Elk Bugling 2012

So, I finally had a day off and have been wanting to get up to the mountains to see the elk.  We decided to pick up the kids from school one afternoon and go directly into the mountains.  We had planned on getting some family pictures, as well, but that just didn't happen.

Here are some pics of the school kids.

Caden showing off the playground equipment.

Jordan didn't see me for a long time, so this is a candid shot of her just as she looked up and recognized me.

I had some shots of Kailyn looking around, trying to find us, but they didn't turn out well, so here's a very uncandid picture of her.

It takes about 45 minutes to get up the mountains where the elk were.  There were lots of twists and turns.  Caden (and Kailyn, for that matter) inherited my ability to get motion sickness at the very thought of traveling on a road with a few turns.  Sadly, Caden tossed his cookies on the way up.

Don't let him fool you.  He's feeling pretty icky right now.

When we got to the parking lot of a meadow, we saw a bull elk with his 41 cows.  Oh, yeah, and it was quite windy and cold.

There's the bull.

I took a picture of each of the kids in front of these mountains.  They were gorgeous, but the photos did not turn out as well as I would have liked.  Oh, well, it was still nice.  I guess Kailyn's picture is the one with the elk up above.

There was an interesting presentation about elk by one Ranger Sue.  She talked about young (1-year old) male elk who have a single antler their first year . . .

competing with older and more mature elk for the attention of the cows.  They talked about parallel walking, bugling, posing, and sometimes fighting to build their harem.  It was actually very interesting.  She also talked about the double layer of hair in the hide during the winter, keeping the elk warm and dry.

In this next picture, the lead female had started walking towards another elk (not visible, but you could hear his bugling) on the other side of the hill.  The bull did not like that, so he got around them and herded them back to his area.

We drove down the road a little ways and found another herd of elk.  There were actually a few bulls with their individual harems.  It was getting dark, so I tried to snap a few pictures.  It was beautiful.  The camera couldn't quite do it justice.

In the following picture, you can see several cows closer to the camera.  A little further back you see the "presiding" or dominate bull, watching over his cows.  Behind him you can see several other bulls.  The one stands at guard to make sure none of the other bulls gets his cows.

On the way home, the kids all fell asleep.  Everyone enjoyed the trip and said, "thanks for taking us to the mountains."  Chase, however, thanked us multiple times and then called out each of his siblings by name to make sure they all said "thanks for taking us to the mountains" again.  It's quite cute with his cute 3-year old annunciations.