Tracking

Saturday afternoon, up in an area called Redman, about 20 minutes from our house.  Bernie wanted to get in some Xcountry skiing; I wanted to get in some snowshoeing.

Check out how deep the snow is, and how untracked aside from Bernie's ski trail.

Lots of pretty scenes...

Figured you might want to come along with me.  

Mostly I am looking for animal tracks.

I don't have any means of identifying any tracks I come across, but that doesn't really bother me at all. 

Tracks are beautiful even if I don't know what kind of creature made them.

Looks like an embroidery stitch, doesn't it?

All the tracks are animal made here.  The humans have a groomed x-county ski track that circles the forest.  Bernie is on that; I have the forest to myself.

Well, at least by myself as far as other humans go.

Overhead the ski was just starting to get the slightest bit of milky haze from an incoming storm. 

Milky hazed sky= rainbow around the sun, as usual.  After the first time I saw this phenomenon and blogged about it, I have seen it many times. 

Usually I feel a bit guilty about adding my own tracks in otherwise pristine snow. Knowing a major snowfall is due during the upcoming night allowed me to clomp about guilt free...my tracks will be buried overnight and the snow will be pristine again come dawn.

I'm following the tracks...and find it interesting how often they go to a tree, and sometimes disappear there too.

A stream bed was burbling softly close by so I plowed over there to see.  This ENORMOUS fallen tree spanned the stream.  I can't imagine how something that big managed to break off so close to the ground.

Some tiny creature had come by to investigate...

 

I didn't dare try to follow the tracks that led over the snow piled up over the stream.

The tracks of whatever that creature was looked like very tidy straight back stitch stitches.

OK...I would love to know what animal made the two side by side tracks followed by two in a column behind track.

Don't those tracks look like they are leading out?

My absolute favorite scene of the day.
My favorite photo too...

This is the backside of the  mound in the previous pictures.

I am forcing myself to smile here.  There are about four pictures before this one that Bernie took of me with my mouth wide open in a pant trying to catch my breath.  I had handed over my camera to him at this point because I was exhausted.

Believe it or not...a few minutes earlier I was heading back to the car at our agreed upon time when I walked over a very slight rise in the snow and had one leg drop down between the bench and the table of a snow covered picnic table.

I didn't hurt myself, but it was just plain awkward and required a lot of strength to pull the one leg free (with snow shoe!) while straddling the bench and having fallen flat into the deep snow with my upper body.

So ridiculous trying to extract myself from that contortion...and as I rolled about, I could see Bernie skiing by just a few yards away.  I yelled...and could of blown my emergency whistle that I was wearing, but by the time he heard and turned back I had gotten myself free.

Surprising how winded gaining such an "escape" made me!

We traveled together back to the car along the path we had broken an hour earlier.

I was SO glad to see the gate...I was huffing and puffing like crazy.

Bernie helped me off with my boots and I collapsed into the front seat, and started swigging water. Oh did that water taste good and oh did the heated seat feel good too as we drove back down the canyon to home.

And lest you imagine that we live in a frozen wasteland...here's the thermometer on our deck photographed when we returned home at 3 pm. 

It did snow overnight. 
The view from the back deck this afternoon.

And the view up the street. The big tree in the corner foreground is in the corner of our front yard.

A high school classmate posted pictures he took of Switzerland on Facebook yesterday.  If he hadn't stated that his pictures were taken in Switzerland I would have just figured he was in SLC for the Presidents Day weekend, along with a hoard of other visitors looking to get in some ski time.

I want to post this picture to my FB page 'cuz my scene here is better than his scene there...

(There are a couple of my high school classmates that live here  in SLC.  We think where we live is cooler than where the rest of our classmates live). 

This is the house one up from us...the brown fence is on our property.

The view at the foot of our street...I stood four houses down in the middle of street to take the picture.

I never get tired of this view across the valley.

The house in this picture is directly across the street from our house; I am standing in the middle of the street again at the roadway "T" one house down.

And there are animal tracks to be seen closer to home too...these being Tiger/Missy's tracks.
He comes by and spends the day on our deck couch every day.

Even when it means he has to "snowpaw" through the snow to get there.