Forest Road 1461 used to connect to Forest Road 173, it may still, but now I just take the 173 route. And the road, when the area gets lots of snow, I think I’d like to shake the person’s hand who plows that road.
The grader operator knocks those banks back, and piles them high and then he flares the belly blade to tier the bank. It’s a crisp look. Ya putz along at five miles an hour, we’re looking for anything, one of my faves is to spot a gray jay, pull over, and start feeding them chips. In no time it’s right out of my hand with the truck still running. Sometimes we’re only calling owls.
And in today’s little foray we pull over to the side of the road, just in case someone would need to pass, needn’t have bothered, we saw no other humans. But halfway through my second baloney sandwich out comes a wolf post-holing through the snow, then a second, third, fourth and fifth timby. They looked determined and the first wolf padded the plowed snow, dropped onto the lower hard crusted shelf, the followers followed and in little to no time at all they were gone pacing swiftly now out of sight right down the roadside. I like to think they like those plowed banks as well.
- The Trout Whisperer
