Al Thieme, Cascadia Wild!

Al Thieme is an animal tracker, naturalist educator, and executive director for Cascadia Wild!, a conservation and environmental education organization. Currently, he is searching for forest carnivores in Mt. Hood National Forest.

Two smashed Palm Pilot computers, a lost Motorola radio, a screaming power-steering belt, the worst snow year on record, a malfunctioning GPS longitudinally stuck between la-la-land and Kalamazoo, the coldest cabin on the face of the known planet, and zero lynx tracks: not such a bad morning for an itinerant nonprofit tracker. But now, with my hand slowly slipping from the mass of roots above my head, my body dangling at the top of the icy, precipitous slope, I start to wonder if it was all worth it. However, this thought momentarily deserts my frozen brain for something more immediate -- survival. Plummeting down the yawning abyss had shocked me more than scared me. The slide could have become a life-threatening tumble without some timely assistance: The last two trees stood two and four feet tall, and yes, I love lodgepole pine even more after today.

I stand up, one snowshoe dangling guiltily while my knees shake to hide their embarrassment. Life never seems so real and present as when the fragility of existence comes into view. So why am I here now, using my snowshoes as ice axes, kicking steps, and still descending the wind-tortured canyon that just attempted to mold me into a Rorschachian ice sculpture? Fresh fox tracks.

And today was the day for fox tracks, fresh ones and lots of them. Having already descended and ascended Sand Canyon in my pursuit of pine marten and snowshoe hare tracks, at first I balked at the ominous Little Zigzag Canyon. But, hot on the trail of the red fox tracks, I could not pass up the delicious opportunity to follow them as far as my body would allow. You see, given the good conditions and the light snow, I thought I could perhaps follow this fox to its den, spirit willing -- to begin to pull at the thread of this tapestry, to start to unravel the mystery behind the movements of this animal. This was more than I could pass up for fear of a mere 300-foot icy canyon.

I traipsed back and forth across the hill and finally ascertained the animal's route. Leading up the opposite slope, the tracks intersected those of another fox, and perhaps another. The tree where one fox had stopped was damp. I knelt to smell it, and the stink of a skunk greeted my nosebuds. The way the fox lifted its leg in relation to its back feet indicated that the urine was likely from a male fox. Interestingly, during my day's sojourn following the fox, I noticed he would often stop twice within 100 feet to scent-mark a small Pacific silver fir or stump.

As the trail wound further uphill, I began to marvel at the stamina of this animal -- apparently the fox had easily traversed the steep inclines of Little Zigzag Canyon, and then trotted continuously upward. I eventually left the fox around 5,300 feet, which meant it had briskly ascended more than 1,000 feet in elevation gain in the time I followed it. I, on the other hand, was doing my best impersonation of an underwater smoker's cough.

Toward the end of the day, the snowflakes grew larger and threatened to fill in the tracks, so I continued on, eating my lunch on the run. I must have been quite a sight for sentinel squirrels silently observing my approach: stumbling along in my snowshoes, fatigued, with frozen meat hooks for hands, gasping for breath, choking on dry bread glazed with peanut butter.

Coming upon two new fox trails intersecting the one I trailed, I was caught off guard by the amazing activity in this small area. Tracks seemed everywhere at once: up and down little hillocks, patches of snow almost stamped down, small trees circled multiple times. My mind raced as I tried to determine what had happened at this spot. Two foxes, maybe three ... what were they doing? Were they hunting something? How old were the tracks? I walked the perimeter twice to see where the new animals came in and left. Something registered subconsciously: trees circled. I glanced at the small silver fir wearing a wreath of fox tracks around its base. Of course! They were playing, they were greeting each other and enjoying life, celebrating each other with the sheer joy of being alive. The foxes had displayed the pure essence of living, in much the same way I had struggled all day to follow their tracks.