"The six hours after the snow stops are the platinum time for tracking. Dominators like the one with the Missing Ear will immediately patrol their territory after a blizzard, searching for black-tailed deer that have died accidentally due to trees collapsing under the weight of snow. The frozen proteins are their last burst of energy before hibernation."
"I chose to detour on the leeward side of the road, using the crosswind to carry away the exhaust fumes from the snowmobiles."
An action camera captured the rapidly receding, withered birch forest on either side.
The tree trunks, as thick as bowls, became as fragile as glass in the extremely low temperatures. Every now and then, branches that could not bear the weight of the snow would crack with a crisp sound, which was particularly loud in the silent valley.
After about an hour and a half of driving on the snowmobile, the altitude increased significantly, and the air became thin and cold.
A huge black shadow appeared ahead; it was the north slope of Pillar Mountain.
The rocks here are bare, and the Sitka spruce trees grow exceptionally tall, reaching straight into the sky.
Su Wei extinguished the fire next to a fallen tree with a diameter of more than two meters.
He jumped out of the car, his boots sinking deep into the snow with a sickeningly loud screech.
He first took out his Browning rifle and confirmed that the 300 Winchester Magnum cartridge was loaded into the chamber, then released the safety.
Next, he took out the DJI Mavic 3 Pro, which he had specially configured for this shoot, from his camera case.
This is his second pair of eyes.
He placed the drone on the heated seat of the motorcycle and turned it on.
Four carbon fiber propellers spun at high speed, instantly blowing the surrounding snowflakes into a radial pattern.
The drone took off and quickly shrank into a small black dot in the gray-blue sky.
Su Wei looked down at the 1,000-nit high-brightness monitor in his hand.
The image transmission is rock-solid.
From the aerial monitor, the north slope appears as a white snowfield dotted with patches of black coniferous forest.
The upper reaches of the Pilan Creek converge here to form a spectacular, translucent icefall.
Below the icefall lies the V-shaped valley entrance, a death trap marked by Black.
Su Wei manually adjusted the gimbal and carefully searched the edge of the valley using 3x optical zoom.
Suddenly, an extremely irregular dark shadow appeared in the lower left corner of the monitor.
Su Wei's heart skipped a beat. He quickly dialed the remote control, instantly zooming the image to seven times hybrid zoom.
It was a snowfield next to a fallen birch tree.
The originally smooth snow layer was violently overturned by a brute force, revealing the frozen, blackened permafrost beneath.
Against the stark black and white backdrop of the snowscape, a series of enormous, startling footprints stretch from the edge of the forest into the depths of the rubble.
Su Wei switched to macro focus.
That's a classic five-toed palm print.
Each footprint was larger than the sum of Su Wei's two palms, and the indentations in the palms hadn't even had time to accumulate fresh snow from the recent trampling.
This means that the beast had only been gone a short while.
"Got you?"
"Looks like we're really lucky. Finding traces of brown bears isn't easy, but we've been fortunate enough to spot one."
"Of course, this is only the first step."
Su Wei whispered into the microphone on his chest.
There was no excitement in his tone, only a tense tension born of extreme repression.
He calculated the straight-line distance using the monitor; it was approximately 800 meters.
But in this terrain where the snow was knee-deep, he needed to bypass the slippery icefall and cut in from behind the pile of rocks.
Su Wei retrieved the drone, blindly operated it, and stuffed it back into his backpack.
He reached for the Browning rifle, his fingers lightly rubbing against the cold, non-slip mesh.
He made a final check on the FX3 behind him to make sure the protective cap on the Zeiss lens had been removed.
Next, the snowmobile will become a burden, and he must switch to foot-based hunting mode.
The crunching sound of boots sinking into the snow carried far through the deathly silent forest.
Su Wei reached behind and pulled the heavy backpack, filled with precision photography equipment, off the back rack of the snowmobile.
The residual heat from the Thunder God 8000's engine emitted a faint metallic, acrid smell in the sub-zero air. He pulled over a white, gravel-textured camouflage net that had been treated to remove the odor and covered the vehicle completely.
The Sitka spruce trees in this area form a dense canopy that completely blocks out the faint morning light.
Su Wei stood in the shadows, holding his breath.
[ Hunting Module LV2 Unlocked.]
Buzz!
The originally realistic wilderness background instantly changed in Su Wei's eyes.
A faint golden trail meandered out from a gap in the pile of rocks ahead.
The system panel refreshes extremely fast:
[Target: Kodiak brown bear (male, adult, nickname: Missing Ear )]
[Status: Extremely hungry, abnormal hormone levels, extremely alert.]
[Time elapsed: Approximately 43 minutes ago.]
[The tracking path is now highlighted; effective correction range: three meters.]
Su Wei reached out and slightly adjusted the angle of the GoPro to ensure that the audience could see the tracking process.
He took off his FX3, lifted the metal cage with one hand, and aimed the telephoto lens at the handprints on the snow.
The five-toed handprint, deeply embedded in the snow, with sticky mud still clinging to its edges, exuded a primal sense of oppression.
"Everyone, please look, this is the signal we've been looking for."
Su Wei lowered his voice, so that only the microphone could pick it up.
"The paw print is over 35 centimeters wide, and the fingernails are nearly 5 centimeters deep into the snow. This bear probably weighs over 450 kilograms. Since the snow hasn't collapsed yet at the edge, it's probably nearby."
"But almost an hour has passed, and at the speed of a brown bear, it could travel a long way in this snowy area. So, what follows will still be a difficult process. We need to search patiently."
"This is the second step of the hunt: tracking."
After taking the photos, Su Wei carefully analyzed the brown bear's paw prints to ensure that the audience could hear each one clearly.
After finishing, he hung the camera back on the top quick-release buckle on his chest, gripped the rifle tightly in his right hand, and began to climb on foot along the golden auxiliary track.
The mountain began to steepen. The snow-covered rocks formed natural traps.
Su Wei moved with extreme caution with each step, first using his trekking pole to test the ground before slowly shifting his center of gravity.
He stopped as he passed a birch tree that was over fifty years old.
Two meters above the ground, the tree trunk bore three terrifying, deep claw marks that revealed the bone.
A few strands of coarse, brown hair clung to the curled splinters.
Su Wei moved closer to the camera, ensuring that these details were fully captured.
"It marks its territory with scent. Its fur has a thick layer of sebum residue, giving it a very strong muttony odor."
He picked up a single hair and crumpled it between his fingertips.
"With its thick fur and at least ten-centimeter-thick layer of fat, ordinary civilian bullets feel like a tickle. That's why we use 300 Winchester Magnum and 220-grain full metal jacketed rounds. Only in this way can we penetrate its scapula at 300 yards."
He casually tossed the hair into the cold wind.
Beyond the birch forest, the view suddenly opened up.
A natural V-shaped valley appears before your eyes, with granite formations of varying sizes arranged in a pleasing, staggered pattern.
At a bend in a frozen stream, Su Wei discovered a pile of dark excrement emitting faint white smoke.
A layer of white frost had just formed on the surface of the excrement.
Su Wei used the tip of his cane to push it open. Inside were undigested red berry skins and several blood-streaked broken bone fragments belonging to some kind of rodent.
"Extreme hunger."
"Judging from its feces, it's now indiscriminately hungry. It will try to swallow anything that's on its diet."
Su Wei's gaze grew increasingly cold.
"A starving male bear will attack any moving object, including humans. In this state, it will not dodge, it will only charge."
"Therefore, we must be more careful now. A direct confrontation would be extremely dangerous."
His muscles trembled slightly in the cold wind, and adrenaline began to flow.
Su Wei looked around, searching for the planned sniping position.
Finally, his gaze settled on a cliff about forty meters high on his right.
Below the cliff is a recessed natural rock chamber in a superb location.
It offers respite from the strong lateral winds of the valley and provides a panoramic view of the entire area.