

The west-side has a total different look than the more crowded east-side. It is less rocky and more forested, although over the past few years most of the lodge pole pines have succumbed to the
pine beetle infestation and sadly has changed the look of the west-side. There is also the
Kawuneeche Valley which has the Colorado River and is much wetter which is ideal for our favorite RMNP animal, the moose! Mary always counts how many “sightings” we have each year and broke it this year with 70. I am sure some of these are repeated moose, but that is why we say moose sightings. We went out every evening to go on our moose hunt. I can’t and won’t bore you with by recounting all the sightings, but we did have fun looking for and watching them. We saw several cow and calf pairs which always fun to watch. One of the most memorable sightings was watching and pair cross the
Colorado River and then watched the cow jump a fence and waited patiently for her calf to jump also. He ran up and down the fence line for at least 30 minutes, I am sure scared to death as several other people joined in the watch. While we remained in our car to watch, they all got out of their vehicles to get a better shot. I rather miss the “perfect” shot, then to stress the wildlife. The wildlife is use to the cars and people on trails & roadsides but leave you vehicle and get off the trails it stress the animals and puts yourself in danger. Seems this year was the year of the smart people, “schmert” as the girls were calling them. We watch as a couple got closer and closer to a moose cow as the moose watched them closely. They were lucky as she didn’t have a calf with her and soon took off into a deeper vegetated area. Not only did they stress the moose and endanger their selves, they ruined it for anyone who wanted to properly observe her. The lady walked up to our truck and proudly announced that we walked along the tree-line as she did, we could see it up close. I quickly replied, “We are not that stupid and you’re lucky she did not have a calf or she might have come after you”. She said,” I know, one chased me yesterday”. I don’t think it dawned on her that I just called her stupid. We joked about her throughout the trip as we came across several others that basically did the same thing. Most of them had a small point and shoot camera and since most of this happened at dusk, not to be a photo snob, but the photo won’t be worth it compared to the risk they just took. A majority of the wildlife photos I took were from our truck and I got plenty of decent photos for my family & friends to enjoy. Stay patient for the grazing, relaxed animal to look up and take your shot, if they start to stare at you, back away you’re stressing them. I saw too many people yelling, raising their arms or shaking items to get the animals attention, like they are prey animals and they will look up occasionally or more to another location….be patient.
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