Another Moose

Another day, another moose "close encounter" on the trails this morning!

"Two days in a row of 'close encounter moosing' - we love it!" declare the silly moose
seeking trio.

Ok, come along for today's interesting moose tale. We went to skijor French Gulch this morning. Within 20 yards of the trailhead we saw moose droppings and footprints on the trail. But, no moose in sight, so I relaxed a bit. About 1/4 mile later we came around a bend in the trail to see a moose dead center in front of us running the French Gulch Trail too. Luckily it was running the same direction as us, not at us!

The black dot in the center of the trail (draw a line directly from Zorro) is the moose running
French Gulch in front of us.

The moose was running the same direction and a moose is much faster than us, so no problem I thought. I let the trio tow me out French Gulch at a ridiculously fast pace, but never fast enough to catch the moose.

Before we get further into the outing - a little context. It has snowed 89 inches in Breckenridge the last 10 days ending yesterday, March 9th. That 89 inches is the "mid mountain" measure, so it is a little less lower and a bit more higher. Well, French Gulch is basically "mid mountain and higher" the entire outing. But, French Gulch also gets plowed after 10+ inches falls. So, you see the high snow walls in all our photos from plowing and you know there is 89+ inches of fresh snow if you exit the main trail into the forest.

Normally, if you encounter a moose in French Gulch, it will run away from you for a bit and then exit the trail into the forest and all is ok. As we ran out the gulch, I kept looking for evidence that the moose left the gulch and went into the forest. But, I just kept seeing moose tracks on the trail in front of us. If you go far enough in the gulch, eventually you get past the "plow section" and get into untouched backcountry - here you would find 89+ inches of fresh snow!

As we were approaching the end of the plow terrain, we rounded one last corner to find the moose coming BACK AT US! Clearly the moose found 89 inches too deep for even a moose. I was shocked to see it coming back and it was NOT happy. He was swaying his head back & forth coming back towards us, letting us know he was not retreating into the deep snow!

Yikes - he's coming back!!!! He was swaying his head back & forth to warn us as I stopped
to gather my pals to turn around.

We retreated a little bit but the moose kept coming. One thing about moose - they "charge movement" and ignore you if you are still. As he kept coming, I stopped to let him lose interest in us being still. Until the photo below, I assumed the moose was female as it did not have an antler basket. But, look closely in the photo below and you can see a tiny antler on the head. This was an adolescent male just starting to grow antlers.

YIKES - he's still coming at us. I stopped everyone until he stopped showing interest.
Good boys keeping still with my commands to "wait" and "easy".

Once he lost interest, I backed up a little more then paused again. He looked up and then lost interest again. At this point I think Zorro got the message that the moose "means business" and he retreated back with me:

"I think he means business, maybe we should go!" says Zorro.
"We are planting ourselves to wait for the moose!" say the silly youngsters.

Luckily,  Zorro did retreat from the moose with me and we were able to convince Jack & Rudy to abort too. I'm pretty sure Jack & Rudy got the message from Zorro that this was getting dangerous. Moosing is all fun & games until the moose gets serious!

Safely away from the moose and it was time to skijor again :)  We have had so much snow that even heavily used French Gulch looks lightly used! Come along as we all start in a narrow single track trying to open up the throttle. Eventually, Rudy realizes there is a semi-packed track to the right and he can get some elbow room and run over there. Jack realizes he can drift in/out of the left shoulder powder and share the single track with Zorro. All aligned and off we go...

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

We have had so much snow, even the moose think it is deep and are coming out of the forest and onto the trails! Second day in a row with a close moose encounter! 5.8 miles traveled with 500 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 20 MPH.

2018/2019 Season to Date: 71 days on the trails covering 380.8 miles with 34,000 feet of elevation climbed.