Gulo

Wolverine

Oops

lol...happens to all us ......and its not a coon track

Your picture #4, where the loping tracks are going up the mountain. That picture should be called "Respect". Why?

I head down the trail on my snow mobile and cut a smoking fresh set of Gulo tracks and it's on. I pour on the throttle, getting closer and closer. Flying over the river braids, hitting unknown objects as I press even harder to catch up to him. He's headed for the back of the canyon. It's a dead end and I will catch him for sure. I hit the gas and use all my body language to stay on the sled as I go flying into the back of the canyon. It's a dead end, walls straight up, 2000 foot straight up, surrounded on 3 sides and me blocking the exit. My trapping partner right behind me. We got that bait robbing, Marten eating sucker that has been running my traps and eating all my fur. I fly into the dead end pulling my rifle off my back scanning the blanket of white ice and snow.

Then reality hits. The tracks go straight up the canyon walls. It climbed straight up the mountain, tracks running straight up to heaven, they disappear over the top, just like your picture. He's not at the top looking down. He's gone over the top. He won again. He did it on purpose. He's done it before. He does it everyday. We sit and stare at his tracks and how he clawed his way up the ice covered walls, until he got a foothold in the snow and then bounded up and over the mountain in that dang 1,2,3,4 loping gallop, over and over and over until they disappear into the clouds. 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 again and again.

I reflect on how he must of heard us coming and how he headed straight for the back of the canyon, on purpose. How I got all excited about trapping him in there and getting a shot at him with my rifle. All the anticipation as we rode harder and harder, spilling half of the trapping gear throughout the river braids. How he just kept on loping away, his stride getting further and further, as he was working harder and harder to reach the back of the dead end canyon. I sat there thinking about how he feels that he outsmarted his lame trappers once again. How sweet the Marten must taste when he's eating my fur. And how he will feel when he comes back next week to do it all over again, escaping once again with a belly full of expensive fur. He deserves "Respect". I will see his tracks next week but will never see this one in a trap. He runs my traps knowing I will replace all the bait for him to do it again. "See you next week sucker." I think we both have that same thought and a little bit of "Respect".

A couple beefed up wolf traps ...at your marten sets ..to deal with gulo ??

A couple beefed up wolf traps ...at your marten sets ..to deal with gulo ??