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Saturday, January 30, 2021

Tracks in the Snow

 



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There is comfort in being the only guest in a small motel and often the only customer at the café —a sense that I am a member of a club.  “Everyone gets along here, there’s no drama,” says Amy, waitress this morning, and maybe bartender tonight and housekeeper tomorrow. 

 




Hardly anyone says good morning when they come into the store/gas station/café.  They make some casual comment instead.  Mine today was, “Mule deer on the west hill, just standin’ still at daybreak; coyotes yappin’.” Not an uncommon sight or sound around here.  Nobody got excited.  

 






There was not enough light for pictures when I saw the mule deer, and they’re too far away anyway.  So far, my only picture of a mule deer is that road-kill you may have seen in my last blog post.  

 






Moose prints on a frozen creek


I’ve seen moose too, but they have no interest in letting me take their picture.  A few years ago, during the October rut in nearby Grand Teton National Park, a bull moose had more interest in me than I wanted, and my pictures of him were fantastic.   




 

Moose poop



During winter, bulls are not defending harems, and don’t consider me a threat.  So while  feeling ignored, I also feel safer.  Now I photograph their tracks and their poop.  

 






This might be the track of someone’s large domestic dog, or it might be a wolf.  It’s hard to tell the difference.  I placed my boot print beside it in this picture to show its size.  If it’s a dog I would expect to see boot prints heading in the same direction.  But I don’t see any boot prints.   

 




Moose print beside wolf print

If my younger sister were here and I were ten years old, I would not say that it could be a dog.  I was smart back then and knew what to say at any given moment, could take any possible danger and find the logical anecdote to terrorize her.  I would tell her that this is definitely a wolf print because of its size, having four toes, and that a pack of wolves is stalking us at this very moment.  


 





If you wish to drive on a snowy dirt road for fifteen miles, then trudge through half a mile of snow, you can see rock carvings made a thousand years ago or more on the high Wyoming plain. This petroglyph could be my sister and I.   

 





Experts can’t give a clear understanding of who these ancient people were or what their art means.  So I will render an opinion, as others have done, on this scene of an elongated animal in the lower left, high mountains above, and above the mountains a fish in the upper right.  I think it is abstract art, not intended to look real.  I don’t know why the four-legged animal’s body is too long, or what a fish is doing above mountains, but these people knew how to survive cold winters, and how to hunt.  They imagined many things, as poets and artists and ancient people did.  Maybe they wanted to inspire anyone who follows, even if our imagining is different form theirs.  (Incidentally, you may want to click on this picture or any picture to enlarge it, then press escape to return.)

 


Please see maps prepared by Michael Angerman showing the places the places I stayed.

Map for the summer trip of 2020:  Michael's Map 

Map for the winter trip of 2021:   Google Map for Winter 2021


 

8 comments:

  1. Is the flat land surrounding Pinedale used for crop or grazing? Could also be coyote, you think? You are surrounded by isolation but yet not alone.

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    1. Much of it is ranchland, very few crops. Lots of open land, yet enough people to not feel isolated. I can go to the hills, even in winter, from which coms my strength, but not nearly as high into the mountains as in summer. I can't even get to the trailheads for hiking. But in the foothills I am finding many trails not even considered in summer.

      Advantage and adventure in winter unsuspected.

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  2. This is a BRILLIANTLY written and sometimes hilarious post. Especially rewarding if you wake up at 2:30 am to read it! No drama they say? Looking at that sky and ice?? Wild animals and the aloneness of a few human beings in the midst of it all some doing ordinary things and one poet explorer from another world. Brilliant contrasting the writing and landscape. Love the understatement. Love the flying fish.Thank you! "Good Night!" As my mother used to say when she saw something amazing. Including by the way, the portraits of you and your sister in the snow!!!

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    1. I like it that, on a 2:30am high, you comment on the drama of my writing, and also question Amy’s saying “There is no drama here.” I like it because she finds the twenty or so employees at the motel/ café/store/gas station work together without the typical workplace conflicts of other workplaces that she calls “drama.” I feel almost like one of them. But I also feel like a lady of privilege come to one of her many residences for the winter. I am treated with respect and as an equal, almost like they treat Tasha, the head lady in charge, about whom I have never heard a bad word.

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  3. Erhmmm .... well, as Lord Admiral Nelson may have been recorded as remarking at the battle of Trafalgar upon raising his telescope to his blind eye, "Fish? I see no fish." .... or something like that.

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    1. In other words I wasn't able to make out the fish in the rock carving. i can see what look to be representations of mountains, and two vertical obelisks, one with radiating marks that perhaps make it a stick figure.
      My reference to admiral Lord Nelson maybe too non-American of a historical reference for most in the audience, notwithstanding that it's a reference taught to most British children at school. To explain, whereas the battle of Copenhagen (1801) didn't start auspiciously for the British Navy, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker ordered a recall message to be signaled to Nelson (via the flag ship) in order to provide grounds for retreat should Nelson have chosen to do so. Picking up the story at that point from Wikipedia, "Nelson, directing action aboard HMS Elephant, was informed of the signal by the signal lieutenant, Frederick Langford, but angrily responded: "I told you to look out on the Danish commodore and let me know when he surrendered. Keep your eyes fixed on him."[191] He then turned to his flag captain, Thomas Foley, and said "You know, Foley, I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes." He raised the telescope to his blind eye, and said "I really do not see the signal."[191][192]. (And yes, actually the Battle of Trafalgar came later (1805), in which the British fleet, under command of Nelson, defeated Napoleon's combined French and Spanish fleets off Cadiz. And by the way, during the battle, Nelson was shot by a sniper, and died about three hours later. A statue of Nelson stands atop Nelson's Column,170-ft above Trafalgar Square, in Central London.

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    2. All sorts of imaginings are, I suppose, possible in these petroglyphs.

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