Yikes

Report from this morning's outing: a little skijoring and a LOT of moosing! Oh my....

Skijoring a narrow trail through the forest - wheeee!

Ok, that prior photo was our token "we were skijoring" shot of the day. Now for the real excitement. We had 4 (yes, FOUR) moose sightings from the trails today. It was all fun and games until the third sighting. Come along for the ride...

Moose sighting #1: we were gliding along French Gulch when suddenly both Max & Zorro leaped of the trail to the right. Only moose can pull them off trail...

"Mooooooose!!!!!" exclaims silly Max leaping off the trail (Zorro is already off trail and
off camera). Scan the trees and I found a big bull moose a safe distance away looking back
at us.

Moose sighting #2: coming back in French Gulch when a leap off the trail to the left occurred (different location than sighting #1):

"Moooooose!!!!!!" exclaims silly Zorro leaping off the trail to search for moose (this time
Max is already off camera and locked on the moose). Scan the trees and I found a female
moose staring back at us from a safe distance.

Moose sighting #3 seemed innocent at first. Max & Zorro both drifted off trail to the left to climb the snowbank in search of the moose scent their noses caught. I glanced with them and found another female moose a safe distance away in the trees. No problem, I thought, until Zorro whipped his head to the right. "The moose is to the left Zorro, what are you doing?" I commented. But....

I turned to follow Zorro's gaze and, uh-oh, a child moose to our right!
"I got the mother in check!" declares Max.
"And we've got a baby to the right!" exclaims Zorro.

If you know anything about moose, then you know the number one fear you should have of moose is getting between a mother and its child. I almost fell over when I followed Zorro's gaze to see the child on the other side of the trail with us between it and the mother! The mother started moving towards us and I reeled Max & Zorro in by the gangline and hightailed it as fast as we could the other direction. Yikes....

Luckily we were near a junction to another trail which went up and then parallel to the mother and child. So, I got Max & Zorro on this trail and we went up and then straight until we were above the location where we saw the mother and child. Moose sighting #4: same two moose as sighting #3 but this time from a safe distance away and *not* being caught in between the mother and child.

"We see them again!" declare the moose seeking pair.

Away from the moose and back on the main trail. I paused to catch my breath while Max & Zorro thought this was the most fun outing ever:

"So much fun!" declares happy Max.
"Yes, and we learned to get between momma and baby and the mother comes!" states silly
Zorro (not something we wanted him to learn :)

Skijoring and moosing in French Gulch this morning: 8 miles traveled, 700 feet of elevation climbed, top speed of 20 MPH and 4 moose sightings with one "yikes" adventure accidentally finding ourselves between a mother moose and child.

2015/2016 Season to Date: 71 days on the trails covering 600.7 miles with 63450 feet of elevation climbed.