Snowbiking on moose trails

The sun's path is shifting northward at an accelerating rate. On December 21, the sun rose 30 degrees south of east. Now it's only 15 degrees south of east. Today, the sun crested the eastern hills in a dramatically different spot than on the solstice. If you look at the photo below, it peeked over that hillside to the right of the two peaks back on December 21.

As the sun rose, the wind howled, tilting the world slightly off axis. K despises the wind, as you can tell by her forlorn expression.

It wasn't until we reached a slightly protected spot that she looked like she was relaxed and happy.

We practiced some recalls, and her habit of quickly licking her nose as she ran toward me was very pronounced. Dog behaviorists say that this is a "calming signal". In this case, she may be trying reassure me that she means no harm even though she's running directly at me. In the dog world, running directly at another dog is aggressive and rude. If you watch two well-socialized off-leash dogs approach each other, they sort of curve toward each other, never looking straight at each other or moving in a straight line toward the face of the other. A good recall to a human requires that the dog learn to break that canine good manners rule.

K and I did just a short ride this morning because so little of our trail system is navigable by bike yet. However, I noticed some animal tracks for the first time since the deep freeze and snow that we had recently. I checked one wildlife camera near the tracks, and I had photos! In the summer, I get photos all the time but it's a big deal in the winter.

The first photo was a cute rabbit with a notch taken out of his left ear. I think that this mountain cottontail had a close call at some point in his life.

Next, a group of mule deer moved through. A doe came closest to the camera.

After K and I had our time together in the forest, I headed back to the trail network where I had so much fun snowbiking yesterday. It did not disappoint. I found a well-packed route up a 4wd road that I never mountain bike in the summer because it's covered in bowling ball sized loose rocks. Three feet of snow fixed that problem, and I zipped up it easily.

I passed through myriad aspen groves, including one with towering trees. Due to having so many sections of my neck fused, I cannot look straight up. I took this photo blindly so I could find out what the canopy looked like, and I discovered that it was beautiful!

After pedaling uphill for a long time, I turned around and enjoyed the fruits of my labor, flying down the hillside with as much abandon as I could muster. If I could change one thing about my spine situation, it would that I would relearn to let my bike fly downhill! I miss it but I'm too afraid of injury to really let loose. Nonetheless, I enjoyed rocketing down in a quarter of the time that it took me to climb the hill.

On my approach to the nearest road, I saw huge pock marks on the trail. At first, I thought - "Who would ride their horse in conditions like this?". Then, I looked more closely. Our burgeoning moose population has discovered the ease of walking on well-packed human trails. In the photo below, you can see the two-toed track with two dew claws in the back. My foot is for scale. Believe it or not, this moose took steps that were about a meter long!

Moose were introduced to Colorado, west of the Divide, about 30 years ago. The population started with two dozen individuals and has grown to about 1000. They've flourished and migrated over the Continental Divide. When they first crossed the Divide, they stayed fairly high, close to the mountain peaks. They seem to be gradually expanding their range further to the east. You might remember my disbelief when I captured video of a moose near my house last summer. That was a first!

I also saw what might have been mountain lion tracks near the moose tracks. I'm guessing that a lion could kill a young moose but might have trouble with full-sized ones. There certainly were no tracks of deer or elk up the snowbound land where I rode my bike today so moose might be the main thing on that lion's menu. Surprising... but it's most likely that the lion was just passing through.

I'll leave you with our handsome black lab taking a snow wriggle in total ecstasy!