The first two weeks

 It is a little difficult to write about Isaac and Gabe's first couple weeks out filming as I wasn't even there, but I will do my best to sum it up from the little snippets that they told me later.  Imagine, if you can, two brothers cooped up for two weeks in a blind barely big enough for one person and a camera, in endless cold rain, sitting on mini camp stools that are barely big enough to balance one butt cheek on, picking the seeds off bagels one at a time to make the food last longer... and you can begin to get an idea of what they experienced.  Apparently every time they tried to get out of the blind to go searching for other things to film, or to simply stretch their legs, the wolves were onto them.  Never able to go anywhere undetected, or without stumbling accidentally across a pack member returning to the rendezvous site on the trail.  We know this area from other years filming these very same wolves, and are usually able to get around undetected, at least for a while.  And yet this year it seemed they were always underfoot, always just downwind, or popping up over a near ridge or just down the trail.  Eventually the pack split, whether it was because they ran into Isaac and Gabe one too many times or not it is hard to say.  There were several factors involved, including the fact that the day before the pack split, a couple new wolves ("intruders", we began calling them) showed up in the original pack's area, sniffing around and acting like they owned the place.  A few minor skirmishes ensued, always just out of sight, which could have had a lot to do with why they moved.  Impossible to say really.  

Back to Isaac and Gabe.  Imagine also their first night, after hiking for ten hours up trails that hadn't been maintained in a while, carrying packs that weighed eighty-plus pounds, finally getting to where they had planned to camp for the night, setting up the tent in rain that was just beginning to fall, falling tired into sleeping bags, and then Gabe in an accidental and joking flourish (again, remember I wasn't there, and have at this point only heard one side of the story), sticking his knife right through the top of our brand new, donated, tent.  Lucky for him (for them, really) the knife only went through the tent, and not the fly as well.  A good start to two weeks spent crammed together in very tight spaces.

But they returned seemingly unscathed, battle wounds nothing more than a possibly broken toe (Gabe's, from a too-fast trip down a too-rocky trail, with too-open shoes) and a possible bruised ego (Isaac's, from realizing that his body is not as young and strong as it used to be and having to give much more of the weight to his younger, stronger brother who is thankfully able to haul an unbelievable amount of weight).