Living & Working in Great Places

"Didn't know I could run that fast..."

This is an excerpt of an email a friend sent me this morning - she lives and works in Yellowstone at Mammoth. Made me chuckle and remember a few of my close calls. Thought it was worth a share.

"So last night I head out for a walk and choose the campground thinking I'll avoid the irritable cow elk that are roaming about w/their new calves. I'm just a few minutes up the campground loop minding my own business and out of nowhere! comes this cow elk running at me at FULL SPEED - let me say how large and mean she looked - my flight instinct took over, and I can't believe how fast I was running. Took a quick peek over my shoulder and saw she was gaining on me so I bailed off down into the sage hoping I could zigzag and she'd give it up... when I checked again she slowed down to a purposeful stride, then she started eating.... it took a few minutes to recover from my adrenaline rush and Jimmy-legs

This morning I rode up to the office, past ~6 cow/calfs, all of them just looked and one even yawned... wacky elk!"

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Comment by steff on July 26, 2007 at 11:10pm: i have boxes full of pictures of elk from rocky mtn natl park. at first it was awesome to watch and record them, but after a while we'd flip through the pictures saying, "elk butt. elk butt. elk heads. more elk butt. *yawn*" they were pretty brazen and they were EVERYWHERE.

so, then, watching various families trying to get their kids taken out of the gene pool by encouraging them (the kids) to get closer to the elk so they (the clueless parents) could take their pictures "with" them (the elk). never mind the repeated warnings, never mind the signs, the park rangers, my husband muttering "morons" and chuckling the most evil chuckle while he filmed from a safe distance - at least once per week, we'd come across some well-meaning mom or dad chirping, "closer jimmy! just get a little closer to him!" yeesh.

i never had an elk close encounter, myself. there was that one young bull moose, though...

Comment by Lea on June 9, 2007 at 4:35pm: Oh I miss Yellowstone!

Comment by Brenda on June 9, 2007 at 4:10pm: Oh how I miss Yellowstone and the wildness. Blah! It's like a burning fire hearing stories like this. The flame will dye down then I here stuff like this and the flame roars up inside me again. Yeah I know about running fast lol. Bet like me she coulda won the marathon.