contorted Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta ssp. murrayana) It’s also been known locally as Tamarack, which otherwise, more typically refers to various Larch species, which do not grow here, and are not even pines, and shed all their needles every winter. But apparently, the Gold Rush era miners or whoever, were reminded of them, as the name is seen in many local geographic place names. Maybe they just like how it sounds.
Tanglewood Tamarack
low tide in the neighborhood, another June-uary high pressure stalled over us, so out covering ground, scrounging pow remnants and proto-corn
Crystal Range, lets go there (spoiler alert: a few days later I did)
So I dropped off the backside of the ridge, skiing a thousand feet or so of old wintery snow, and then halfway back up, skinning by my descent tracks, I encountered big fresh tracks on top of my own. Not big enough for bear, but too big for coyote? I’ve seen no other people or dogs all day, and now am well down into a completely different, much quieter drainage. The tracks are in single file, going directly back up my ski tracks the way I came. Huh? I followed the tracks back into a little grove where they came from and found fresh porcupine remains. Only two animals in the Sierra are skilled and agro enough to hunt porcupine. The fisher is one, a large weasel relative, but nowhere near this big. And quite shy and rare, I’ve never seen one. The other sufficiently deft predator would be a mountain lion. I apparently skied right past a mountain lion. And now he is above me somewhere on my trail. And I have to get back over this ridge to go home, and this is the only remotely reasonable way. Shit just got real.
Surveying the area, I can see lots of other tracks around, none human. I can just picture him sitting there macking on porcupine, when I come ripping by fast and silent, linking turns in the shallow old pow, and gone in a flash. Big cat’s probably in the next county by now. Sorry Bubba. Maybe try down in the foothills where all the deer are? Porcupine sounds like slim pickings. Maybe he likes that piney flavor? Or the ambience in Desolation?
covering ground with command
A couple hundred feet away in another little Lodgepole grove, I found more fresh porcupine remains, likely the other half? Oh well, I thought to myself, warily eyeing the crags above, at least he’s eaten recently.
Hilarious, the thing just postholed right up my track, mountain lion buggered, thats next level
Mountain Lions have four toes, like a dog, but their claws retract, so they don’t show. Their tracks are generally round overall about 3.5″ in diameter, and the top of the back, plantar pad has two lobes, beneath the toe marks. My ski pole basket is 3.75″ for scale.
This track I happened to find later in the day, miles away, back down on the PCT, for reference. This is a dog track, a big dog, bigger than a coyote, more like a great dane or wolfhound? The claw marks are visible. The track is more rectangular overall, the middle toes are offset from the hind ones, and the top of the plantar pad has only one lobe.
So I made my way back up along the tracks. Now I am following the mountain lion, and none too pleased about it. This isn’t Yellowstone. I’m used to being the apex predator around here (albeit a mostly vegetarian one). Speaking of which I’m getting kind of hungry, but am afraid to sit around much in this neighborhood. I skin up to the little lake above, and sit down in the middle of it, where I can see anything approaching from any direction, and I eat my PB&J, head on swivel, skis off and at the ready to use as weapons if need be. I ruefully envision the mountain lion casually sauntering up, batting the ski out of my hands, and eating me.
Thankfully it didnt come to all that. And predictably enough, after shoveling some calories into the furnace, I am ready to ski some more, touring down to find this other little lake near here, Lost Lake its called actually, one of a few in the region, so named, (likely by those same miners), because it is perched up high on this ridgetop, instead of on the valley floor where one might expect to find a lake. Because glaciers leave things all strewn in their wake like that, like kids with indulgent parents, certifiable agents of entropy.
On the way back, I pass beneath this lovely, if currently only marginally skiable-looking bowl, and also predictably enough, ski it. The slope looks peppery (& spicy too), but the snow is solid and supportive, so its really just about steering around what you can see, not so conducive to fashionable straight line stunt skiing though.
Chasing that shadow in the waning light, I ski skate across the frozen lake back to the trail head, making good time. I wonder if this triangular pattern in the ice, raised in relief now with age, has morphed from the geometric mosaic pattern we frequently find on fresher ice surfaces, looking as if the ice had shattered and refrozen and the scars where it re-sutured itself to adjoining pieces ended up being harder and more obdurate, now standing raised in relief? Ice surfaces are quite dynamic, just slowly. https://highwildramblings.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/12-18-2011-4.jpg