Night of the Wolves @ -26 Degrees

This was a 6 day winter camping trip to Northern Minnesota where temperatures dropped to -30F two nights and three nights of -9F. Daytime temperatures at 0 or below. A test of Man and equipment. 

On the second day I took the LAMERE fat bike out on forest roads and snowmobile trails. There was a set of fairly fresh wolf tracks down the Forest Road that I drive in on. All winter in this area I have seen the tracks and scat from wolves. 

The second day in the forest after a good roaring campfire the previous nigh. Spent the coldest night camping in the FWC @ -30F yet. The propane furnace kept the camper at 65-70 degrees.

So I’ll get to the wolf story. I set out on the fat tire mountain bike about 1 1/2 hours before sunset on the forest road that I was camped off.  It was about 0 degrees, beautiful fresh snow and crisp. It wasn’t long before I noticed that that I was following a pack of wolves. I figured there was 3-4 wolves. They were traveling the forest road and dipping into the deep snow along the road occasionally. I came to a trail marker and fork in the trail. The nearest town was 16 miles from that point. I decided to head north. 

Well the trail opened up into a large swamp. Right away I sensed that this is where the wolves that I was trailing might be headed. About a quarter mile on the snowmobile trail I was riding on, I saw the first wolf cross about 40 yards in front of me. The above photo shows him standing broadside. It was the best I could do with my phone camera. I had stopped and we stood and looked at each other, it was very cool. I started to slowly roll ahead, at that point I realized that there was another wolf, number 2 running parallel with me, about 30-40 yards away with me through the swamp. Wolf number 2 then ran into a stand of pines and I lost sight of it. At that point the wolf out in front ran back on the snowmobile trail ahead of me. It was a very cool experience I was just rolling slow on my bike watching. The wolves weren’t running scared, I believe they were curious of me, I was not the typical shape of a human and the wind was in my favor, so that they didn’t scent me.

My photo of the wolf track is of the wolf that ran in front of me. He cut into the swamp and towards the woods, he was cutting back to get downwind. Animals tend to circle back to where they started from. So I sat and watched hoping for another sight.

After about 15 minutes I put on another layer of clothes and had a snack. It was getting to be twilight and the temperatures were dropping, probably about -10F at that time. 

As I started to head back to camp, I was about an hour by bike on the trail, I came across the 2 sets of wolf tracks that crossed the trail back where I first saw the wolf. So basically I had split the pack after I moved forward, the remaining 2 wolves crossed and probably regrouped with the first 2 wolves that I saw. So there were 4 in total. 

Good sized wolf print from wolf that was running ahead of me. 

These are the 2 sets of tracks that crossed behind me. See how the track came together in the deep snow. The wolves will step in the the leaders tracks in the deep snow so as to save energy and be efficient.

So it was an hour ride on the bike  in the dark on the snowmobile/forest road back to camp. Needless to say, I kinda kept an eye on my back trail. It was another -30F night in the north woods. 

Ride on!

Camp the morning after the wolf adventure.