Make Time: Rocky Mountain National Park

A quick stop in Boulder before heading up to Rocky Mountain National Park was a good start to my day. I grab some thai food and tried to meet up with Alex, but our timing was off. An hour later I find myself driving into the Moraine Park Campground, only after stopping at a local golf course to see a huge heard of elk. The male elk are called bulls, and they are currently rounding up females in order to mate. This process is called the rut. Each female elk only has a few menstruation cycles per year, so the bulls need to be timely and smart when they try to reproduce. It's funny to see one male with 7-10 females. Apparently female elk don't get jealous. Ha. Once into the campground, I see a ton more elk walking through a huge meadow near the campsite. I tag along next to a few professional-looking photographers, with their huge cameras in tow, and we sit and watch the bulls yelling at others in the meadow. It's all about territory and reproduction right now, so it's beautiful and interesting to see the mating game. One of the photographers tells me that by the end of the rut, one bull will have up to 50 females. Crazy. Tiring. This same photographer asks me about my travels and I tell him I'm heading up north to see the other national parks, so he gives me a bunch of tips on where to camp. The most valuable advice he gave me was that I should camp in my car if I'm in Yellowstone, because the bears are about to go into hibernation, so they are very hungry and aggressive. Invaluable advice! As we are talking, the photographer tells me that I'm about to get "goosed" on my butt in a second. Huh? That means I'm about to get pinched on my butt. I turn around in time to see a beta bull walking bye me - about 10 feet away. I pause - stunned. This is by far the closest I've been to an elk, so I'm not sure what to do. I freeze and just watch this bull, which I refer to as "beta" because he doesn't have a harem of females with him. He must have been overtaken by a more alpha bull. Poor guy. As he passes, the bull looks at me and the others, but he's not interested in us, so he then walks across our little footpath and then into the big field with the other bulls and female elk. The more alpha bulls are yelling at him now, and he sulks and passes bye. I watch for about an hour and then head back up to the campsite to eat a quick dinner, make a fire, eat some smores, and then pass out. Again - a night filled with beautiful stars that cover the night sky. The next morning, after a beautiful hike to Cub Lake, I decide to drive up to Steamboat again to hit up the hot springs and have dinner with my friend Jamie. Great times. I stay the night and then head back to Denver today to finish the painting for Justin and Leah. Very excited about where this is going!! I'm going to stay the night here tonight and then head up north to Grand Teton National Park, which is just below Yellowstone. VERY exciting times ahead. I plan to be camping the next week and a half before heading over to Seattle…and then down the West coast for my finale of this US portion of my trip. SURREAL!!!!