin layer of snow the tracks were not deep and I would say it was probably a fawn or a yearling by the size of the tracks.

There was also a scattering of bunny tracks, probably snowshoe hare. There were possibly skunk tracks too. Hard to tell. Pretty sure there were also fisher or marten tracks too, because they stopped at a tree, so it must have climbed. I remembered reading about a guy who saw tracks in the same manner and looked up. Well, it was a fisher. A pissed off fisher. It jumped on his head and tore it up pretty good. So, I took several steps past the tree before I did the same. Nothing there. Oh well.

This hike though mainly, other than looking for tracks and hopeful sightings of wildlife, was more of a power walk. A bit hard to do though as all the softness of the snow and ground had hardened up overnight. It was -11°C (12°F) this morning when I went out. Yet, there were more run-off streams cutting the trail and they were larger.

My Google Tracks app seems have slightly malfunctioned yesterday as my distances were different today, and the map shows the loop in the trail closed. My top speed was slower than yesterday, I attribute that to the slicker terrain today. I also did not stop for but a few minutes at the shelter, which registered as 2.47 km (1.5 mi) in from the trailhead. It took me thirty-two minutes today to reach it. The total distance was 4.07 km (2.5 mi) and took me a total of just under fifty-seven minutes to do the loop.

When I doubled back on my tracks returning to the trailhead, there were fresh coyote tracks crossing my path. That was no surprise, but it did not seem to slow down to check my prints out. One thing I noticed about all the tracks I saw today was that, even with the snow and lack of greenery, I could clearly see the trails that the animals use regularly and either that marten/fisher gets around or there is quite a colony in and around that trail.

Well, I have to go. Many more errands to run today and some Jamboree stuff to take care of. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring new signs of wildlife and clearer tracks that I can take pictures of.