Mellow and melting winter day

This morning, K eagerly peered out our windows, ready to romp on our trails. I was glad to see her enthusiasm because she had an upset stomach last night. I used to view that as a random non-worrisome event but, since her latest pancreatitis episode, I fret far more than I used to. So far, she seems OK.
Yesterday afternoon, when I attempted to ski on our trails, I discovered that the usual trampling had occurred. I used to get mad about this wanton destruction of my ski trail-breaking efforts but not any more. Now, I just view it as people packing the trails for my snowbike. Thanks to their efforts, K and I rolled out onto our trail network this morning! The left trail in the photo was a ski trail until yesterday... Now it's a Fatback trail!
K sat next to my amazing snow bike. Without this bike, riding on the trails would have been impossible today.
K doesn't look happy in the photo with my bike, does she? But, just a minute later, she probingly gazed at me and then launched into a silly fit of wriggling on her back in the snow.
It was another classic Colorado winter day. The blue sky rung deep and clear, contrasting with the white snow and green pine needles.
The ice crystals atop the snow glittered in the sunshine. An animal, perhaps a coyote, had galloped through this shimmering field of snow.
My bike amazed me as I churned along some trails that had loose and shifting snow. Although it was slow-motion mountain biking, I was glad to be pedaling! Snowbiking involves hard pedaling just stay upright at times. It builds strength rather than speed when the snow is still thick and hard to penetrate. Regardless, it's hard work so K and I stopped for a break at a view point.
We ran across tracks that I've never seen at this elevation. I believe that they are snowshoe hare tracks, based on the size of the hind paws. When a rabbit or hare 'hops' forward, the smaller front paws hit the ground first, one at a time. They're the lower tracks in the photo. Then, the larger hind paws synchronously reach ahead of the front paws, leaving the rabbit coiled for the next stride.
In these tracks, the hind paw prints exceeded 4" long and were quite wide, almost like snow shoes! These tracks are different from any Mountain Cottontail Tracks that I've seen before. For example, see the more classic cottontail tracks that I photographed recently with a bobcat's tracks close behind.

After K and I had played on our trails, I pedaled out on the roads solo. The theme for the day was that everything is melting, especially the layer of snow covering our dirt roads. I got covered in mud but didn't mind too much. I saw a few north-facing views that still looked like winter wonderlands.
From the bottom of a gulch, I could look up through a tangle of barren willows to see the mountains peeking at me.
Although other local mountain bikers declared that this storm was 'it', the storm that closed the trails to regular mountain bikes until May, I'm starting to think that they're wrong. The intense sun is melting the white carpet at a stunning rate. I suspect that the sun is still a little too high in the sky at mid-day to let the snow linger. Regardless, what an amazing world we live in. The snow today will make the flowers bloom in the spring!
I wonder what the slope where I captured that photo looks like right now. Arctic, I suspect.

Welcome winter!

Today marked a transition, from a grudging acknowledgement that winter is almost here to a happy welcome for its stunning beauty. The thermometer read 5°F as the sun rose in a fire of red and gold, transforming snow-laden pine trees into fiery-topped candles.

The dogs and I plunged into the crystal clear and frozen world. The azure sky highlighted the green pine boughs weighted down with snow pillows. The world seemed frozen into a stunning landscape. The scene felt like it might shatter, into a million tiny fragments, if we moved too fast or made too much noise.
As I fiddled with my camera to take some photos of the mountains, the dogs spontaneously sat next to each other. You probably have no idea what a rare event it is for R to decide to sit still while in the forest!
Cuter still, they turned to each other, and R gave K a kiss!
For new readers, you might be surprised to notice the electronic collars on both dogs. I use those collars for one very scary situation - when our coyote pack starts luring my dogs into a chase. Other dogs in our neighborhood who have fallen for this coyote trap have been seriously injured or killed.

I've worked very hard, using positive techniques, at training the duo not to chase coyotes, and I think that I may have succeeded. However, a few years ago, K came within a whisker of serious injury or death after chasing a lone coyote into a forest and emerging from the trees with a pack of coyotes behind her. I wrote a post about my soul-searching as I contemplated using these collars. I decided to use them because I felt that my dogs' lives were in danger, and I'd used every possible positive technique to train them to come when called around coyotes. I see the collars as a life-insurance policy - to be used only if my dog ignores my cues and is about to get in life-threatening trouble.

Indeed, yesterday afternoon, the dogs spotted coyotes in the meadow, went onto high alert, but they didn't chase. Based on that event and several others like it, I think that our positive training is working. However, because dogs have minds of their own, I can't be certain that they'll never fall for the coyote luring game again so my dogs wear the collars.

After photographing the dogs, I finally captured the crystalline mountains with K gazing at them.
After I dropped off my dogs at home, I headed out for a ride on our snow-packed roads, relying on my studded snow tires for traction. I headed down a gulch toward a favorite elk haunt and saw about half of the herd. Usually, they ignore me as I snap photos from a distance. But this herd vibrated with nervous energy and immediately started to amble slowly down the gulch - away from me. I took a little video that shows how the heard moves in a line, sometimes several elk abreast, but it's obvious that some elk are leaders and others are followers. My books say that the elder females usually lead but, in this case, the antlered males piloted the herd.



This half-herd included almost ten hulking males, one of whom outweighed the rest monumentally. I smiled, realizing that my antics on Saturday might have saved his life. Most hunters go for the biggest antlered male in the herd.

By serendipity, I caught a photo as he jumped a barbed wire fence used to corral a lone miniature horse who appears to enjoy the company of the elk.

Then, I started video recording the herd as they leaped over the fence one-by-one. Sorry about the jiggly video - I was working in a hurry. Notice how the smaller elk, probably yearlings who are just learning about fences, sometimes paused before jumping, perhaps apprehensive about the height of the fence.

Aside from the elk, I saw lots of tracks mostly from deer and coyotes. Surprisingly, a coyote trotted down our driveway but our wildlife cameras indicate that he didn't visit the birdfeeders. I'm starting to wonder if a nocturnal rodent, coyote prey, hangs out under our feeders in the summer but then hibernates in the winter. I'm not sure which rodent that might be. However, there's no doubt that the coyotes congregate under our birdfeeders almost every night all spring, summer, and fall. But now, they've stopped. I wonder why.

As I rolled home, happy and tired, I caught two more views of the glittering mountains. One was through a pine forest.

The other view rooted me in one spot, gazing with amazement. I finally tore myself away and headed home. Welcome winter!

Web of life

Yesterday afternoon, the promised snow started falling. The dogs worked together, perhaps each covering one end of a rodent tunnel as they dug deep into the earth paying no attention to the snow.
This morning, although loose and fluffy snow covered our trails, I reminded myself that I'll never know what's possible if I don't try. I tried to ride the untrampled trails with my Fatback. Alas, I rapidly realized that I'd be doing more walking than riding.
I turned around, stowed the bike, and took out my cross-country skis to start the trail packing process. I have a tried-and-true process for attaining packed trails in the winter. I start by skiing the established trails that most neighbors know. Then, everyone in the neighborhood walks and snowshoes in my ski tracks. I find it fascinating that most people only follow tracks but never forge their own path but that's a whole different topic - of a philosophical bent. The bottom line is that I end up with hard-packed trails for my Fatback snow bike.

Later, I secretly make ski tracks that don't follow established trails and are hidden from view. Those tracks remain pristine and awesome for gliding on my touring skis, just so long as no snowshoeing or hiking people find them.
Today, I started what should be an easy trail-packing process because the snow isn't too deep. I had fun breaking trail with my skis while the Labraduo played like a pair of puppies. Snow causes their playful streaks to bubble to the surface. R found a stick and K grabbed the other end. The pair moved synchronously as they bounded through the snow.
Leap upward for the next bound.
Fly through the air and land on the front limbs.
If only I could be as carefree and physically strong as the duo!

While I watched K and R play, a mountain chickadee called to me as if he had an important message. He fluttered toward me and landed close to my head on a pine branch. He seemed to look at me as he chirped. I think that this feathered messenger brought important advice. Be tough and resilient, just like he is.
Aside from bird chirps and squirrel tracks, I saw no signs of animal activity. No fresh tracks by deer, elk, bobcats, lions, foxes, coyotes, or rabbits. I wonder if they all hunkered down for the winter blast.
Today, with no conscious effort, I fell into the rhythm of being part of the forest rather than a visitor observing it. I felt like a part of the web of life despite the common belief that humans are somehow above nature's vicissitudes. Living among predators higher than me on the food chain and seeing evidence of their presence (like the lion tracks yesterday) helps foster that feeling. Moreover, the feeling is fostered by watching the animals and plants fight for survival just like we do every single day. The details of our daily battles are different but the indomitable spirit to live and flourish is the same.

Kia kaha.

Elk, bobcat, mountain lion

Yesterday evening, we had human friends with their canine companion over for a visit. R loves having visitors, especially his romping chocolate lab friend JB, so he played raucously with his ring toy.
By the end of the evening, the antics of the three pups plus the company of good friends had made me smile more than I'd thought was possible earlier in the day. R was exhausted and fell asleep with his beloved ring toy as a pillow.
This morning, the Labraduo joined me for a ride on a thin layer of fresh snow. The snow and the impending storm muted the forest, making it feel like an eerie oasis. For one instant, I glimpsed a mountain glowing resplendently through the clouds.
The snow frosted the pine trees and rocky hills.The duo were the best riding partners I could have asked for. We mellowly rolled over the new snow, soaking up the muffled silence. R sprinted around me like a perpetual motion machine but always listened when I asked him to do something. That's a sweet compromise.
Near the end of our trail ride, I noticed that our neighborhood elk herd grazed in the private meadow below us. I immediately started worrying about hunters. The sight of the 100-strong herd almost always incites some trespassing which brings hunters close to me and my dogs.
I dropped the dogs off at home and investigated potential hunting spots. Indeed, one person lurked on private property but claimed that he had permission to hunt there (I had no way to check his story). I saw that the elk herd, like a large oozing mass, was drifting in his direction. I knew that the instant they left the meadow and crossed the road, life would end for one of them. So, I rode my mountain bike on the public road that they were oozing toward and stopped for a long period to take photos. Notice the big bull with massive antlers lying down near the back of the group. I actually would have taken this photo opportunity regardless of the hunting situation. It's not often that I see them so close to the road.
But, alas, the elk didn't like having a photographer nearby and retreated.
When I checked later, they'd disappeared into the trees behind the meadow. I felt relieved. I can't help myself but I always root for the animals versus the rifle-wielding humans.

I headed out on a solo ride, and the wonders of our wildlife made stewing about my spinal deterioration impossible.

First, I came upon bobcat tracks. The bobcat had walked purposefully along my trail, with no side loops or forays into the forest. Then, after a half mile or so, he suddenly followed rabbit tracks like he had fallen into a magnetic field. In the photo below, I think that the bobcat stopped for a moment, sniffing the tracks or the rabbit, I can't know which. The two bottom tracks are the bobcat tracks while the four upper tracks are from the rabbit. Both animals traveled in the same direction.
In contrast to human hunting, when it's a wild predator versus wild prey, I don't know who to root for. So, I have fun playing detective trying to figure out what happened.

For perspective, I've included the bobcat track next to my 3.5" long chemical handwarmer. In a moment, you'll see how much bigger a mountain lion track is than a bobcat track.After investigating the bobcat tracks, I rolled on, climbed a ridge, and pedaled along its spine. The storm clouds were enveloping me so I simply pedaled in a steady rhythm, hoping to get home before the serious snowfall began.

As I entered that meditative state of hard physical effort, I rolled across the tracks of a pair of humongous animals. I literally said "Whoa" aloud and screeched to a halt. The photo below was after I'd bisected the animals paths. My tire tracks move almost horizontally across the photo and the animal's path was from bottom to top.
I examined the tracks closely, ascertaining that they definitely were not made by a dog, but rather by a mountain lion. They had no claws and were as wide as they were long. Moreover, for the first time ever, I could see the tricuspid pattern, with three obvious lobes, at the base of the largest paw pad. In a dog, paw shape is very different.
Also, look at the size of this track. It's about 3.5" by 3.5". It's gargantuan compared to the bobcat track.

I looked around some more, completely engrossed in the mountain lion's wanderings. I started to follow in the same direction of the tracks. I found that they headed straight down into the gulch where I saw lion tracks last Sunday. Then, I backtracked the animals and became absolutely certain that a pair of cougars had traveled together. Below, two animals walked side-by-side, about a yard apart, from the bottom to the top of the photo.
This photo shows a closer view of one lion's tracks, as she climbed the steep rocky slope toward the point where I rode across her tracks.
Mountain lions are solitary creatures, except when a mother has kittens or when mating. My bet is that a mother and her almost-adult kitten walked over the ridge together. Indeed, last week, almost directly below this point in the gulch a half mile away, I saw two sets of tracks that I thought were made by a mother lion and almost grown-up kitten. How cool is that?

Mothers with kittens have small home ranges. In other words, they hunt and live in areas about half as large as a big male lion. They choose locales rich in prey, and this ridge and gulch definitely harbor a bevy of deer and elk.

The greatest threat to a kitten is from a dominant male mountain lion. A big Tom cat kills any kitten that he finds in his territory, even his own offspring. However, the dominant males patrol expansive home ranges, the exact size depending on the prey density and prevalence of cluttered habitat appropriate for ambushing prey. Consequently, a dominant male doesn't come through a female's smaller home range too frequently.

The dominant males also throw out subadult males who have left their mother's tutelage and are traveling to search for their own territories. Sometimes, posturing by the big male scares off a youngster. However, at other times, a real fight ensues. It's rumored that a dominant male mountain lion had a noisy and ferocious fight with a subadult male near a road in my neighborhood recently. The subadult was killed. It's sad but that's the way in the natural world.

The natural world soothed my soul today. I can't imagine my life without these sojourns through nature, observing the signs of our wildlife. My greatest fear is that someday I'll lose my ability to travel to these places. However, for now, I'll focus on enjoying each day in my forest.

Tangled up in blues

Yesterday didn't turn out like I expected although it started beautifully. K and I headed up high early, catching a view of the golden hue of sunrise reflecting onto the snowy mountains to our west.
The warm sun still glowed on us, and we turned our faces to the sky to feel its warmth.
Because I was in a playful mood, we stopped to use the timer on my camera for a joint photo.
The mountains behind us were gorgeous but didn't show up in our photo.
Yesterday, I dropped K at home, and headed out for a brief ride. At one point, I was pedaling back onto someone's private property. I know the person and have permission to ride on his land, as long as I don't bring other people or let people see me using it. Basically, he doesn't want it to become a public trail. The funny part was that, as I rode through wearing my blaze orange jacket, a person walked into view along the road. I felt like a deer caught in the headlights. The only strategy that I could think of was to freeze, but I was wearing that darn jacket. Believe it or not, the person walked within 20 yards of me and didn't notice me, just because I was still. It truly makes me wonder how many tan or brown animals we forest-visitors pass close by without a clue.

As I rode, the clouds gathered over the mountains, seemingly portending the day ahead of me.
After my ride, I drove to my spine doctor's office. After my initial exam, he was alarmed, to put it mildly. He ended up spending 2 hours with me, using his office's imaging equipment to figure out if he had a true emergency on his hands. In the end, he decided that although my physical exam was atrocious (strength losses, asymmetrical reflexes, patches with no feeling on hands and legs), I probably wasn't in immediate danger despite the bone spurs protruding toward my spinal cord in my neck. He ordered expedited MRIs of my entire spine, and we'll go from there.

I go to this particular doctor because he's a proponent of avoiding surgery whenever possible although he won't shy away from it if a patient is in danger. His last words to me yesterday were that I might have progressed beyond the point where conservative management (i.e., no surgery) was even on the table as an option. Coming from him, that's a shocking statement.

You can imagine that I was crushed, completely and utterly crushed. Moreover, within an hour after his exam, every pain flared up, probably due to the strength and flexibility tests that I'd just done. Last night wasn't one of my better ones.

This morning, K and I stuck to our routine, heading out for a ride. I was cranky, to say the least. But, within a few minutes, we saw the biggest deer buck that I've seen in our area in years. His antlers towered above his head, and the muscles rippled in his neck. After calling back K, we watched him, frozen in place, in the midst of the forest. My photos turned out blurry, due to the dark light and dense fog. But, it was a special moment.

We stopped two different places, hoping to see the mountains through a break in the clouds but it was not to be. So, I gazed at my worried K in the fog.
And, she guarded my bike while I tried to discern mountains on the horizon.
I did smile when K sprinted enthusiastically through snow, churning it into the air.
After I dropped off K and started my solo ride, I realized that I was focused on my inner landscape rather than the world around me. I consciously tried to be here and now, enjoying nature rather than stewing inside my own mind. I noticed a Red Squirrel perched atop a boulder working on a Ponderosa Pine cone. He diligently ripped it apart while keeping one eye on me. I took out my camera for a photo.
Just after I snapped the photo above, a gray and white hawk gracefully swooped out of a nearby tree, attempting to snag the squirrel in his talons. Just after the swoop, the squirrel had vanished and some debris floated in the air where the squirrel had sat, either fur or feathers ripped from their moorings.

Then, I heard scratching and saw movement in a dead tree behind the boulder. After scrambling for a view, I spotted a Northern Goshawk perched on the tree skeleton, with no squirrel in his grasp. I wasn't fast enough to snap a photo before he flapped away and out of sight. I borrowed someone else's photo which is shown below.
I stood rooted in place, wanting to know if the squirrel was OK. I felt partially responsible. After all, I distracted him so that the hawk could attack. After a few minutes, my squirrel scampered from under the boulder, quickly grabbed the remainder of his cone, and leaped back to safety. Whew. I didn't inadvertently cause his injury or death. My conscience couldn't have handled that weight today.

I often wonder about my accidental effects as I wander through the forest, scaring up animals and doubtless affecting the behavior of others who I don't see. One day, I scared up a mother grouse and almost grown-up babies. Then, about a quarter mile later, I saw a human grouse hunter. I worried about whether my passage had started a cascade of events that led to one of the grouse being killed. I didn't hear a shot so I doubt it. However, the rippling effects of my travels must have profound consequences on some days.

For the rest of my ride, despite my fervent efforts to focus on the forest, I mostly turned inward rather than outward, so I missed any interesting nature stories that might have been along my route. Looking back, I feel like I was riding in a fog. In fact, I was!
When I was younger, I always thought that someday I'd turn a corner and life would become easy. It hasn't happened. But, through my travails, which I know pale in comparison to those faced by many other people, I have learned to seize the day and enjoy good moments to their fullest. That's one good consequence of having had 8 major surgeries already in my life and possibly facing another. Carpe diem.