Forensic Winter in the Tetons
Winter in the Tetons is a world stripped down to its bone. I arrived on New Year’s Day to start as a research technician on a winter study of gray wolf movement and behavior. Our mission was forensic: to find as many wolf kills as possible to study predation patterns. Because the pack was not collared, we relied on old-fashioned tracking skills. We had to be incredibly careful not to harass the individuals we were following or bump the pack off their food. Instead of following tracks forward, we tracked their footprints in reverse. When we found a carcass (usually an elk), we became detectives, circling the scene of the “crime” to collect clues to the story written in blood splatters, tracks, and broken branches. These findings would either point us to conclude that: 1) wolves had made the kill, 2) it was a scavenged carcass, or 3) cause of death was unknown. We also looked at bone marrow and other signs that the animal was in weak condition before it died.
The detective work was thrilling, but the physical reality of the field travel was a constant negotiation with varying densities of snow. I spent most days on butter knife sleds (my cross-country skis) learning to read the subtle changes in the conditions and on the landscape. The snow was never just one type. One day it was a breakable crust that would snap under your weight like glass; and another day it was heavy, wet cement, or “rotten” sugar snow that offered zero resistance and swallowed our poles and legs alike. There were perfect days too - the snow was soft and fast, and tracks were easy to read. Navigating a steep, snow-obscured maze of deadfall on xc skis is possibly the most awkward series of movements I have ever performed. I managed a regular series of face plants, while the wolves appeared to move over the terrain with effortless grace.
On the days when the tracks vanished, we would howl into the silence. When they howled back, the hair on my skin would prick up from the jolt of connection. One morning, a gray wolf emerged from the timber like a ghost. He meandered across a clearing and turned toward me, loping at a determined pace. He stopped to sniff a cluster of sagebrush, his breath pluming in the sub zero air, before cutting right and disappearing back into the black trees. In that quiet, you realize how truly mesmerizing the wild is when you stop observing it as an outsider and start moving on the landscape’s own terms.
