Moose Real Close

Leslie Wednesday, August 27, 2008

While we traveled so long on the bus yesterday, we decided that today we’d explore independently. We wanted to check out the Alaska National Geographic Bookstore. While they had many interesting things, nothing moved me to buy.

We decided to drive into the park as far as private vehicles are permitted. I wanted to get some pictures of the landscape with the colors changing. This morning around 9:00 am the temperature was 38 degrees. Fall is in the air. I forgot to mention that it rained yesterday on the Tundra Wilderness Tour but today is sunny.

We started out looking for landscape pictures. Here’s the reds of the ground cover.




And even some yellow birch trees.




We wanted to get back to the trailer by 4:00 pm to run the generator. We arrived at the turn around at 3:00 pm. As we drove back along the park road, we noticed that several cars were stopped along the road. In Yellowstone we learned that other cars parked along the road generally means that someone has seen some animal. Yes, I saw two moose deep in the field. The moose were both male – and they were bashing their antlers against each other. This is the beginning of moose rutting season and it appeared that these two were sizing each other up. We stopped and I climbed in the bed of the truck. The moose continued to act aggressively toward each other - clacking their antlers against each other. They were moving in our direction (this is so unusual – animals almost always move away from people, that’s why I have so many pictures of animals bottoms). Over the next half hour the moose moved toward the road (and us). Different cars stopped. We were very lucky in that we could move the truck forward and back to get the best pictures as the moose were partially hidden by the brush along the road.

More cars stopped – some of the cars were filled with fools. Moose are notoriously aggressive animals and these people were standing on the road as it was clear that two MALE moose would soon emerge from the brush. We were both standing in the bed of the truck on top of the extra fuel tank. We were standing at about 8 ft in the air. The passenger side door of the truck was open. If the moose had charged the truck, I know that I could have climbed into the cab; it would have taken some athletic ability but I could have done it. The fools were standing in the road and they couldn’t see (as we could up high) that the moose would soon come onto the road. We expected to see a moose stampede.

The moose actually decided to come closer toward us and crossed the road behind our truck. The car you see is parked just behind our truck. This was as close as I ever want to be to a wild moose. Look at him glaring at me!





Look at the moose clacking their antlers against each other.








The moose were 8 ft at the shoulders and 10 ft at the top of the head. We were standing so our feet were at 9 feet. It was an amazing experience to have these moose pass so close. The white car in this picture is parked about 10 feet behind our truck.