VERMONT NATURE AND OUTDOORS: Snow Tracks

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CELEBRATE THE SEASON:
Solemn Stillness
by Wayne Kelley

Winter Outings
By Snowmobile or Sleigh

A Christmas Tree Shoppers Glossary of Terms
by Walt Rockwood

Vermont's Top 10 Winter Events

IN THE FARMHOUSE KITCHEN:
Holiday Cookie Collection

EVERYTHING WOOD HEAT:
More Woodstove Magic
by Daryle Thomas

GARDENING:
Forcing Bulbs for Winter Bloom
by Leonard Perry

Winter Gardening Tips
by Vern Grubinger

INTO THE OUTDOORS:
Unfinished Stories in the Snow
by Jenna Guarino

Tracking Winter Wildlife
by Heather Behrens

Did You Ever Eat a Pine Tree?
by Euell Gibbons

The River in Winter
by W.D. Wetherell

VERMONT WEATHERVANE BOOK NEWS:
My Dog's Brain
plus the story behind the creation of the book

Will Moses' Silent Night

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Unfinished Stories in the Snow

by Jenna Guiarino

On a clear, cold Saturday last December, I took a walk up the side of Mount Ascutney in Brownsville, Vt. On that particular winter day an inch of powdery snow covered the ground, enough to record the impression of footprints.

As I walked along, I saw evidence of great activity on the trail. I read in the tracks that several people had followed that trail in the last couple of days. A meandering track of oval prints with four clawed toes told me that a dog had accompanied these hikers. While the people tracks stayed on the trail, the dog tracks wandered between trees, over rocks and up and down the slope.

Abruptly, the human tracks stopped and turned around. The dog tracks continued to wander a bit further, but eventually turned and descended. I imagined the dog, completely engrossed in its scent tracking, ignoring the insistent calls of its people until finally and reluctantly turning to go.

Now, without the evidence of people and dog along the trail, the nature of the walk changed dramatically. The tracks of other animals, obscured up to that point, played in the snow all around me.

I saw prints of chipmunks darting between trees and popping up from under rocks. Snowshoe hare tracks, the hind feet much bigger than the front, hopped along the trail and then off into the woods.

Then I saw a precise, even track of prints skirting the edge of the trail. They were the same four-toed prints as the dog's, but smaller. I knew they were left not by a dog, but by its serious-minded cousin, the red fox. The straight track of a fox shows evidence of an animal that is traveling on business, not pleasure, focused intently on its immediate survival.

As I was comparing the respective lifestyles of these two canids, it dawned on me that another track had appeared on the trail beside me. This one was round with four toes and was devoid of claws. It looked like the cat prints I'm accustomed to seeing around houses in nearby woods. But there were no houses here on the side of the mountain. The size of the print made me stop and stare. While house cat prints are about an inch in diameter, these were at least two inches across. It had to be a bobcat.

I retraced my steps to see where the bobcat had started following the trail and found the place. It had climbed straight up the mountain on a slope so steep, I would have had to scramble up it with all four limbs. I followed it up the trail until it cut abruptly off and diverged up the slope toward me. Suddenly, it vanished. I saw no sign of it anywhere.

I felt like a dog whose tracks turned grudgingly and descended with its masters, deprived of the end of the story. But this piece of bobcat trail gave me a glimpse into the life of an elusive wild animal few ever see.

Jenna Guarino writes from the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Woodstock, Vt.