Moose Up Close

Robert, Wednesday, August 27

After the grueling bus trip yesterday, we decided to cancel the even longer bus trip we had scheduled for today. The trip was to leave in the morning at 10:00 and as cancellations had to be two hours in advance to get a refund, I got up and drove to the information center to cancel by 8:00. The weather today was great. After we had lunch, we went to the visitor’s center. They have a bookstore that we wanted to browse. We then decided to drive into the park a little way. The first nine miles into the park is a paved road and private vehicles can go that far. Beyond that, only tour buses, vehicles with permits and going to one of the campgrounds further in the park, and a select few such as professional photographers and researchers can proceed. We drove in to get some photographs of the changing fall colors in to the park. There is a short bush that has turned red and it covers entire hillsides. Also there are birch trees that have turned yellow. The sun shining today made the colors stand out. After the nine miles in, we turned around and headed back out. Along the way, there were several cars stopped along the road. This is normally a sign that someone has seen something. Sure enough, about a half mile off to the side were two bull moose. We pulled over and watched. As there were bushes along the edge of the road, it made watching difficult. I rolled up the cover on the back of the truck and we climbed up on the auxiliary fuel tank. That put our view eleven feet above ground level. The two bulls we mildly pushing each other around. This is the start of the rutting season and they were sizing each other up. And as they did so, they kept moving closer and closer to the road. We backed up to let a bus through and had the best location possible. The bulls entered the brush right along side of the road. There were still people standing on the edge of the road. I was sure we were going to be watching a moose stomp. At the last minute the people were diving for cover as the moose came up on the road. I told one spectator that I wasn’t moving as we were well out of the way and the truck is insured. The moose crossed the road between the truck and the car immediately behind us. I could have spit and hit them. It was about as close to wild moose as you can be. I am glad we took the flight seeing trip in Telkeetna as this is the third time we have been to the park and except for the flight, we have never seen Mt. McKinley. After that we came back to the trailer. We killed some time and then went into town to check out the gift shop sales. We had already decided to eat dinner out. After all that we came back to the trailer and crashed.