That's sort of what I felt like except I wasn't climbing a mountain I was crossing a lake on my snowshoes. The day before I had run my longest road run yet at around 2hrs 10minutes. It was great, I ran one direction which happened to be the same way Ray was going, heading to the small village of Fraser Lake. When Ray came back my direction again he picked me up and then dropped me off closer to home so I could keep running. He clocked my distance at just over 9 miles (about 14-15km). I was happy enough with that as the road is quite rolling so there's elevation gain and running on snow & ice tires out the body quicker than running on firm terrain.
Which brought me to snowshoeing as I didn't want to push too hard the next day. I figured I'd go out for a snowshoe stroll and checkout Moose Mountain. I found some of my old trails and started out. Again I had this interesting sensation of not moving while I was walking towards Mr. Moose Mountain since it wasn't getting any closer and it really did feel like I was standing on the spot.
Then I came across some tracks in the snow heading sort of North-South as I was heading East-West. There was just one lone track moving along the flat expanse of the lake. Of course I was quite interested when I saw that this was a paw track rather than an ungulate track. I like that word ungulate.. sounds much better than deer. You could almost yodel it: UnnguuuuLLLLaAAATTTeeee. Maybe this is the first slow onset of cabin fever?
Back to the paw prints, they were large, as large as my hand. Rule out dogs, coyotoes or linxes or foxes. Must be either a wolf or a cougar. I saw where the track originated from, exactly where I had snowshoed earlier in the week; the big hilly area with large open snow patches and no cabins. I had gone exploring up there to get a good hill work out in. I was looking around the whole time, not exactly scared but not exactly comfortable either. Probably closer to what our early ancestors must have felt like when being eaten by something was a real possibility. My rational mind knows that the likely hood of a daylight attack on a human by a wolf or a cougar in an area populated by humans is exceedingly rare. I had my bear spray so I felt prepared. But tell that to your limbic system and your amygdala. Those functions are going to do what ever the hell they want, the intellect is not the boss of them. And for good reason probably, our brains can be exceedingly slow to process information and telling the difference between seeing a rock or a slow approaching wolf could be rather important.
The paws were perfectly in front of one another, I wondered how any animal could walk with such symmetry. I took the photos of the paw prints knowing that Ray would know what it was. However I wanted to try and formulate my own opinion. I knew the animal was big, no doubt about that. I had encountered an Irish Wolfhound in a dog park and it made me realize just how big a wolf must be. A tad scary-big I must say. As I was imagining a cougar moving through the snow I thought about a cougars very long tail. If the cougar was out for a jaunt and relatively relaxed then it made sense that his/her tail would drag along the snow and would leave some sort of markings. There were none around the paw tracks so I deduced it must be a lone wolf. Ray confirmed what I thought and mom declared that he must have traveled at night as she would have seen him on the lake.
I continued towards the never closer Mouse Mountain. Not long after, I met up with the wolf's second set of tracks heading back North from the direction he started out from. I kept going and going with Moose Mountain getting larger ever so slowly. Eventually however I ran out of steam. I figured I'd been been walking about an hour and as far as I went in one direction I'd have to come back the same way. Just like the wolf I suppose.
After eating some snacks and pondering my energy level and desire to keep moving forward I finally decided enough of this! Once heading home I also had the luxury of my freshly made tracks so the going was easier. My only interest in running at this point was to get home faster, lunch would be waiting!
I needed a more efficient way to move. I cranked up my music and decided to let the body do what it wanted to do and I found myself moving in more of lope with my arms dangling. Not quite a run - not quite a walk. It's looks stupid, like the runner is going to fall forward but it appears to allow the body to stay relaxed. One of my shamanic teachers had taught me this type of movement and its also described by Carlos Castenada in his first book. I would place my foot at the top of my track which created a mini downhill for my foot to land on. I fell into a rhythmic pace concentrating on the track in front me, my familiar music allowing me to relax further. I found that flow place endurance athletes talk of. It became easy and it made me marvel that it had felt so difficult before. It felt really cool.
On my way back I encountered the wolf tracks again. I've been wanting to see a wolf for the longest time; years and now it felt tantalizingly close. How would one introduce themselves to a wolf though? I don't think I could tolerate a wolf getting close enough to sniff me, I think my fear mechanism would over-ride and I would either retreat or pull out my bear spray. So sniffing is out of the question. Then it occurred to me! I had to relieve myself in the worst way, I dropped my drawers beside his tracks and had a pee. There. A perfect wolf introduction I think. :-)
Tracks were the big deal that day with exciting learnings. Mouse Mountains still sits there, farther away than I thought.
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