Yesterday was likely the last strutting ground survey of the year. The end of a field season, onset of weeks of office work and meetings. Yeah, I'm bummed.

When I began this diary, my intent was to keep it up for one year. Quite a few reasons, but the main one is that my work, and therefore a major portion of my life, repeats on a yearly cycle. And each year is pretty much the same as the year before. Driving the same roads, checking critters in the same places, attending the same meetings. Not much point in continuing to write if each entry turns into a link to last year's entry for the same day of work.

So, yesterday's lek surveys were pretty much the same as those of 361 days ago. Same leks, same route.

That big snowbank was there blocking the road again. (Well, technically, it's not the same snowbank, since that snowbank melted long ago and this is all new snow, so let's say it is this year's reincarnation of the same snowbank.) But we're in a drought, and the bank was at least 30 percent smaller this year.

Didn't want to drive over the muddy slope on the left like last year, and the two vehicles (or one vehicle which turned back) that passed on the right had a rutting good time, as well. Driving over the drift would be risky (it was already over fifty degrees, so the top snow would be soft), but I know now it can be done.

So we did. No sweat.

Got all the leks along the Continental Divide checked. We're at about 8000' here, and the Divide is united, the Pacific and Atlantic branches reuniting by Scotty McKay's Peak. The increased elevation takes us back in time, so we're earlier in the strutting season here. Lots of eager cocks, and quite a few attentive hens.

No grouse at all on any of the bogus leks identified by the university student researcher. Places that were almost certainly never leks, but he saw grouse or grouse scat there once, and so identified them as leks on his maps. And now we need to make at least ten years of surveys to prove these are not sites needing special protection.

The problem with leaving management decisions to amateurs.

After the leks, the heelers and I made a short visit to one of the snowbanks still left at this elevation. No little playground, this bank was roughly 400m x 50m, and probably 8-15m deep most of the way. Great fun running and racing, digging, and lunging at puffs of snow kicked and thrown by the biped member of the pack.

Good place for hide-and-seek (moderatly tall sage, no cactus). May be a while before they get such a day in the field again, so we played hard.

And then it was time to go.

And I faced the same decision I had a year ago. Backtrack the way we came in, hoping we can get our four kiloton vehicle safely across the snow bank (going uphill) in 57^o weather? Take an hour to get home if it works.

Head north to the crest of the Divide and see what the snowbanks look like when you drop off the east face? But one of those filters its melt water down onto the road. A likely muddy mess, and good way to get the county road folks pissed over the ruts. But home in 35-40 minutes if it works.

Head east and south across the basin where the first lek was? Judging from the roads in to the lek, could probably make that route with no problems at all. And save a few minutes off the route we took coming in. Home in under an hour.

Or, go west and drop off into the Colorado River basin, go down the switchbacks and then follow the creek back to the north. Into a land of serviceberry, aspen and elk. And then crossing the Divide again at Jim Bridger's Pass? If it's doable, probably take at least an hour and a half.

An extra half hour in the country.

West it was.

Surprised the first elk at the bottom of the switchbacks.