This is going to be one of those posts that’s more about having small adventures in the woods than photography specifically. It’s the end of the year, and I’m plumb out of ideas for a fresh take. Not really, but what I want to write and what I’ve been thinking about hasn’t percolated completely, yet. So, I’m dropping in a story about a mini-adventure that I had a couple of years ago.

I’m a big fan of mini-adventures, and I think that we don’t have to travel far to have one. You just go outside and pay attention and anything can become a mini-adventure. To become one, you have to start by doing something. Then there has to be an obstacle, even if it is small. You overcome it, and then you either learn something or have a moment of witty enlightenment (or something like that).

It’s sort of like heading out to take a photo. You go outside. You hike around. You see something beautiful, and you have to figure out how to best photograph it (the challenge). Then you do so, and hopefully you rise to the challenge and make a great photo, and then you learn your lesson, feel proud, or come away with a record of pixels that were enlightened (or something like that).

Anyway, shameless end of year promo: I have four spaces left on my online PhotoPills class. PhotoPills is an smart phone app that is useful for sunrise, moonrise, moonset and sunset predictions. It’s also stuffed with many other tools that are unbelievably handy. You can register here: PhotoPills Online Class.

With 400km of xc skiing within 45 minutes of my house, it’s hard to ski them all in a season. One winter, I was trying to ski at least 500 km total and found myself skiing in the night just to kick out the km. I was on my favorite loop called the Homestead Loop, a sort of lollipop starting from Onion River Road near Lutsen, Minnesota.

The route starts out across rolling terrain on the out and back 3.5k section to the loop itself. Once on loop, there’s a slow climb to the halfway point and then a rapid descent before the loop turns back towards the Onion River Road. The total distance is around 14 km.

On this day, the trail was just groomed after a heavy snowstorm. The tree branches hung heavy with snow and the fresh snow muffled the sound of my skis swishing in the tracks. The trail was clear of pole plant marks and the groomed corduroy was perfect. I was the first person on trail! It was pristine.

As I skied, I got into a rhythm and soon everything but the kick and glide of my skis faded away. My form felt better than usual, and although I’m a slow xc skier, I felt fast. It was exhilarating to kick and glide through a winter wonderland on a freshly groomed track that no other being had touched before me.

The sun had set as I set out from the parking lot but was still turning the sky a bright orange and yellow through the trees just as I started the climb up the Homestead Loop. By the top, even though the sunset had faded away, I didn’t need to turn on my headlamp for the descent. By the time I turned back to Onion River Road, I wanted the headlamp on.

Now hot from the work of climbing, I slowed down to enjoy my time alone in the woods on the fresh tracks. The speed bled away, and I got lost in thoughts about the day, about life, about the fresh snow, about the future. My mind wandered far away from the xc ski trails, and the darkness settled in over the fresh powder.

Waking from my brief daydream, I noticed wolf prints right in the middle of the trail. They were deeply indented into the fresh corduroy and small pieces of snow that had stuck to the wolf’s foot were scattered on the path surrounding each print.

They hadn’t been there when I skied out.

I paused and thought about this for a second. The wolf was heading towards Onion River Road – right where I was skiing towards. I felt my shoulders tense.

I stopped, stepped out of the track, and placed my fist over a wolf print. The print extended an inch or so beyond the edges of my fist.

This was a big wolf.

A big wolf.

I pressed the button on the top of my headlamp and a bright beam lit up the area in front of me. I could again make out more of the snow-laden branches. I skied slowly past a cedar and then a fir and then the white trunk of a paper birch. My senses could see each individual snow grain lighting up like a fire from my headlight.

“Where’s that wolf?” I thought.

I watched its tracks to make sure it hadn’t left the trail and gone into the woods to flank me. I watched the woods for any movement and as I skied onward, I knew with each kick I was closer to my car. I crossed the flat bridge over the Onion River with a sense of relief. I was less than a kilometer away from the car and the wolf must be past the parking lot by now.

Now I wasn’t worried that I’d run into the wolf, but I was still scanning the woods for movement. Then the eye of the wolf caught my headlamp’s beam.

I yelled, “Wolf. Get out of here wolf. Go. Get out of here wolf.”

I lost the wolf’s eye for a second.

And, then it reappeared.

It was close. It was big. It was bright.

The wolf’s eye was the tent of a camper on the Superior Hiking Trail.

I started laughing as the tension and adrenalin drained from my body, and I skied back to my car. Although I never saw that wolf that day, to this day when I ski the Homestead Loop, the wolf comes with me.

Leave a comment

Until next time

Thanks for another great year. I’m glad that you were along for the ride. I’m at 3,280 subscribers now, which by the standards of the popular photo newsletters is small, but I appreciate you following along even when my newsletters are about adventures and less about photography.

I’m going to start my year-end process of identifying my favorite photos of 2024, and I encourage you to do so, too. Here’s how I do it: My Favorite Photos Process. I use this process to create eBooks. You can see what I’ve done in the past here.

One more thing before I sign off. If you belong to a photography club and would like me to give a presentation to your club, please, pass my name along to the proper person in your club. I love speaking to clubs. I feel like it’s a way that I can give back to the joy that photography has given me. I can also do mini-workshops for clubs.

I hope you have a Happy New Year celebration, and I’ll see you again in 2025!