A cold winter day in the forest

This morning, I had my first pining for springtime. The temperature was 15°F and the wind was howling out of the west. K and I rolled out just as the sun touched the top of a group of sky high aspen trees that I think of as "les amis". They do everything in sync and have delighted me for years.

 As I pedaled past this aspen grove, I looked down and saw that our bobcat had patrolled trail last night. His track was next to a dog track. In the photo, the dog track is on the top and the bobcat track on the bottom.

It appeared as if he'd been in our clearing. Unfortunately, he'd dodged my high quality camera and was photographed by my bargain camera - so the quality isn't too great. First, he marched directly in front of the pole that holds our bear-proof bird feeding system.

Then, he started hunting, probably for the rabbit whose photo I showed yesterday. You can see him sitting patiently in the upper right of the photo.

I don't think that he had a successful hunt because I saw no signs of a rabbit being killed. He continued out of our clearing to where K and I had first picked up his tracks. As we rode, we hit a part of the trail system that no one else has been using recently. The bobcat walked directly in my snowbike tracks. You can see one paw print on the right where he slightly missed the tire track and he sunk in more deeply than on the other steps.

Despite the diversion of the bobcat tracks, K and I arrived up on the ridge only slightly after sunrise. I think that K was still sleepy.

But, the painfully cold wind soon awakened her and had me whimpering from the pain in my fingertips. Woo, it was frigid up there!

We ran around a little to warm up and then captured a better photo, although the magical sunrise light had morphed from red to gold.

We looped around the ridge, with me constantly scanning for animal tracks. Lots of tracks pocked the snow, including bobcat, deer, and coyote, but no mountain lion.

I wondered if K was too cold to keep going so I asked her. Her look clearly said "more riding, please"!

So, we slogged through windpacked cement-like snow to Hug Hill where K ran some laps to stay warm.

Then, we barreled down the hill, avoiding the drifts which bring even a snowbike to a dangerously fast stop, and headed home.

I headed out for some more riding after dropping K at home. Oh my, it was a whirling and wild day out there. I spotted our local ski area where several people have told me yesterday was magnificent - perhaps the best day of skiing there *ever*. I'm happy for them in a bittersweet sort of way. My last day of telemark skiing was March 14, 2005, the day before I had several levels of my low back fused. Most winter days, I don't get sad about my skiing moratorium. But, I do miss it.

For the sake of my heart, I usually manage to focus on what I can do, snow bike along the beautiful ridge.

In the afternoon, I took the Duo for a romp. I lined them up for a practice recall, forcing R to start behind K.

But, it didn't take long for him to barge around her, while glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, and win the race.

So, I made him start even further back.

He didn't look happy about it.

This time, K held him off, arriving first despite his desperate churning through the loose snow on the sides of the trail to try to pass her.

R is, paws down, the most competitive dog who I've ever met. Even before K's injury, she tended to back off and let him win, just because his intensity overwhelms her. I always found her reticence to compete to be odd because K is definitely the boss around the house. Maybe winning running races doesn't matter very much to the top dog. It is extraordinarily important to R!

As we wound down toward home, a scent mesmerized K. This was one of those instances when I called her to prevent her from getting in trouble. That scent looked too interesting.

R didn't catch the same scent... but he sure looked handsome in the golden fading light.

It was a fun winter day but, I'll admit that I was starting to dream of warmer days.