As I was driving down the highway, I saw something starting to cross the road just ahead. It was running on all four legs and close to the ground and had something in its mouth. At first, I thought it might be a coyote, as I saw some small tracks earlier in the morning that I thought was from a coyote. I also thought for half a second that maybe the thing in its mouth was a cub. I immediately started to slow down. As I got close and realized how big the animal was and that the object in its mouth was a rib cage of a deer, I realized I had just crossed paths with a wolf.
I slammed the breaks and pulled over as quickly as possible while rolling down the window. My body just went into react mode to capture what I was seeing. I knew I couldn't get out of the truck because there would be too little time. When I'm out on my adventures, I always keep my cameras in the passenger seat on and ready to go. I run with two cameras; my full frame weather sealed camera (5d MkII w/24-70 f2.8) and my crop sensor zoom camera (7d w/70-300 f5.6).
As I was tracking the wolf and trying to get ready and park all at the same time, I saw him head towards the back side of a tree and knew my moment would come when he emerged. I threw myself as close as I could get to the open window with my foot still and the break and waited. The wolf came running out and towards a small clearing where it stopped unobstructed to take a peek at me to see who I was before heading back into the woods. I got a total of six shots, all but one I had missed focus. The entire event from first sighting to him gone, took maybe 20-30 seconds.
Once he was gone, the emotion of what I just experience came flooding in. I was blown away by what I just saw and captured. This experience is up there with my best moments in the field.
