Winter Ecology

In the new year, Salmon Hole finds itself covered in crusted layers of snow. most of the tracks that can be seen in the snow are from people with the occasional other animal tracks. A path of compressed snow that is almost ice has been clearly laid out from the many people that trod before me. The stairs that once led down to Salmon Hole is now closer to a ramp formed of snow, so to get down, you have to follow a slightly longer, but less precarious path on the loop.

Frozen/snowed over land bridge with frozen water to the right.

The land bridge that was only sometimes above water is now mostly frozen over with ice and snow, causing the water to flow more rapidly on the other side of tip of Salmon Hole. Where the water is slower moving, the edges have been frozen over with about an eighth of an inch of ice. For much of my journey I saw tracks that seemed to be from a medium sized mammal, maybe the size of a large dog. After finding this tracks somewhat parallel to those of humans, I think they may in fact just be from a large dog.

The tracks that I could easily identify were the Grey Squirrel tracks and they were more common towards the entrance of the site with no visible larger tracks up in that portion. The other larger tracks were found on the flatter unforrested parts of the site

Grey Squirrel Tracks in a gallop pattern
White-Tail Deer? prints
Mink prints in a bound pattern
Canine prints
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