The splash in the lake was loud and made by something very large. But I couldn’t see it. I moved backwards on the trail we were hiking to take a look where the tall brush opened up. That’s when I became a bit worried. I saw a large moose cow looking in our direction, and then I saw her tiny calf. The mother became agitated, and the baby began to walk out into the water. From Terry’s vantage point, he could see the mother stomping her hooves in the water at the same time she was bellowing, grunting. Imagine a donkey braying. The mother was moving left and right, then began trotting up the bank. Terry and I were separated, and I said “run.” We ran back the way we had come about 25 yards. Now I was closer to the mother, and all I could see were two HUGE ears trained in our direction. The rest of her body was covered by the brush, and we couldn’t see the baby or whether there were multiple babies. I put my index finger to my lips making the universal be quiet sign as I turned to Terry. I thought perhaps the moose couldn’t see us, but she could certainly hear us. Eventually she turned back towards the bank, I presume more interested in protecting her young than finding us. We sized up the situation and decided we needed to move forward on the trail passed her because we had to get back to the car, and we were only a mile away. But how? We didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves,and we certainly didn’t want to walk right by her without being able to see where she was. We were in her personal space. We began the hike five miles back on the other side of the lake, and one choice would be to hike back that way knowing we’d be away from her and any danger. But Terry has been rehabbing a leg problem and was prepared for a gentle six-mile hike, not a ten-mile hike. We opted to get off trail and walk about fortyyards uphill away from the bank and the unseen moose which meant we had to trample over brush and downed tree logs, cracking branches as we did. In the end though, we managed to move out of her private space enough that we could rejoin the trail presuming she was behind and below us, even though we could no longer see her. It was a scary few minutes assessing her actions and trying to avoid confrontation. Afterall, I haven’t climbed a tree since I was 14, and looking around at the choices,I could just imagine the limbs breaking as I tried to get further from a 7’ angry moose momma. And while I know a good strategy to avoid being trampled by a moose is to run in a zig-zag fashion (they’re too bulky to keep up with you and a bit near sighted), the brush on either side of the trail made that tactic a bit difficult unless you have really good footwork and maybe a little bit of luck. You might wonder, when I heard the splash why did I find an opening to see what made it instead of running up the trail towards our car. Well, I presumed if an animal was making that huge of a splash that it was trying to get away from us. And in fact, I presumed it was a bear. So naturally I went to look and see what the ruckus was, expecting all the while to see an animal swimming away. Boy was I wrong. We had started the trail at about 6:30am and no one was on it. We had seen deer, birds, and some scat (fox scat, I believe). We had even seen where the deer and likely moose had browsed the willows around the lake, but we had seen no moose scat. That is until we had our encounter and then promptly walked over a pile of it on the trail, a few minutes later! When we got back to the car, there were several other cars in the parking lot. Two hiking groups were about to depart, headed around the lake the way we just came from. We warned them to make lots of noise and that she was only about a mile down the trail that way. The other car belonged to a kayaker we saw stopped on the far bank while our moose encounter took place. He must have wondered what on earth the moose was doing because I’m sure he couldn’t see us on the trail; he was a pretty good distance. Meeting the moosewas an exciting piece of adventure for a quiet hike around the lake. We did hear some Sandhill cranes and watched them fly over the lake, us and beyond a hill. We climbed the hill to see where they landed but they were out of sight. It was also fun to see the deer, robins, pelicans and other waterfowl on the lake. We left the area and decided before we returned to our dogs in the RV to take a quick look up the road for bears. There’s a celebrity bear, #399 with four cubs who are a year old and the spectacle of five bears grazing in the meadow or feasting on elk calf is a big draw to Grand Teton National Park right now. As we drove just a few minutes from the trailhead, we were so fortunate to have a beautiful charcoal gray wolf cross the road in front of the car in front of us and then walk through tall grass alongside of our car. It was such a huge thrill to see this wonderful predator likely on his way home after a night of hunting. He/she was radio collared which meant this is an important pack member being studied – likely an alpha. The sighting was brief but a real thrill for us and it’s hard to determine whether that sighting or surviving the moose encounter made our day more special! All the while during the moose encounter I wanted to take a picture. The camera was in my hand at the ready, yet I kept my wits and reminded myself it was more important to stay in the moment and focus, since this was a very unpredictable wild animal. But I’ve included some moose photos in this blog taken from other days on the trip. We’re a week into it and have seen a lot of interesting animals and behavior, and I’ve cataloged all the animal counts in my journal. So here are just a few moose shots of nine various moose we’ve seen this week. I will mention one of the moose we spotted driving down the road in Yellowstone yesterday was a very peculiar sighting. I tried to take some video of the moose which was clearly agitated. But I couldn’t tell whether it was a bull or a cow because of the high brush and it’s strange movements. At first, I thought it was trying to avoid bugs. It was running side to side, then in circles and next it would dash off wildly. We didn’t hear grunting or anything, nor see any predators or humans around it. We watched from the car window along with a few other vehicles for about five minutes as it dashed around madly. My presumption is that the moose has a chronic wasting disease (mad cow disease) that moose and other ungulates contract from a parasite. It literally makes them go mad. It was really hard to watch the animal in distress so we drove off after five minutes, but I wonder how long this behavior lasted. I sure am glad we didn’t encounter a mad moose on our hike though!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorFormer documentary film producer, wife and mother of one...I'm taking time off to see the US with my husband Terry. Here's where I'll write about our adventures RVing until the money runs out! Archives
August 2021
|