Trail Name: Tennessee Pass Tracks.

One of the joys of getting out on the trail in the winter is that everything leaves a track! While many animals migrate south for the winter, spend the cold months hibernating, or even live most their winter lives tunneling under the snow—the animals who do brave Colorado’s winter leave their tracks in the snow. Despite less overall activity among wildlife, winter offer’s an easier glimpse into the lives of the animals that call our mountains home!

The Colorado trail near Tennessee Pass offers a great, easy, snowshoe hike for learning your tracks! Hike this trail north from the parking area at the top of the pass and travel through lodgepole pine and spruce & fir forests, and down into the shrubby wetland of Mitchell Creek. This diversity of high subalpine habitat is home to many of the more common animals that are active here in the winter months. Squirrel, vole & mice, and snowshoe hare tracks are all easy to spot along this trail. Just last week, on a Walking Mountains snowshoe hike, our hikers even spotted Moose Tracks in a shrubby field—perfect Moose habitat!

If you are curious about learning the basics of tracking wildlife in the winter—and starting to read the stories etched in the winter landscape, join Walking Mountains every other Thursday for our Tracks, Signs, and Snowshoes snowshoe hike on a backcountry trail in the White River National Forest!