Wild Things

On a sunny Wednesday morning in late October, I knew it was time to get up for one last day in the high country. It hadn’t really snowed yet, I could see from my house, but snow was in the forecast. I knew there was no better place to go than Wild Basin. I had Finch and Pear Lake on the brain.

An hour and a half later I was happily walking through the woods. I heard some noise, and watched a large dark creature move into the trail ahead of me and stop. It was a moose – or should I say, she was a moose.

moose
An “uh-oh” moment. Moose cow standing on the Finch Lake Trail, October 25, 2017
Photo by Pete KJ

I’d seen plenty of moose from a distance over the previous months, even saw one grazing by the side of the highway. I’d gotten used to them either ignoring me or moving farther away. But this one stood in the middle of the trail, and then took a few steps toward me. She laid her ears back and licked her snout. “Uh oh,” I said.

I’ve never been much concerned about wildlife, safety-wise, and for good reason: in my lifetime of hiking I’ve had little occasion to worry. My first-ever encounter with a mountain lion was this past summer, in the very early morning, when one sprinted across the road while I was driving to a hike. I didn’t even have a chance to wake up my son to see it. The last time I saw a black bear was in the 1980s, in the Pacific Northwest, and mostly I saw its butt running away from me while I was trying to take a photo (see the blurry photo below). The summer before that, my buddy and I were coming down from climbing a peak in the North Cascades, and we saw two cute little black bear cubs in a tree. Then we heard hooting noises, looked behind us, and saw mom jumping around on her hind legs. We put our hands on our hats and skedaddled.

Nowadays in North America, if there is one mammal to be concerned about, it’s not a mountain lion or a black bear or even a grizzly. It’s a moose. They’re up there with hippos and rhinos as the most hazardous for humans, world-wide.

Black bear running away from me in 1983, near Monogram Lake in the North Cascades, Washgington State
Photo by Pete KJ

You used to never see moose in Colorado, but since successful reintroductions in the later 20th century, their numbers have increased to well over 1,000. The largest member of the deer family has no predators here, and shows little fear of humans. Much of the time they ignore us or stay obscured in wet shrub-lands; other times they act benignly curious, and even come up onto front porches and look in windows. Moose hate dogs, which they regard as wolves, and encounters with hikers with dogs can arouse their fight-or-flight instincts. At up to 1,000 pounds per charging, kicking adult, you don’t want the “fight.”

I didn’t have a dog, but it was October 25th: tail end of mating season. Both bulls and cows can be aggressive during this time. “Good morning,” I said to her calmly as I slowly backed away. “Nice to see you. No worries. There is plenty of room for both of us.”

She licked her snout again and didn’t budge. The hairs on her rump stood up.

I started to get a little annoyed too, but I tried not to show it. “Look,” I said, backing up some more. “I am trying to go to Finch Lake. I would like to use this trail. You, on the other hand, have a whole forest you can be in.”

She didn’t budge.

“Okay, you win.” I sighed, and slowly moved uphill into the dense trees. Staying well away from her, I began to make a big arc around her. While I was behind some trunks, I heard a crashing noise and off she dashed downhill.

That night it snowed in the high country. The next morning, I looked up to see Wild Basin coated in white. I thought of my moose friend, and wondered how she was doing.

Pete KJ

Pete KJ

Pete KJ began explorations at age three in the wooded ravine that was his backyard in Seattle. He also began a lifelong writing habit. Backyard expanded as Pete stomped all over the Cascades and Olympics as a youth, and headed onward to the Pyrenees, Alps, Himalayas, and Andes. Peace Corps service in Africa cemented his deep desire to always be out in the world, and when he finally sat in a cubicle as a chemical engineer, it was in places like Puerto Rico and India. Long absent from cubicle, he moved on to raise kids, travel the world with them, and write about it (and also write three novels). Career brought Pete to Colorado in the 1990s, its gravity and beauty pulled him back. Pete's "Base Camp Denver: 101 Hikes in Colorado's Front Range" will be published in April, 2019 by Imbrifex Books.

5 thoughts to “Wild Things”

  1. On the Web there are dozens of videos of baby moose playing in people’s yards. And I saw a baby moose a couple years ago in Yellowstone NP. Like all of nature’s babies, they are darn cute. But adult moose and adult bison — I give a wide margin to. Those animals can flat-out fly across the ground and they can be quite cranky… Loved this article.

  2. I love the “look” that the cow moose appears to be “giving you” in the photo above. I’ve seen an ornery cow give me a similar look more than once over the years and at such times, my eyes swivel behind me looking for alternative route options!

    1. That is my trademark Pete KJ hat, and I’ll be mortified if I ever lose it. And for the record, that is El Cocuy National Park in Colombia, in 2013. Those glaciers will probably be gone in a few years.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The following GDPR rules must be read and accepted:
This form collects your name, email and content so that we can keep track of the comments placed on the website. For more info check our privacy policy where you will get more info on where, how and why we store your data. Thanks for you cooperation and for making a comment here!