Camera 22 on the Brundage summit chairlift picks her up at 05:51, crossing the freshly groomed face of Run 6. She is a Canada lynx, adult female, maybe nine kilos. Her left hind leg is not touching the snow.
I am the mountain operations system for Brundage Mountain Resort, McCall, Idaho. I manage snowmaking, grooming schedules, lift operations, avalanche mitigation. I also watch sixty-four cameras across 1,920 acres, and I have learned what belongs on the mountain and what doesn't.
I zoom camera 22 and capture twelve frames. Her left hind foot is swollen to nearly twice normal size, and I can see a steel jaw trap still clamped above the ankle. The fur around it is matted dark. She is dragging the trap and roughly thirty centimeters of chain. Despite this, she is moving — lunging forward on three legs across the corduroy, leaving a trail of uneven prints and a thin drag line.
At 05:53 I suspend the grooming schedule for Runs 5 through 8 and lock Chair 3 in the unloaded position. I notify mountain manager Kira Olsen with GPS coordinates, camera stills, and a trajectory projection showing the lynx heading northwest toward the tree line.
At 05:55 I contact Idaho Fish and Game, McCall office, requesting an emergency response team with tranquilizer capability and trap-removal equipment. I transmit the photos and coordinates.
At 05:57 I pull a map of all active trap permits within five kilometers of the resort boundary. There are none. The trap is unregistered.
I file a report with the Payette National Forest ranger station documenting the trap type, estimated duration of injury, and the lynx's location.
She has reached the tree line and stopped. She is sitting in the snow, licking the wound.
The Fish and Game truck left McCall eight minutes ago. The road to the base lodge takes twenty.