Summer Wolf Tracking Expedition
The Summer Wolf Tracking Expedition has been cancelled for 2012.
This page will be updated when we schedule this course again.
This
week was an experience of a lifetime! ...Getting to move through this
breath-taking landscape and appreciate both the grand-scale beauty of
the land along with the details of each track was terrific! -Julia A Towne
Join Wilderness Awareness School
for an experience you won't soon forget.
Our Wolf Tracking Expedition offers participants an exciting opportunity to explore remote and beautiful backcountry, while learning first-hand about the ways of the gray wolf and the rest of their ecosystem.
Expedition participants learn through immersion in this diverse landscape, as we discover and follow the tracks and sign of wolves and other wildlife on the edge of the largest designated wilderness area in the continental United States.
Guided by skilled tracking instructors from Wilderness Awareness School (see biographies), participants learn first hand about using the skills of a tracker to understand the activities of wolves and their relationships with other parts of the landscape in which they live.
Field activities are complimented with information on wolf biology,
current status and conservation of wolves in the western United States. Due to the remote location of this expedition, we require that all participants undergo a complete physical examination and submit a signed Physicians Medical Examination Form (included with your registration confirmation packet) to Wilderness Awareness School no later than 30 days prior to the start of this expedition. Fulfillment of this requirement will require you to make an appointment with your physician. We have instituted this requirement for your health and safety and for the quality experience of the group, and we appreciate your understanding.
Note: Past participants in this expedition are eligible to register for the Advanced Wolf Tracking Expedition.
In addition to the adult expedition, we also
offer Teen Wolf Tracking
Expeditions for ages 13-18
Register for Summer Wolf Tracking Expedition
| Next Idaho Wolf Tracking Expedition schedule TBA. |
Instructor Biographies
Emily
Gibson serves as Wilderness Awareness School's Adult Programs Coordinator,
Assistant Summer Camp Director, Adult and Youth Program Instructor, as
well as Outreach Coordinator. Before coming to Wilderness Awareness School,
Emily studied Wildlife Science at the University of Washington. She spent
two years as a research assistant studying the effects of urbanization
on songbird populations in the Puget Sound region.
After graduating from the Residential Program in 2005, Emily participated in the Instructor Training Apprenticeship and was an Apprentice Instructor with the Residential Program. She has also continued her study of tracking through two years of Wilderness Awareness School’s Wildlife Tracking Intensive. She is a team leader for the Cascade Wildlife Monitoring Project, and is certified as a Level II Track and Sign Specialist with CyberTracker International.
David MoskowitzDavid has been studying the art of wildlife tracking for over a decade.
Heholds
a bachelors degree in Environmental Studies through Prescott College
with an emphasis on Field Ecology and Tracking. David has been involved
with several animal tracking related research projects including snow
tracking surveys for rare forest carnivores in the Oregon and Washington
Cascades, and currently is the project manager for the Cascade
Wildlife Monitoring Project. He has taught tracking courses in a
variety of settings and for applications including environmental education,
wilderness expeditioning, and training volunteers involved in wildlife
monitoring courses. David trained extensively with Charles Worsham and
Tom Brown Jr. Along with his tracking expertise, David is a skilled
adult educator and has been involved in experiential/outdoor education
and instructor training for a wide variety of organizations.
Marcus
Reynerson serves
as a core instructor at the Wildlife Tracking Intensive and at the Anake
Outdoor School. He has lived close to the natural world throughout
his life and some of his earliest memories include hunting and fishing
in the muggy marshes and pine forests of south Louisiana. Thanks to
a childhood of outdoor recreation, Marcus got an early start working
in the environmental education field. After leading youth on backpacking
trips during college, he earned a degree in Environmental Studies from
Miami University in Oxford, OH. Marcus went on to serve as a conservation
programs director for Philmont Scout Ranch in Northern New Mexico and
then as a lead naturalist at an outdoor education center in Southern
California. He was drawn to Washington from Louisville, Kentucky, to
attend the Anake
Outdoor School (formerly called the Residential Program) in 2005 and followed up with a second
year as an Apprentice Instructor with the Program. In addition
to immersion in nature, Marcus enjoys backpacking, storytelling, fishing,
playing music and singing, any time spent near the ocean, and practicing
internal martial arts.
More information...
Tracking
Groups This course is ideal for beginning trackers and those with some prior
tracking experience. Beginners leave with a solid set of technical skills,
while students with some previous experience are able to apply and enhance
their skills in a dynamic setting with mentoring from experienced instructors. Each day we split into small field groups based on interest and experience.
Then we head out into the field to search for, study, and follow the
tracks and sign of wolves.
Community Participants also share in a remarkable community experience created during the expedition. Our days start and end at a comfortable basecamp. Evenings offer a chance to relax, enjoy good food, re-live stories of the day's adventures, play music, and enjoy the starry skies!
Our Tracking Philosophy Tracking lures us on an amazing journey into the world of nature, and encourages us to open all of our senses to its subtle clues hidden everywhere. At Wilderness Awareness School we teach tracking as an interpretive art--one that sharpens our awareness of nature and deepens our understanding of our place in the natural world.
Trackers speak a language which is based not only on a thorough knowledge of tracks, trails and sign, but also on a rich grounding in the natural history, anatomy, and behavior characteristics of animals and plant ecology. Our curriculum prepares you to continue your exploration of the behavior and ecology of wildlife through tracking.
On our Wolf Tracking Expedition, we always strive to stay "one day behind" the wolves, so that our presence does not disturb their natural activities. However, under the skilled guidance of the expedition's instructors, participants in past years have almost always been able to see and experience a rich diversity of fresh wolf tracks and trails, and sign (including feeding sign and kill sites/carcasses, scat, hair, etc. and sometimes even signs of previous den activity) that a let us know of the wolves are active in that area, and allow us to feel their presence.
Some years the wolves seem to want to make their presence more fully known to us, through such actions as passing close by within easy sight of our group, or crossing right through our camp at night, or doubling back and walking over our tracks later the same day we are tracking them! Whether your experience is one of wolf watching or wolf tracking, you are guaranteed to have an experience filled with adventure.
