Friday, December 14, 2018

All Signs are Trending Warm!






Oh yeah, all signs trending warm!  I like that.  It's getting closer and closer to Christmas Day and as of today, the temperature is in the mid 30's.  Supposed to be in the 40's tomorrow and who knows, I might be sun bathing, with an edition of Sports Illustrated in my hands, by the weekend.  Not likely.
Nevertheless, we're behind schedule in the cold and snow departments, and as I look back to a year ago, we had a good two feet of snow on the flat by this date and had multiple below zero days and nights as well.  That was a trend I wasn't very fond of and as many of us experienced over the course of one of the toughest winters on record in the northern plains and Rockies, we've been pinching ourselves in the butt every day the temp moves above freezing.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the cool crisp, and sunny days we've had since Thanksgiving.  The country is quiet, bereft of humanity, preparing for whatever winter has in store for it.  The country is waiting.  There is a light layer of snow on the ground where the sun doesn't shine and on a walk the tracks of many animals tell a story.  Tracks don't hide.  Snowshoe hares, red squirrels, coyotes, white tail deer, an elk, a moose, no grizzly, and yes, wolves.  There's been some talk of a white wolf leading a small pack of four to five members through our little valley.  The wolves come and go.  I think they do a whole lot of travelling, always on the hunt for food.  I know those snowshoe hares pretty well.  One might see lots of tracks but it's rare to see one.  They make lots of tracks at night and you'd think judging by the mass of tracks in the evergreen thickets you'd be stepping on them.  But even back in those days when I used to hunt them, I never killed more than three a day and that was while putting in some serious effort on snowshoes.  In this country, hares are good feed for lynx and coyotes.  I haven't seen a lynx in a while but they are here.

You might be thinking I'd run into a grizzly.  God knows there's plenty in the area.  But it's winter in these parts and I haven't seen any sign in more than a month.  They're denned up and I'm happy for that.  There's an easier feeling one has moving through the woods this time of year.  I can't make that claim come April and on through the warm season until after November.  I'm not carrying bear spray and not having to be hyper alert.  Those bears are sleeping the good sleep.

This past summer was a rather slow one on the bear scale.  We did have a pair of grizzlies in the back pasture for a week or so in May.  One was big and one was small.  They were digging for glacier lily  roots and never caused a ruckus.  I lobbed a few cracker shells at the bigger of the two one morning.  Sent him packing.  But he was back after a while and I let him be.  Those two bears didn't cause any problems and they both left before too long a visit, most likely to find better feed.

On about mid August we began to see grizzlies, with some regularity, on our rides into the big country to the east of us, only miles from where the mountains meet the prairie.  Two separate families of griz, mama's with their young cubs.  We got a real good look at the sow with three cubs, feeding on service berries.  Those bears were very close to the area we'd planned on riding through.  We took a "different fork in the road, one less traveled."  No sense in upsetting their program, nor ours!  That wasn't out last meeting with grizzlies.  The following week we bumped into another family of a sow and two cubs.  Same general vicinity but clearly distinct from the first bunch. Those berries sure seemed to be losing their ripeness.  They were rather dry but must have been packing a punch.  No huckleberries in that area.  There's always a mystery in the animal kingdom.  Those bears were filling their needs somehow and someway but only they know their way.

Back to tracks.  We had a short blow in mid September.  Got a few inches of wet snow.  A day or so after the storm the weather had turned warm again and it made for stretches of mud on the trail.  Talk about tracks.  And oh boy, were there grizzlies in the area.  Over the trail course of at least four miles there were tracks of three more bears, the last being of a very large boar grizzly.  He'd been traveling the way we were headed although probably the day before.  I kept glancing down and off to my right as we rode and began to notice another big track, one I didn't immediately recognize.  I stopped and took a hard look down and I was seeing the large front print of a wolf.  Their tracks never fail to amaze me, particularly those that are most likely from a large, adult male.  My jaw about dropped.  A single track of one big wolf.  There's a story there for sure but I'll never know it.

Speaking of wildlife, wild country, and the like, I did another trip into the back of beyond in mid November.  I accompanied the current Secretary of Interior, Ryan Zinke, horseback, into a remote area that is currently in some environmental jeopardy.  My mission was to show the secretary a small piece of some of the best country I've ever known.  I've been riding and fishing it for more than thirty years.  And you just read a bit about it in the above paragraphs.

If you're familiar with the career of Secretary Zinke you also know he's a lightning rod in the enviro-political world these days and has earned the reputation for being "kind" to the oil and gas industry.  I kept my mind open to the day as it unfolded.  The air was cold but crisp, the sun was out, and the wind had died down to a dull roar.  Once again, I found myself on horseback in the Badger- Two Medicine country, a lucky man to be there regardless of the political world we now live with.  We rode on and then upward, heading into the heart of the matter, a good covering of snow, the world bright as a polar bear's ass.  I was looking for tracks, typical me, but also enjoying the ride, and believe it or not, the company.  There wasn't much in the way of tracks up high.  Winter had found the tops of the ridge tops we rode over.  The deer, elk, and moose were gone, having moved to a less harsh environment down on the river bottoms and winter range.  We were alone in a winter wonderland, just the three of us and this beautiful world.

I wanted to add that last sentence as a reminder to myself and you, the reader, that during the course of that wonderful day, we didn't do a whole lot of serious talking.  We didn't have to.  The country we were in did most of the talking.  Oh yeah, we had a five to ten minute session once we'd hit the river trail.  We talked about saving the Badger- Two Medicine from oil and gas development and giving the area unnecessary added attention in the form of "Monument" designation.  It was an easy discussion and in no small part was I not thinking about the critters and the tracks of those critters that make the world a better place!


                                             "Oh, it's a long time, from May to December."

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