Wildlife Wednesday - Solace on the trails

By Andy Ames

When I’m seeking solace, I hit the trails. As the Estes Valley’s most famous naturalist put it “The trail compels you to know yourself and to be yourself, and puts you in harmony with the universe. It makes you glad to be living. It gives you health, hope, and courage, and it extends that touch of nature which tends to make you kind.”

If you are like me, the trails and wildlife fill you with wonder, inspiration, and peace. While today proved to be gloomy and inhospitable, it also felt like the start of the tracking season. To quote Enos Mills once again “The tracks and records in the snow which I read in passing made something of a daily newspaper for me. They told much of the news of the wilds.” Despite the quiet day, this morning I found tracks of a bobcat, rabbits, chipmunks, mice, voles, weasels, deer, elk, and even coyotes.