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Thursday, June 11, 2020

What footprint is this?

We set out with Bob and Denise at 8:30am yesterday morning. The trail we were doing is actually 15 miles (24 kms) round trip, and I don't think we were quite that ambitious but we didn't have an actual plan.

The skies were mixed, with a little bit of sunshine coming and going but the temperature was nice for hiking at around 60F (15C).

We had some rain overnight, so sections of the trail were pretty muddy. It was interesting though because we could see lots of animal tracks, especially deer and elk... maybe even moose.

8:45am.

In one section, we came across some different tracks. There were quite a few of them, but you could tell it was just one animal. It was fairly big... 

What footprint is this?

There are no claws showing, so we think it's a cat. And it was fairly big. We're thinking mountain lion (cougar), but it doesn't quite look like any cougar footprints that we have looked up on the internet, even though the size looks about right. 

Pretty stream.




We got to a point where there was a long, but not that steep uphill stretch. We started up it, but the wind picked up and it was actually getting colder with the higher altitude. We decided that was enough and we turned around.



We were heading back when we spotted a young male deer right in the middle of the trail. He just stood there and looked at us! WE don't think he has ever seen people before. He sure was curious.

Young Mr. Deer.



He's a handsome fellow!



Scenery along the way.

We arrived back at the motorhomes at 11:30am. We had done three hours nonstop except for some picture taking, and we had hiked 8 miles (13 kms). A good morning workout with fantastic scenery!

Sherman's campsite at GPS 45.882044, -110.87996

We got packed up and did some driving. We're taking different routes than Bob and Denise again, but we figured we would do one more night together along the way.



We checked out this spot.

It had a great view of the mountains, but there was no shelter and it was windy. And, the parking spots weren't ideal. And there was no cell signal. We decided to carry on north to the town of White Sulphur Springs (pop 1,000) where we parked up for a while at their new library and used the internet. We probably could have stayed the night there but it was right beside a busy road. Bob and I walked over to the Sheriff's office where they told us to ask Nicole at the local grocery store where there is a nice big parking lot. Sure enough Nicole said "we don't care, sure you can park here".

Not much indication of Covid around here. But then we were told in the store that there has only been one reported case in the entire county, so the locals aren't too worried.

Today, we are going to walk around town, and then head north into Lewis and Clark National Forest.

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14 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. That is pretty much what we thought too, thanks!

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  2. Looks like a mountain lion/cougar. We photographed a similar tack in Idaho last summer. Showed it to a couple locals and they said it was a grey wolf... Either way, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up!
    Big mammal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, we pretty much think that it was a cougar track too. For some reason it didn't bother us too much, there were four of us hiking and we were talking a fair bit between us so hopefully that was enough to make the cougar want to stay hidden away.

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  3. Replies
    1. Yes, there is still a fair bit of snow up in the mountains and even a little lower down where the sun doesn't get at it too much.

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  4. I love White Sulphur Springs - especially all the barn quilts around town. Read a book written by a man who grew up there. Very interesting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. White Sulphur Springs is definitely an interesting little town with a fair bit of history to it, plus it also has the hot springs.

      I noticed the barn quilts around town, right away. I enjoying looking at them.

      I think that book was probably the one written by Taylor Gordon who grew up in White Sulphur Springs and became quite a famous musician doing performances around the world before moving back to his home town where he became an author and wrote about the town and the area.

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  5. You just have to run faster than Kevin.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would have to worry then because there is no way I could out run Kevin!

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  6. The prints are cougar. It's 2 prints one on top of the other.
    Montana is beautiful. Really beautiful on bike.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We figured that it was probably two prints, one on top of the other because we just couldn't find any other print that came close to our picture except for a cougar.

      We are looking forward to doing a bit of bike riding. Hopefully we will get out this afternoon along the Missouri River.

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  7. Must feel good to be in an area with less covid. Arizona sounds to be a place a avoid at the moment. Suspect with independent State control it will be an on going up and down situation over there

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    Replies
    1. Our entire trip north after crossing the border from Mexico into Texas and up has been pretty much void of the virus. We have had to "pass" through a few places that were really shut down like the Indian reservations in New Mexico but other than that we have had no issues. We go into town only for groceries and gas otherwise we are basically staying in the middle of nowhere, which makes things really easy. The places that are really having an issue in the US are the big cities!

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