Moose Sighting

A fun moose sighting in French Gulch today.

Sprinting along the trail far back in French Gulch.
The "scent of moose" was everywhere as my partners were determined to track down the moose.

The second we got on the main French Gulch Trail, Max & Zorro's "moose radar" was firing and we were on a full alert looking for moose the entire run out & back. The "moose radar" always adds "moose juice" to the Siberian Engine which adds a little extra speed to the skijor outing.

After being on moose alert for over 3 miles, we finally had a moose sighting far back in French Gulch. There were 4 moose in total: 1 male with a huge antler basket on his head, 1 female and 2 slightly smaller (probably offspring) moose. It is supposedly rare for a male moose to hang around his mate & offspring; but we have seen the male moose with the female in French Gulch since last winter. I guess some moose stay in a relationship :)  Anyway, back to today's fun:

Clearly moose are the color they are for camouflage as you cannot even pick
out the 4 in the photo. I am including it to give a feeling for how close we were
to the moose in the meadow even though they are very hard to see. The arrows
are pointing to the large male (right) and female (left) who were standing side by
side watching us to see what we were doing.

Zoom in to the previous photo and I have circled the large male
(right) and female (left). Look closely and you can make out the
large antler basket on the male's head.

The moose sighting sent Max & Zorro into another dimension and Max started doing his "hunting scream" at the moose. I carefully got everyone under control (without making fast movement toward the moose) and then got us back a bit on the trail before pausing to catch our breath and make sure the moose were not coming our direction....

"Moose! I love seeing moose! Did I scream by mistake?" exclaims happy Max at our 'retreat
and regroup' pause after backing away from the moose.
"I know they are still there, let's go back and chase the moose!" declares intense little
Zorro locked on the direction of the moose. Silly Zorro, what would you do if you
really caught a moose?!?!

Oh yeah, the real point of the day was to go skijoring, not moose hunting... The day started with a fast run up & over Sally Barber Mine before starting on our moose mission in French Gulch. Here is a fun video clip from part of the Sally Barber Trail - zoom, zoom, zoom:

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

A moose filled day covering 9.2 miles with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 22 MPH.

2014/2015 Season to Date: 34 days on the trails covering 279.4 miles with 30,050 feet of elevation climbed.