There's a Winnie Ther Pooh story where he's following the tracks of a suspected woozle. Soon the one set of tracks is joined by another, then another and so on. Turns out he was tracking himself around in circles.
I had an hour to kill today so I did a quick recon of a newly discovered hiking area. There were no other cars in the parking lot and all the tracks in the melting snow leading up the trail were at least a few days old, so I figured I was alone. Eventually the narrow trail breaks out of the trees and meets a much wider trail at a right angle. I headed straight across into a thick stand of pine trees to poke around for a few minutes. I made a wide arc to the right and came back out onto the wide trail. It was getting late so I decided I'd better head back.
I was moving quickly when my eye caught a perfect, brand new track in the snow. I could even see the bits of bark that had come off the boot laying on the surface. Where did this guy come from? I looked around and suddenly realized that I had just missed the turn off for the small trail and the track was my own :}
As you can see, I'm no Stalking Wolf.
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- Tom S.
"Never trust and engineer who doesn't carry a pocketknife."