Bull !!!

I first saw this big fellow from the road below the campground. He and ten or more other elk had moved up into the trees between the campground, which is on a lateral moraine and the Moraine Park meadows below.

I walked back up the trail to the camper to let Karen know about elk being very close to the campground and then walked a few sites down to see if I could see them again. Sure enough, there they were. This big bull elk was in the woods slowly moving up the valley.

At about the same time, I could hear a bunch of coyotes yipping off in the other direction. We had heard a some a couple of nights before, but not nearly as clearly.

Eventually the bull elk bedded down for the day. I guess they are most active at night with their feeding and breeding. The meadows are closed to the public from 5 PM to 7 AM during the rutting season. The closure started the first week of September.

Where this guy decided to bed down was pretty neat, too — right below our campside. I took the picture of our camper below from the same spot that I shot the image above.

This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About.