Lynn Sessions

While camping in southern Canyonlands National Park, David and I hike up Secret Canyon looking for some arches I could see from a nearby vantage point. On the way we run across some fresh animal tracks heading the same direction. For the next several miles we try to figure out what kind of an animal it is. Not cat-like, not bear-like, not dog-like. Much too big for any kind of rodent. Large wolverine was my best guess. From regular fresh scat droppings it was plain to see it had been over gouging on the squaw-berries in the lower part of the canyon. The tracks disappeared in the rocks near the head of the canyon and we never did get to see what the animal was. To make matters worse, the arches we located were fairly small and insignificant.

Rats! [I have since decided that the animal had to have been a bear, though it did not leave tracks like any bear I had ever seen before.]