Wolf & Snow Problems

I was back to work on Monday; left home at 5 am and got to Pincher Creek before 8 am. It started snowing just after I arrived and didn't stop until that night around 8 or 9 pm, then at about 3 am it started to blow!

My partner Perry had to pull our student's work truck out of a drift in the compound.

A wolf that was shot by a local rancher who lost a 500 pound heifer to one on Christmas Day.

Same wolf; it was a young male that weighed 97 pounds. We had another kill we investigated not far from where this one was shot, another rancher said he seen a pack of about 5 yesterday in the same area, so our problems are just beginning!


I was going to stay out in Coleman at the forestry bunkhouse on Monday night but with the snow and wind it was too treacherous to drive to the Pass, so I turned around and came back to Pincher Creek. I set up my cot and bedroll in my office and did like George Castanza! Tuesday night I spent with a fellow officer in Hillcrest, when I woke up the next morning it was snowing again.


We went for a mountain patrol on the East Slopes on Wednesday.

It was hard to see anything with the falling and blowing snow, we would hit a snow squall like this and everything would disappear, you couldn't see anything but white, in some case I would have to creep along and when I felt the truck sliding off the road have to steer it in the opposite direction just to stay on the road.

Our mission this day was to find some Bighorn Sheep, instead we found a couple of ice fisherman on a remote mountain lake, they were catching Brookie's, the snow on the lake bank was up to my crotch!

We all got sent home early because of the stormy weather. When I left Pincher you couldn't see the mountains for the blowing snow.

The farther east I drove the clearer it got. You can see the edge of the storm!

Highway #3 was nasty, it started out like this - blowing snow, then turned to a sheet of ice and closer to home it was snow packed from the wind drifting it across.

In places it was like a curling rink! Funny thing was that as I crept along in four wheel drive idiots were still passing me like the roads were fine, so it was just a matter of time before I started to see vehicles in the ditches. My usual two and a half hour trip home took me an extra hour to make!