Melt-Enlarged Tracks and Spring Heeled Jack©

 

 

Is this the track of Spring Heeled Jack?  A photograph of one of the tracks I found in the Cazenovia Park’s golf course.  Photograph by the Author.

I was taking a walk with my Wife, two weeks ago, when I found the tracks of cryptid!  This two-toed monstrosity was walking from east to west and leaving its two-toed tracks stamped across the Cazenovia Park’s golf course.  Did I find the tracks of Spring Heeled Jack, “The Terror of London”, from long ago in 1886, here in Western New York?  Could he still be alive and on this side of the Atlantic?  Or is there something else at work here? 

 

“Ad for a Spring Heeled Jack penny dreadful - January 8th, 1886”, from Wikimedia, HERE.

Maybe there is a simple and natural explanation, that doesn’t involve the supernatural or a cryptid?  Is it possible that it is as simple as the effects of sun, the wind and warm weather on those tracks made in the snow?

 

Yes, in fact tracks made in snow change their shape due to melting, sublimation, and the settling of the snowpack?  So, just how do these natural processes effect the shape and size of the tracks that we find in the snow?

 

Melting is caused by both warm temperatures and strong sunlight.  Obviously, warm temperatures cause snow to melt, however even when the temperature is below freezing, if the Sun is out and shining brightly, snow can melt.

 

Melting snow can change the shape of tracks and cause them to become distorted.  Distortion due to melting is often directional, with the greatest distortion occurring on the side of the track opposite the Sun; this is usually on the northeast side of the track. 

 

Sublimation is another word for evaporation.  Sublimation occurs most often in conditions of low relative humidity and dry winds.  Sublimation is also more common at higher altitudes, where the air pressure is less, than at lower altitudes.  Strong sunlight is also necessary for sublimation.  The amount of snow lost to sublimation can be striking, particularly when a chinook wind, a warm dry wind, blows down from the mountains.  Sublimated or evaporated snow looks different from melted snow, it appears as small crystals, while melted snow has crystals that appear to be melted and then refrozen. 

 

With sublimation, unlike with melting, the edges of the tracks will remain crisp, well rounded and will appear dry, even as they widen and lengthen.  Changes in the shape of the tracks occurs mostly on the downwind edges of the tracks, with the change in shape proportional to the wind speed.  Unlike with melting from the Sun, sublimation can enlarge the entire track without any directional distortion, this can cause toe imprints to join and eventually merge with heel pads.  And interestingly, wind-blown snow accumulating on the lee side, or upwind side, of the track combined with sublimation of the downwind side of the track can cause the track to creep downwind. 

 

Settling of snow, due to gravity, can also affect the shape of tracks made in the snow, causing them to shrink.  You can tell if the snow has settled by looking at nearby tree trunks, since the snow sticks to the trunk it will form an inverted cone around the trunk as it settles.

 

Snow around a tree trunk and the inverted cone that is formed around the trunk as the snow settles, photographs by the Author.

If tracks become distorted, either from melting, sublimation, or settling, they lose detail, and the print size can change and that can make it difficult to determine the stride (distance between the steps) and the straddle (width between the prints) of the animal that left the tracks.

 

Photograph of one of the tracks found in Cazenovia Park’s golf course.  For scale, the Author’ knife, shown in the picture, is 5 inches (13 cm) long.  Photograph by the Author.

 

My photograph of the Cazenovia Park Cryptid track isn’t the first time a melt-enlarged or sublimated track in the snow has made people cry “cryptid”!  The famous photograph taken in 1951 by Eric Shipton, on the Menlung glacier of Mount Everest, had everyone yelling “yeti”!

 

“Photograph of an alleged yeti footprint found by Michael Ward.  Photograph was taken at Menlung glacier on the Everest expedition by Eric Shipton in 1951”, from Wikimedia, HERE.

Few today believe that the Shipton photograph shows a yeti track, most believe that it is the sublimated or melt-enlarged footprint of either a man or a bear.  In fact, as early as 1956, Rev. Swami Pranavanada noted in the Indian Geographical Journal, July to September 1955, that the tracks were likely to be the melt-enlarged tracks of a bear.  Some of Rev. Swami Pranavanada thoughts were included in the article, “Abominable Snowman”, published in Science, on June 8, 1956, on page 1024, and this article discussed elongation and other changes to tracks caused by sublimation and melting and the author’s belief that the Shipton track was not made by a yeti. 

 

From “Abominable Snowman”, Science, June 8, 1956, page 1024, by William L. Straus Jr.

Hmmm...so maybe I didn’t find the tracks of Spring Heeled Jack after all?  And so, if this track isn’t the track of Spring Heeled Jack then how was it created?

 

After considering the tracks and the different changes that the weather, the wind, and the Sun could have made on the tracks, I believe that I know what had happened.   First, I think that a person walked across the Cazenovia Park’s golf course heading west and then sometime later a deer followed in their tracks heading in the same direction.  After the tracks were laid down, the weather and the Sun went to work, enlarging the deer tracks until they merged with the boot prints, making it look like a two-toed devil had stomped across the golf course!

 

For more on snow tracking read “Tracks and Tracking in the Winter ©”, HERE and “Who Came To Visit Me Last Night…©”, HERE.

 

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Turkey or Goose Tracks?  ©”, where we will talk snow tracking and tracking in general.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

Sources

 

Straus Jr., William L.; “Abominable Snowman”, Science, June 8, 1956, Vol. 123, Issue 3206, p. 1024, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/123/3206/1024, accessed March 11, 2021

 

Wikimedia, “Ad for a Spring Heeled Jack penny dreadful - January 8th, 1886”, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jack4.jpg, accessed February 28, 2021

 

Wikimedia, “Photograph of an alleged yeti footprint found by Michael Ward, Photograph was taken at Menlung glacier on the Everest expedition by Eric Shipton in 1951”, from The World's Most Mysterious Footprints, Popular Science, December, 1952, by Gardner Soule, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eric_Shipton_yeti_footprint.png, accessed March 11, 2021

 

Zielinski, William J.; Kucera, Thomas E., technical editors; American marten, fisher, lynx, and wolverine: survey methods for their detection, Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-157., [Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station; 1995], page 96, https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr157/, accessed March 7, 2021