After a late start that morning, Friday afternoon we decided to cross-country ski on campus. Although the weather conditions were incredibly beautiful, sunny, and warm on the skin, this progressed to very challenging and icy conditions on the trails. Our original goal was to try to cross-country ski to Coyote Rock. But let me just say that just trying to get onto the start of the trail was incredibly challenging in itself. So the plans changed and we just decided to cross-country ski wherever on campus trails.
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| Who Wouldn't Be Willing to Cross Country Ski Whatever It Takes to See This View? If You Would Not...You Are Crazy! |
The weather brought such beautiful views! We were able to clearly see the Teton Mountain Range and crystal clear views to the Gros Ventre Mountains and the prominent outline of Jackson Peak.
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| Clear View of Jackson Peak |
Then as we skied along the Teton View Trail, we came upon another naturalist discovery!! I was super excited, totally having a nerd moment on the icy trail. Finding an animal track as big, if not bigger than my fist, visible claw marks, and an oval shape. Clearly, this was a track of a dog!
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| Look What We Found? |
Having other grads announce that they have seen wolves on campus and near campus gave me an educated guess to a hypothesis that maybe this was a wolf. The tracks were within the size and shape characteristics. And once again, e-mailing my Ecology professor, he also claimed the tracks to be wolf!
From the words of my Ecology professor and naturalist, Kevin Taylor, he explained in his e-mail to me, "It sure does look like wolf tracks. Photo #1 looks like the wolf is walking with the feet offset, as though the wolf was looking left. See how much bigger one track compared to the one right next to it. The bigger track is the right front foot, and the track right beside it is the right hind foot. That means the wolf was looking left and had to step his foot over to the left to compensate for the weight shift of his head and neck. If he was walking with his head straight ahead, his front and back feet would have been closer to a direct register (one on top of the other)."
It is really remarkable how he can depict all of that information based on the photo I supplied him. I found these tracks on a slope where there was an opening/clearing to the lower valley on the left hand side. So hearing my professor state that the wolf was looking left was really interesting to read!
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| Literally The Size of My Hand Must Be a VERY BIG DOG?!? |
So excited for all these big mammal predator signs!
This is why I love being here - animals, landscape, wilderness!
TheChristyBel
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