TETON WILDERNESS - As researcher Robert "Michael" Inman and his wolverine crew wrestled through knee-deep snow, few animal tracks dotted the open meadows blanketed in nearly flawless white fluff.

Of the few critters to have left tracks in the new snow, Inman instantly recognized the pencil eraser-sized prints of the least weasel, the thumb-sized impressions of an ermine and the even bigger paw marks of a pine martin. All three critters are members of the Mustelidae, or weasel, family.

"Now all we need to see is the big daddy," Inman says, referring to the largest mustelid, the wolverine.

But the odds of finding the "big daddy" are long. Inman and his crew have chosen one of the most remote corners in the Lower 48 to look for an animal Inman's research shows to be scarcer than grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area.

Historic trapping records indicate wolverines were extirpated from the region by 1900, most likely due to trapping and the extensive use of poison baits to kill predators that also killed scavenging wolverines, Inman said. A few survivors might have remained in greater Yellowstone.

Although wolverines have been making a comeback, Inman said the Wildlife Conservation Society's Greater Yellowstone Wolverine Program aims to provide scientific data to state and federal managers to help those agencies maintain the rare species. Conservationists have petitioned the species for listing as a threatened species, but to date such petitions have been denied.

In five winters, the program has captured a total of 26 wolverines in Montana and Wyoming. Using radio tracking devices, researchers have learned that wolverines' individual home ranges large enough to occupy multiple mountain ranges across two states. That's one reason wolverines are hard to find: They require vast tracts of land and are territorial.

This marks the first winter the crew will try to trap wolverines in the Teton Wilderness. While it can take months to catch a single wolverine, the crew has only one month, February, to get lucky in the Thorofare. By March, the risk of accidentally attracting a grizzly waking from hibernation increases.

Should the crew succeed, the information could be invaluable. By studying wolverines in such a wild location, Inman said he hoped to gain insight into how the animals behave in the relative absence of people.

Deep in the backcountry

Despite daunting logistics, wolverine crew member Austin Chapin said the team didn't balk when Inman asked whether it would be possible to trap in a such a remote and wild location. "You've got to realize," Chapin said, "if he had asked us to put a trap on the top of the Grand Teton, we would have said 'Yes."'

Last fall, crews built the traps, essentially miniature log cabins stout enough to hold an animal famed for its fierceness. While the trails were still snow-free, the Forest Service hauled in food supplies on horseback in preparation for the February endeavor.

That was the easy part. The Forest Service determined that a helicopter could not be used to hover above the prebuilt traps to drop deer carcasses a method called pre-baiting due to the area's wilderness designation, which prohibits motors. So, the team had to ski four deer carcasses 20-plus miles into the wilderness on sleds.

On Jan. 31, with the traps pre-baited, Inman, Chapin and Deborah McCauley struck out from Turpin Meadows trailhead to ski roughly 25 miles in two days to Hawks Rest, where a Forest Service patrol cabin sits just south of Yellowstone National Park. Chapin and McCauley would live at the patrol cabin for a month running the wolverine trap line while support crews rotate through to help.

A 26-year-old Montana resident, Chapin provided the muscle, hauling nearly 100 pounds of supplies with a pack and sled, including more wolverine bait. Although Chapin is a seasoned skier, Inman, 37, and McCauley, 37, also Montana residents, have almost no skiing experience. No matter. McCauley, an ultramarathon runner, embraces long slogs.

The crew got a break the first day when fellow team member Mark Packila rose before dawn and broke trail through a foot of fresh snow to smooth the way. Packila cleared a path for several miles before running into a party led by Jackson mountain guide Forrest McCarthy, who was returning from a baiting mission to Hawks Rest.

Sailing along the smooth trail, Chapin, Inman and McCauley arrived at the Enos Lake patrol cabin, the first leg of their journey, well before dusk. But Chapin's heavy load took a toll. His ski bindings broke three times in the first 10 miles.

The next morning, as the team started out at dawn, falling snow had erased the tracks left by McCarthy's party. As Chapin led the way across Enos Lake, he felt only the hardened path underfoot. He couldn't see the track or shoreline in the blowing snow and fog. Past the lake, the snow only deepened as the crew gradually climbed the Pacific Creek drainage and alternated breaking trail through knee-deep powder.

After crossing the Continental Divide, McCauley and Chapin headed to the Two Ocean wolverine trap to open it for the season. Inman continued breaking trail to Hawks Rest cabin, crossing the 2-mile-wide snowfield across Yellowstone Meadows as dusk turned to dark. The moon cast a helpful glow across the meadow while the constellation Orion beckoned over Hawks Rest Mountain.

Inman had just lit a lantern at the patrol cabin, tucked in the timber at the foot of the mountain, when Chapin and McCauley arrived.

The crew postponed opening more wolverine traps on Thursday to give Chapin time to fix his bailing-wire binding. The cabin has enough tools that Chapin was able to forge a new metal toe piece for his binding.

McCauley, meanwhile, organized her surgery kit. Should the team catch a wolverine, McCauley would have to ski to the site and surgically implant a radio tracking device. Wolverines are too rough on neck collars, typically used to monitor wildlife movements. Moreover, a neck collar could inhibit a wolverine, which likes to poke its head into rocky crevices, Inman said.

The implant surgery is similar to spaying a cat or a dog, a procedure McCauley frequently preforms on pets in Livingston, Mont., where she works as a veterinarian.

The traps are outfitted with devices that transmit a signal, which can be picked up from Hawks Rest, to indicate whether a trap door is open or closed.

Coming up empty

Each morning, Chapin checks the signals. On Saturday, the two open traps Two Ocean and Yellowstone have not caught a wolverine or even a pine martin, a common cousin that often foils the team's efforts. So Chapin and McCauley decide to head up Thorofare Creek to open a third trap. A 12-mile trek round-trip, the Thorofare site is the farthest from Hawks Rest and potentially the most promising, according to Inman.

Chapin found what could be wolverine tracks as he skied through a mature pine stand littered with the scat and tracks of moose, snowshoe hare and other species. When Chapin reached the Thorofare trap, he noticed that a deer carcass previously wired to a nearby tree as a lure, had been ripped off and dragged away. Wolverines are one of the few species this time of year strong enough to steal the entire carcass.

Chapin replaced the meat and set the trap by wiring "trigger bait" inside the log box. When a wolverine tears at the bait, the trap door thuds shut.

McCauley, meanwhile, grimaced as she opened a container filled with a reeking substance that might just tempt a wolverine to investigate. McCauley used a stick to paint the grayish sludge onto a tree.

By Sunday, the crew had three of four traps open but no wolverines had taken the bait, yet. Inman remained optimistic with the weather turning in the team's favor.

Inman departed Sunday from Hawks Rest, retracing the two-day journey back to the trailhead, with plans to return at the end of the month to check on the project's progress. Even catching one wolverine would be a boon to the program. Inman needs to capture more females, in particular, to learn about their reproductive rates a detail crucial to ensuring the survival of any species, especially one that occurs at such sparse densities.

"It's going to take a long-term effort to answer these questions," he said.

As for the prospects of finding a wolverine in one of America's wildest places, with Bob's brew wafting through the Thorofare, Inman said: "If they're around, I think they should show up."