Snowshoe Hike on the west trails of Van Vliet Hemlocks.
Monday, January 16th, 2012
(by Licia Johnson, Naturalist)
We finally had enough snow, and chilly enough conditions to
get out on snowshoes. My friend and I decided to explore a new location to both of us- the west side
trails at the Van Vliet Hemlocks area.
The trail started out through a massive stand of maple, with tons of
sign from deer, including beds, scat tracks and urine. We also found some older canine tracks with
urine that contained estrus blood. Wild
canines are getting ready to mate this time of year, so that was not
surprising.
While following the ‘yellow’ trail we went off and onto the
lake a little bit, as we bushwhacked our way back onto the trail, we saw tracks
and trails from two otter. They had slid
around the roots of the hemlock on the water’s edge.
We snowshoed for another 1/2mile or so
down the trail, off to the right we noticed a small bog lake that just begged
to be explored. When we navigated down
to it, the first thing we noticed was this massive white pine tree with an
eagle’s nest in it. However we didn’t
see any eagle activity.
As we made our way around the lake, we started to see more
otter sign. We found more slides and
several otter holes. As the main diet of
the otter come from critters that live under the winter ice, many times otter
will need to keep holes open throughout the winter in order to access their
dinner. Although we didn’t actually see
the animals, it was sure a neat experience to follow their tracks and see what
they were up to!
Enjoy!
