Content

I am content at the moment. I have been outside all day hiking my way through the wilderness. The journey started out on the M&M trail but it wasn't long before my curiosity of "ooh look, deer tracks, I wonder where they go" kicked in.

I followed the meandering deer tracks for a bit. M.r deer was certainly running the borders of his territory this morning and checking everything out. Many poos, pees, and deer beds were evidence of his activity. A fox, some squirrel, and even the occasional wabbit were there to keep him company.

Lots of the tracks were old, but there were some definite fresh ones from this morning. You can tell by how 'sharp' the snow crystals are in the track. Tracks that have been there longer will not have had a chance to melt a little, or have wind wear away the clearly defined edges. Mr. Deer would occasionally lead me to where he munched on some greenery.

I never did catch sight of Mr. Deer, which is fine. I don't want to frighten him. Despite my being downwind from where he was going we never crossed paths. He could probably hear my crunching through the snow from a mile away anyway

I went back home and had an early lunch. I decided to head far up north and clamber around on really steep suff.

I'd be willing to bet that with the exception of the ice-climbing trail, no human had walked where I walked for a long, long time. I suspect some sections of where I went today may have been must easier climbing this time of year because you can create steps in the snow. Most sections, however, were pretty technical. There's about 6 to 8 inches of dry fluff on top of about an inch and a half of crust, a little more fluff under that...and in spots glare ice under that frozen directly to whatever the ground happened to be.

I got to practice several techniques to get back down and also to transverse the steeps. Plunge stepping was a breeze. I do that in the summer in the scree fields. The crust worked to my advantage today, I was able to kick in steps in some places. Punching in handholds was also a possibility to keep three points on at all times. The fun part was in the boulder fields...some of them had handholds, others were trying to fool you...they were really covered in ice.

At one point I decided to glissade down about 100 feet. That was freakin awesome in the fluff. My butt didn't complain a bit about it, and I didn't get any snow where it shouldn't have been. An axe or a stake would have come in handy to self arrest at the bottom in case I had picked up too much speed, but I planned my runout accordingly. Didn't actually get up much speed because the crusties built up and made a nice snow dam.

I then transversed about another half mile and heard something. So I stopped and reseted in the sun for about 10 minutes, not moving. I could definitely hear something on the other side of the rise. I did spot the animal but I am not going to speculate publicly as to what it was, as I do not wish to start debate. I am not 100% on what I saw, but I saw enough that I unconsciously drew my knife (then put it away, realizing it was not needed), made sure I was on stable ground, and silently undid my pack. Perhaps I what I saw was in my head, as I was tired and needed a break. In either case, I wish to believe what I saw I saw for personal reasons, and that is that.

That being said, the animal left the area quickly when the wind shifted. I then continued on my way. I would have attempted to make it to where the animals tracks were, but the valley between my rise and its rise consisted of absolute smooth, sheer ice. I was just not equipped for that type of crossing and I did not want to play sled-boy down 200 feet of steep ice with boulders at the bottom.

Overall today was a good day. My body is tired, but in a good way.

I must now fire up the stove and cook some beef for my Lovely and I to eat this evening. I think I will slice it thin and use my made-up recipe intended to clone chilis fajita marinade.