Sharing the Trail

Something special happens when you go hiking on a crisp morning after a snowfall, and reach a point on the trail where yours are the only boot prints. It’s a feeling of solitude – plus the opposite! It’s clear you are not alone. Wildlife can do a good job hiding, but they can’t hide their tracks. And since you are the only one making human footprints, you know those other tracks weren’t made by someone’s dog. How much time elapsed between the two of you using the trail? An hour? A minute?

Deer and Coyote combo track in Eagle’s Nest Open Space on Nov 8, 2017
Photo by Pete KJ

When dry, it’s easy to imagine hiking trails to be the domain of humans, their dogs, bikers, and equestrians. All it takes is an early morning walk in fresh snow to set the record straight. It can be startling, the sheer quantity and variety of evidence left by the other creatures that use these thoroughfares. Often they aren’t just crisscrossing; they’re using the trails for significant distances. A walk in fresh snow might reveal that it is them sharing trails with us, and not necessarily the other way around.

I love the drama! One after-snowfall morning in November, I was hiking and admiring several parallel, dragged-foot tracks on a nearby hillside which had been left by some deer. Usually it’s the bucks who drag, presumably to conserve energy, but on this morning the snow was deep enough so that they could also have been does. Ahead of me on the trail was a single set of coyote prints. At the point where the tracks converged, it looked like there had been a scuffle! The deer, no longer dragging, had scattered up the hillside. I’d arrived at the scene only hours after it happened.

“Wait a minute,” you might say – coyotes don’t hunt adult deer. That’s true in spring, when they pick off newborn fawns right and left, and in the summer when they stick to smaller and slower game. However, the presence of snow can make it a different ballgame. Snow slows deer down, and gives coyotes a chance to exhaust them.

Coyote track in Roxborough State Park, April 6, 2017
Photo by Pete KJ

It’s a common sight, and a little spooky, to see hooves and paws side by side in the snow. You wonder: was this an active chase, or a stealthy pursuit? Did they look each other in the eye? It’s fun to imagine. What’s even cooler is to look closer at the paw print and wonder: canine or a feline?

Bobcat or Mountain Lion track in Roxborough State Park, April 6, 2017
Photo by Pete KJ

It’s easy to tell. The giveaway is that a feline’s paw is asymmetrical. The outer and inner of the four toes don’t line up like a canine’s, nor do the two in the middle. Also, a feline toe tends to be rounder (less elliptical) than a canine’s. Heel pads of felines are lobed at the bottom, and have slight indentations at the top to give them sort of an ‘m’ shape, whereas those of canines are fairly flat along the bottom and come to a smooth point at the top. And then there’s the claws: you will often see evidence of canine toenails, and almost never see a feline’s claw prints since they tend to be retracted.

For me the biggest thrill is in confirming a feline. This happened one memorable morning after a spring snowfall last April, as I tromped through dense forest in the back reaches of Roxborough State Park.

“Yup. Cat,” I said, examining the tracks I’d been following.

Other than glimpsing a wildcat once as it ran across the road, I have never encountered a mountain lion or a bobcat except in a zoo. But, thanks to new-fallen snow, I know that I have walked in the fresh footsteps of one, and for a significant distance. I’ll take that experience over the other one, any day!

Pete KJ

Pete KJ

Pete KJ began explorations at age three in the wooded ravine that was his backyard in Seattle. He also began a lifelong writing habit. Backyard expanded as Pete stomped all over the Cascades and Olympics as a youth, and headed onward to the Pyrenees, Alps, Himalayas, and Andes. Peace Corps service in Africa cemented his deep desire to always be out in the world, and when he finally sat in a cubicle as a chemical engineer, it was in places like Puerto Rico and India. Long absent from cubicle, he moved on to raise kids, travel the world with them, and write about it (and also write three novels). Career brought Pete to Colorado in the 1990s, its gravity and beauty pulled him back. Pete's "Base Camp Denver: 101 Hikes in Colorado's Front Range" will be published in April, 2019 by Imbrifex Books.

3 thoughts to “Sharing the Trail”

  1. Where’s the like button? Hiking in the snow with mountain lions. You’re a braver man than I am Gunga Din!

    I have seen a mountain lion up close, but from safety of my bedroom window in Black Forest. Startled me for sure, and scared my goats to death. Luckily, the cat was young and I think moving through the area looking for what? A mate or a place to call his own territory, maybe. He moved on, but for a week or two we heard that haunting scream they make in the dead of night.

    I have never encountered a cat (or a coyote) on the trail, but I am fairly certain I’ve been watched by them—me blissfully unaware. I’ll take blissful ignorance. Once in Canyonlands I came across fresh scat and feline prints nearly as big around as my hand. Now, that creeped me out. I’d love to see them in the wild, but from healthy distance!

    1. Hi Sue,

      Hi Sue! I take it you mean Black Forest, Colorado, and not Germany? I’m glad she (or he) didn’t get your goat(s)!

      You raise a great point: Very, very few of us have ever seen a cat while hiking. But anyone who hikes regularly in Colorado has no doubt been observed by one at least once — perhaps many times. We never know, and I love that. Nature is so amazing. They aren’t interested in chewing on us or being anywhere near us. They’d rather go for a much bigger elk.

      As for coyotes, I am surprised you have not yet had the pleasure of a meeting. I’ve had many, and I’m still not used to it.

  2. I met a youngster cat many years ago clearing weeds on my folk’s yard. Six feet long & wildly not concerned about me in the slightest. Just looked at me & I moved out of her path.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The following GDPR rules must be read and accepted:
This form collects your name, email and content so that we can keep track of the comments placed on the website. For more info check our privacy policy where you will get more info on where, how and why we store your data. Thanks for you cooperation and for making a comment here!