Forest Carnivore Tracking Trip to Lolo Pass

For this weekend's tracking trip a group of 6 people journeyed up Lolo Pass road to the Horse Camp area in search of forest carnivore tracks. 
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It was a very cold day, the hike started at 16 degrees Fahrenheit, but thankfully, very little wind. No snow had fallen the previous 2 days and there were an abundance of tracks that were present. The top 2 inches of snow was very dry, which meant you could see tracks but they were very difficult to make out details of each print. 

The most abundant tracks were squirrel with a peppering of Snowshoe hare tracks as well. 

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​One thing the group thought was very neat and interesting was the snow.  All aong the river in the area they were at which was downstream from a bridge, the entire top layer of snow consisted of very large flakes that were all standing on edge, as seen in the picture to the right. The leaders of the trip, Paul and Lela, figured that this was in fact, frost that formed on the snow. The high humidity near the river along with the crazy cold temperature must have made this occur. In all other locations that were hiked to this day the snow was not like this at all, the group observed.  

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Heaps of weasel tracks were discovered all along the river bank that is featured in teh panarama picture above. Here is a close up of one of those tracks found. 

 

What an eventful trip with much evidence of animal activity in Lolo pass! 

We hope you can join us on one of this season's trips and if you are unable to please check back here at the blog to see what interesting things we find and places that we will travel to next. 

Happy tracking and keep the snow coming! 

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