Seize the day

Reminders never hurt. I was slammed with a reminder yesterday not to waste any days of my life. I strive, every single day, to remember what I love to do and make some time for it. Yesterday, I learned of the death of a neighbor - a fellow mountain person - although one with dramatically different values from mine. Despite our differences, it served as a reminder to me to seize each day.

For me, being in nature with my dogs is something that wakes me up and makes me feel fully alive. Over the past two days, K and I have had adventures following animal tracks in our forests as the fury of winter has interrupted the brief sojourns of spring. R, although his injured toe is slowly healing, has been taking it easy and snoozing during our hikes.

Two days ago, K and I followed animal tracks down a gulch so choked with snow, fallen trees, and boulders that I thought that we might get stuck there forever. K seemed to say, "Are we really going down there?".
In the photo below, K tried to negotiate a fallen tree in the gulch but it's very hard to generate a powerful jump from bottomless snow. Eventually, I coaxed her around it.
We found mountain lion tracks, albeit only a few, as we explored. They were days old so the lion probably is long gone. However, I set up a camera on his route, next to one of his habitual scent posts, hoping to capture his image.

Also during yesterday's hike, we spotted our very first wildflower of the season, a candytuft (Noccaea montana). It's a tiny gem, with each flower spreading only 1 cm across. It poked up out of a small patch of bare dirt.
Since I saw that flower, the fury of mountain weather has descended upon us. About 10 minutes after the flower sighting, the wind drove snowflakes horizontally around us.
Then, another five minutes later, the sun shined again. K could see her shadow. I wonder what that means for when springtime will arrive in the Rockies?
Overnight and this morning, the snow became persistent, adding another 6" to our already admirable base. Fortunately, the base of several feet was frozen solid this morning, and K barely sunk into the snow as she romped across it.
Due to the rock solid snowpack today, we veered away from trails and hiked through deep forests, following animal tracks of unknown origin. It had snowed so recently that fresh fluffy powder filled the tracks - but it's always fun to let a wild animal determine our route. K found a rare sunny spot in the deep forest. It looked enchanted with the snow draping the pine boughs and the golden-hued sunshine.
K's fur glowed in the sunlight.
We emerged from the forest near a peak, and K led the way to the top. Storm clouds enveloped the mountains behind her.
After I arrived home from my hike, I decided that, despite the "mud-fest" conditions on our dirt road, I needed a hard ride to burn off the blues that had threatened to drag me down since learning of my neighbor's death. I think that other endurance junkies probably understand the cleansing effects of a tough aerobic effort. Of course, as I rolled out the driveway through viscous mud, a snow squall started. So, as I rode, I was doused in mud from below and pelted with snow from above. I smiled and pedaled harder. Truly experiencing nature's fury as I work my muscles to their maximum is one of the things that I love the most!

I also love our wildlife, and I'll get back to my bear footage tomorrow. Here's a sample of one of the photos to come. It shows that one yearling outweighs the other by a lot! I suspect that we have a male and female, which is great news because the female will probably settle down in our area after she leaves her mom this summer. By contrast, the male will travel endless miles searching for his own territory.

Bobcat stalking

It was a day of unexpected twists and turns. But, K and I had an exhilarating hike. Carpe diem!
And, we saw a beautiful evening sky as another snow storm is heading our way.
Recently, my wildlife camera that is pointed at the based of our bear-proof bird feeder captured a crafty bobcat adroitly stalking rabbits. I've never seen footage quite like this before. Watch for the part where he belly-crawls as he tries to surprise a rabbit. Don't worry - no rabbits lost their lives on camera.



In the clip where the bobcat walks out of the frame and then a bobcat walks across the frame, do you think that it was the same bobcat who had circled and reappeared in the frame? Or, did we get to glimpse two bobcats in close proximity, an extremely rare event that occurs only during mating, kitten-raising, and fighting over territory?

Exploring and bear play, play, play!

I'm enjoying the feeling that my neck fusion is healing and that I'm growing stronger every day. Some days, I feel like I want to ride my mountain bike and hike all day long! I can't do that yet but just wait!

I started my day with a mountain bike ride, in clear-cut wintery conditions. Wind literally howled through boulder outcroppings, and intense snow squalls came and went as fast as the wind. I felt great spinning the pedals and again gave thanks for the ability to ride a bike despite my spine.
As soon as I arrived home, K and I headed out for an exploratory hike. Suddenly, spring had sprung again, and we hiked under a warm sun. We navigated down one edge of a sun-soaked and nearly snow-free slope, and then we hiked up the other side. We stayed next to the snowline but didn't have to walk in snow. I searched for animal tracks in the snow next to us.

If you look at the hills behind K in the photo below, it's hard to believe that we found this band of snow-free hillside. It's amazing how dramatically a slight difference in hill orientation affects the snow cover.
In the photo below, K peered out at the slope that we were about to descend.
As I looked for animal tracks in the snow's edge, K sniffed vigorously when we passed downwind of an interesting scent.Partway down, she must have picked up quite a stench and made a funny face! K asked me NOT to include this photo but I couldn't help myself...
We descended all the way to a creek, which recently has lost its ice cover.
The willows and other shrubs lining the creek showed signs of spring growth - pink and greenish hues on their twigs and some swollen buds. However, no buds had burst to expose food for our wildlife. Despite that, K acted as if many animals had trekked through the plain near the creek. I had to recall her off an enticing scent.
After a break by the creek, we turned to look at our climb, a big rocky climb. We scrambled our way among fallen trees, strewn boulders, loose soil, and patches of snow. I spotted only deer tracks that were clear enough to identify. I also spotted trampled areas that looked like wildlife daybeds used sometime recently.

When we clambered over the boulder wall at the top the slope, the wind hit us from the west and sent K's ears flopping akimbo. It also made her nervous, as you can see from her facial expression.
In a calm moment between wind gusts, K looked back over her shoulder at the hike that we'd done. She beamed and so did I. What fun we'd had! We've covered so many miles in the forest together that we can hike or bike virtually silently. K moves silently by my side, enjoying the explorations as much as I do.
As we hiked, I thought about the bear trio whose footage has delighted me. I'm including the next segment of their rambunctious play. This video shows how attentive and protective their mother is. That explains how she managed to shepherd two cubs through the first precarious year of life.

Outdoor fun and more bear antics!

We started our day yesterday with a hike up a favorite ridge, from a trailhead a short drive from home. K and I climbed up the south side of the slope, which aside from gullies and small forested sections, was dry! Because the boys of the family were running out ahead of us, the start of our hike was an exercise in recalls. I'd release K, she'd accelerate to try to catch the runners, I'd call her back to me, and then we'd repeat! Below, she's recalling after one of her short chases.
Despite our 'game' of recalls, we rapidly climbed to an elevation with a view. K ecstatically sniffed a scent. The scent might have been elk - it appeared that after our 4' of fresh snow last week, the crafty elk herd headed for this south-facing hillside, knowing that the grass would emerge here first.
Once we attained the spine of the ridge, we walked on the brink between two worlds, the dry and grassy south-facing slope and the deeply snow-covered north-facing slope. K stood on the edge of the snowy and tree-dominated north-facing slope in the photo below.
I walked just on the edge of the snow, watching for animal tracks. I've ridden my mountain bike on this trail hundreds of times and have seen animals and their tracks crossing the ridge from one section of wilderness to another. Last fall, I saw the tracks of a mother mountain lion and her large kitten on two occasions. They climbed up from the south side following the least steep slope and crossed into the forest at a saddle in the ridge. At that same saddle, I had a bobcat try to sneakily cross the ridge just behind me as I perused a wildflower last summer. He came within about 20-30 yards of me... don't worry, bobcats aren't dangerous to humans - they're too small.

Yesterday, I saw a maze of elk tracks, some deer tracks, bobcat scent posted freshly marked with scat, and one somewhat rare track - a huge turkey track. The turkey left only about 4 tracks, and I know that hunting season is either here or approaching so I tried to rub them out. But, the ground was still frozen solid so I couldn't. I hope that this big bird makes it through the season!
At one point, I strayed into the snow, looking even more intently for the tracks of rarer animals - perhaps the track of an awakening bear or a lion. But, I didn't find any. K stood and watched.
After I turned around to head back toward the car, we met the boys. The Labraduo broke into wild playing in the snowy sections. It was funny that the snow itself seemed to trigger the play.
As an interesting note for anyone who has a dog with joint problems, we've noticed that Adequan injections (liquid glucosamine) have given K her top sprinting speed back. She has the start of arthritis in her spine so we decided to try to head it off with Adequan. Since starting it about 6 months ago, her top speed as returned to scorching levels, and she can even outrun R!
We brought along my bike so that I could start my ride from someplace new, expanding my horizons since I still can't ride all that far. As I rode along a dirt road, I noticed that a few aspen buds were bursting open. These will become fuzzy catkins, essentially aspen seeds, and are a delicious food for wildlife, including birds and bears. Now, for some odd reason, the aspens in this particular spot are always weeks ahead of every other aspen tree in the area each spring. So, everyplace else, the aspens have only red buds.
I had a great ride in perfect conditions with sparse traffic and made it further up my road than I have since my surgery, reaching a point where I could glimpse a new view. I think that my favorite part of surgery is feeling the incredible rebuilding properties of the human body. It can be beaten down but almost always springs back!
After that morning flurry of activity, I came home and put together a video clip of bear play from outside the den. Notice that one cub definitely looks bigger, plays more aggressively, and roams further from the den than the other. Perhaps that is a sign that we have a male and female yearling in this family. In any case, the footage makes it obvious that a bear family is a tight-knit and loving clan. These are sensitive and caring creatures, and they are most definitely NOT the scary monsters that so many people envision.

Also, keep in mind that this rambunctious play occurred within about an hour of the family coming out of the den for the first time in a long time (except for mom's short trips to eat snow and urinate). Imagine having muscles that can stay so strong while lying still for months on end! Bears have amazing physiological tricks that make it possible for them to run at full speed and climb trees almost immediately after sleeping for months. After lying still for that long, humans would lose so much muscle strength that they would probably have trouble standing upright immediately after leaving the den. Then, it would take a human months to rebuild their muscles. Bears are amazing!

Exhilarating day

I had a full and happy day. It started with a sunrise bike ride in 15 deg air with a wicked cold wind whipping out of the west. Despite the winter weather, I saw two pairs of mountain bluebirds who remained in our frigid meadow. Those are tough but beautiful birds!
The moon still shined while the sun illuminated only the top of a rocky hillside.
I rode along feeling the bitter bite of the cold and, as I became chilled, I realized that I'd lost my adaptation for riding my bike in extreme conditions. However, as the headwind hurled sand into my face, I remembered a windy day just after my surgery when I'd pined to ride my bike. In fact, I'd specifically wished that I could be out pedaling while feeling the harshness of our winter world. With that in mind today, I started smiling and then laughing as I pedaled my heart out. I realized that I'm a very lucky person to be riding my bike again, so soon after my surgery.

After my ride, K and I enjoyed a short hike, made easy by the freezing air that had solidified the snow so that both of us could walk on top of the ocean of snow without breaking through.
We visited our favorite lookout but the mountains were in a swirl of clouds.
We found some very old tracks (a week old?) that looked like mountain lion tracks and followed a path where I've found definite lion tracks in the past. The step length and pattern fit a lion's but the tracks were melted out making a positive identification impossible. I felt that strange thrill of possibly walking in the paw prints of a mighty lion.

Shortly after arriving home, a handsome coyote visited our clearing, trotting past naked aspen trees and probably enjoying the hard snow after a week of slogging through deep snow.
Finally, I ended my day with an exploratory hike with a new friend, searching a steep slope for bear and lion signs. I've never hiked with another person who is as fascinated with unraveling nature's mysteries as I am... what an exhilarating experience! At one point, we contoured along a steep hillside just below a rocky ridge with a deep blue sky shining on us.
By the end of our hike, the sun had sunk toward the horizon, radiating mystical power through the mountain clouds. It felt like a fitting sight for the end of an idyllic day.
During our hike, we talked a lot about bears - signs that they leave in the forest and their life habits. I have many more photos of the mother and her twins at the den that I'll be working on to post in the coming days.

I'll leave you with this one photo. The protective mother bear is on her way to give my camera an extensive and up-close examination while one of her yearling cubs stood upright to scratch a tree. After looking at that yearling closely, I still can't figure out if it's a male or female. Does anyone else have a strong opinion based on the photo? You can magnify the photo by clicking on it.
I'm rooting for a female cub because sows tend to stay in the home range of their mother. That would mean that I'd have one more bear living near my home, and that would make me very happy!

Springtime, my sensitive K, and the bears

I joyfully started my day with a short bike ride on our dirt roads. I'm going to be riding only roads until the snow clears the trails this year. As my longtime readers know, I have fabulous Fatback snow bike. However, it would be foolish for me to risk riding on snow while my neck heals. The biggest downside is that K can't ride with me on the roads. The trails will melt out soon enough.

I started my ride next to a sunny meadow. Myriad signs of spring stopped me in my tracks. Red-winged blackbirds called all around me. I finally spotted one in a willow bush. These common birds spend only the late spring and summer at our high elevation. It's earlier than they usually arrive but I won't complain!
A little further east in the meadow, I spotted two pairs of mountain bluebirds (although the photo shows only three birds). They perched atop swaying bush branches and burst into flight after I took one photo. The male's brilliant blue plumage stood out against the gray skies.
Indeed, although signs of spring abounded, a storm approached with the clouds oozing unstoppably up the canyons from the plains. Perhaps this storm was the reason that I saw a massive flock of Canada geese flying SOUTH today. I wanted to flag them down and point them in the right direction!
I glimpsed a slice of one snowy mountain all day long. In the photo below, a snowy peak barely shined through just above the forested hills. Higher, a curtain of clouds obscured it. Our elk herd loves the meadow and pond in the foreground. I hope to see them basking there soon.
After returning from my ride, I took only K, and not R, for a hike. R split a nail a few weeks ago but it started hurting again recently. We learned that he had chipped a bone further up that toe and also has a bone infection creeping up from the crack in his nail into the toe bone. Hopefully, antibiotics will stop the bone infection. Otherwise, amputating the end of his toe will be necessary. Apparently, it's unlikely that he'll need amputation but that word freaks me out. In any case, he took it easy today. The big thing that I learned is that most vets will advise prophylactic antibiotics for a badly cracked nail like his because serious bone infections are a frequent complication. I had no idea.

I showered K with attention on our hike. She's a sensitive soul and gets subdued when the two of us don't get hiking or biking time alone. She also gets scared if I have to use a firm tone with R during a hike, and that happened frequently yesterday. Today, she seemed to beam with mellow happiness. She loves playing with R but she also loves having quiet time on her own with me.
We truly wandered, with nary a goal. We followed her nose across a meadow and found a spot where a coyote had made the snow crust collapse. His tracks trampled the area around the hole in the snow, and I wonder if he caught a rodent there, like the coyote who I watched yesterday.
Then, we followed the path of melted snow where dirt showed through, wanting to take a break from the endless slogging through deep snow that we've done over the past week. K found a lookout toward the Divide but the mountains had vanished behind the clouds. She still savored the scents.
As we moved at a relaxed pace along a ridge of boulders, we stopped frequently to scan our world and snuggle together. In this photo, I think that she's wondering when KB is going to stop hugging her! Sorry, girl, but the answer is NEVER.
Finally, just before we descended toward home, K struck one of her trademark dramatic poses high on a boulder.
Once I was home, I wrestled more with iMovie and put together another montage of photos of the bears outside their den, a continuation of yesterday's video. It's a short clip, showing the two cubs playing wildly (there will be several more clips in coming days). Then, mom comes out and appears to exert her authority to calm them. However, just when it looks like the cubs might become mellow, the two cubs jump onto mom, and get her to wrestle with them. I never thought that I'd get to see the intimate interactions in a bear family like these photos show. You'll notice that there's no video included - after the first bout of playing, the cubs filled the memory card on the camera that I had set to record video. I'm so glad that I had multiple cameras on the scene!

A hike through wildlands and bear activity

What a day I had! It started with a bike ride on the roads, a tiny bit further than yesterday, as prescribed by the slow recovery from my neck fusion surgery 11 weeks ago. I saw views of the mountains that I haven't seen in months due to my ban from bike riding.During my short ride, I spotted a coyote in a field hunting. He stood stock still and then suddenly pounced onto the snow's crust. The crust collapsed, and a rodent emerged. It was dark colored and big enough that I could see it from 75 yards away - perhaps a vole. The coyote seemed to toy with it. He chased it around on the strong snow crust, occasionally grabbing it in his mouth. One time, he tossed it about 6 ft into the air. Then, he noticed me watching, quickly dispatched the rodent, and trotted away to eat in privacy. While I felt badly for the prolonged terror of the rodent, I was fascinated by watching a coyote hunt completely naturally. I didn't know that they played with their prey after puppyhood - perhaps this coyote is a young one.
Last night, for the first time ever, we had FOUR coyotes under our birdfeeder at one time. I think that they eat fallen seeds when they're very hungry and hunt the mice and other rodents who are attracted to the seed.
After my short bike ride, I took my Labraduo out for a hike/snowshoe. We started on a sun-baked slope where the several feet of snow has melted down to patches.
Soon, however, we dove into the dense pine forest of a north-facing slope. We followed a boulder-choked gulch down a canyon wall. I climbed one boulder pile, precariously balanced on snowshoes, to view the mountains.
And, of course, to take a photo of the Labraduo. R rested his chin on K's back. Perhaps he was covering her back in this wildlife nirvana.
We hit a trail that contoured along the canyon wall, and a bobcat had walked atop the snow ahead of us. Because we were now in sensitive wildlife habitat, I leashed both dogs. R wasn't happy - he has a 'thing' about cats and fired up his turbo engines to follow the bobcat's tracks. Eventually, the bobcat left the trail to climb up a line of boulders, leaving a blank slate of deep and soft snow for us to traverse.
Most of our trail had feet of snow piled on it like where the pups sat in the photo below.
Tall and stout aspens lined much of the trail. Many bore 'bear art' or, in other words, claw marks from bears climbing them. This trail is a favorite travel alley for ursines after the snow melts to a manageable depth.
Just before we turned off the trail, we passed through a south-facing section where the sun had melted the bottomless snow to patches. The Labraduo's body language hit high alert. They stared up the slope silently, with noses and muscles quivering with tension. I imagine that wildlife love this slope right now. Due to its southern exposure, it feels like spring, with bare dirt and sprigs of green on this slope. That spring picture was a clanging contrast from the snowy miles that we'd already hiked along the north-facing parts of the slope.Once we climbed out of "wildlife alley", the dogs romped free again. I found an overlook for a photo of the pair.
Today, I worked on my 1200 photos taken recently by remote wildlife cameras posted outside a bear den. A pair reared up on their hind legs to play.
I put together the first of several video montages of the bear trio's behavior outside their den. I have several remote wildlife cameras posted to capture their images whenever they emerge. In the video here, the bears are just emerging after a stormy couple of weeks and move slowly at first. I'm working the next videos from the same afternoon that include lots of wild playing but I wanted to present the images chronologically. Enjoy!