8/1/19 - Day 34 - Denali is Moose-rrific!

Sorry for the play on words, but we saw a lot of moose during our stay in Denali! One of the most interesting encounters occurred the first day as we were returning to camp for lunch.

We were on the road in Denali, when a large cow moose stepped out of the brush and up onto the road less than 50 feet in front of us. However, rather than looking at us she began to intently look further down the road. Within a minute we saw a large cariboo climb onto the road. He began to slowly walk toward us and the moose. The moose did not pay any attention to us, she was only interested in the cariboo. Pat and I began to wonder if there was going to be an inter-species fight!  "Moose Wars"

The cariboo kept slowly walking closer and closer. Another car coming from the opposite direction came up behind the cariboo. He stepped off the highway. At that point our moose turned to look at us (I was taking pictures behind the safety of the car door), then she slowly walked across the road and disappeared into the brush and spruce trees.

We drove on and saw that the cariboo had stopped in the middle of a dry stream bed and proceeded to lay down. He was still there when we had taken our photos and drove on.

         One thing we enjoy doing in parks like Denali is to find a likely looking place that animals may frequent and then park the truck. We sit and visit, drink coffee, journal, or in the case of this trip type up blogs, all the time scanning the area for movement.

           Last night I was finished with the blogs and since we were parked along a streambed that had a tiny stream flowing through it, I couldn't resist getting out to look at the rocks. I wandered up and down the stream bed picking up and examining the different types of rocks. Most of them appear to be metamorphic, all have the tell tale markings of glacial activity.

         I was aware that there might be animals nearby, so I frequently scanned the brush for movement, sniffed the air (bears have a strong smell that carries quite a ways), and listened for

crackling brush. You might imagine my surprise then when I stood up from examining an interesting shiny green boulder to see a large cow moose standing in the middle of the stream bed not more than 60 feet upstream!

        She didn't pay much attention to me as I backed away toward the truck. The moose was still there drinking from the stream when I got the camera and started clicking away. Then when she drank her fill, she simply slipped into the brush across the stream and vanished as silently as she appeared. "Moose-terious"

One last encounter to mention was with a bull cariboo. It was beginning to get that dusky kind of light, about 11, and we were again driving on the road in Denali back toward camp.  Pat says, "Whoa, that's a big one!" and put on the brakes as a large cariboo which had been about the cross the road spun around. However, rather than disappearing into the brush on that side, he went around a spruce tree and dashed across the road in front of us! We don't know what was so much better on the other side, but he was determined to get there!

Q: Why did the cariboo cross the road?
A: To get to the other side!