Reaching New Heights in Colorado

Lottie and Amanda recently traveled out to Bailey, Colorado for their annual tracking seminar and certification weekend with the Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery chapter. This year they pushed themselves to test for the level 2 United Blood Trackers certification. The test involves a 800-900 yard track with a minimum of 3 turns and 2 wound beds. The track is laid with up to 3 ounces of blood and a deer hoof all while being aged for a minimum of 8 hours. Their line was aged over night and ran at 14 hours old with about 1-1.5 inches of snow covering the track and wound beds. Lottie ran the line spot on!! She immediately began to pull into the lead when introduced to the starting flag and directional flag and away she went down the hill in the open before making a left turn. She quickly came up on the first wound bed, unbenouced to Amanda, and continued on the line. She bobbled a little bit by showing some intersted in a fence line which to Amanda's defense is a very realistic example of what we see in the real work when working in the fall. Lottie quickly took back to the line after verifying that was infact NOT the way the deer traveled, made a smooth second turn and hauled away to the 3 turn which was located in a set of ground covering shrubery. Lottie made quick work moving down a steep hill at which time Amanda noticed the fresh elk tracks and scent making her second guess Lottie for just a second which checking her line to make sure she was still convinced that was the direction the track was headed. Lottie and Amanda successfully located the hide and celebrated with excitement along side her judges Cecilia Steel (TX) and apprentice judge Lisa Gargulak(MN). Cecilia and Lisa ultimately awarded Lottie and Amanda with the highest of honors, the Excellent award. This award was recently introduced to the United Blood Trackers certification program as a way to show that some teams exhibited exemplary skills as a tracking team. As the fall season will quickly approach it's exciting to share that Lottie is now a UBT2 certified tracking team, and the first and only UBT2 tracking team in the state of Utah!!!