9/25/08 Bugling Elk in the Campground

9/25/08 Bugling Elk in the Campground
The drive from Strasburg, CO in eastern Colorado to Denver is stunning as you watch the mountains grow before your eyes. They appear as a little fringe of lumps out on the horizon ahead of you and become the mighty Rocky Mountains as you drive into them once past downtown Denver. We got off I-70 to chase down a Walgreens Pharmacy to refill a prescription and then got back on the highway going west. Some of the huge, expensive homes west of Denver just hang tight onto the side of the steep mountains and some don’t look very stable. Little old places and towns are beside these new homes and businesses giving the area a sense of history. Wow, how cool!

At Hwy 40 we turned north towards the Rocky Mountain National Park and the fall colors showed up right away in the yellows and oranges of the birch and aspen amid the evergreens. We may not have the deep reds that they have in New England, but our fall colors are still gorgeous. The elevation change from eastern Colorado to Denver to Hwy 40 is probably 500 ft to way over a mile above sea level. Then the park takes you to the campground at 7,000 ft. My ears could tell me the changes as they happened.

Timber Creek campground in the park was still open so we got the last spot there for the night. (The reality of it being the end of September causing campgrounds to close at this elevation dawned on us as the forest service campgrounds were closed along the highway approaching the park. We wondered if there was anything still open at the park.) At the visitor’s center they hold us to listen for the bugling of the bull elk because this is the season for it. So we anxiously awaited this new experience. Well, we didn’t have to wait long because there was a bull elk and three cow elks with three yearlings in our campground when we got there. The bull elk stayed in the trees but the others grazed calmly among the campsites while the bull elk did the bugling and other bulls out of our sight answered him back. Thrilling! We kept Matty in the RV, but later when she was dancing the potty jig I took her outside. The elk were right by our RV and they just gave her a quick look and went on grazing. Matty didn’t give them a second look either.