Moose Tracks

When Ted lived here in the 70s, his dad took him to Big Sky Golf Course for a charity tournament where he met Alan Hale Jr., the actor who played The Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.

A big moment in his young life (understandably, who didn’t love that show?), so when we realized we were just up the road from the course, we knew we’d have to play a round.

The air was so thin that our drives were significantly longer than our typical.  Ted hit one drive that was over 325 yards and was pretty damn proud of it.  I don’t blame him, let’s just say I make full use out of the ladies tee box.

Somewhere around the 9th hole, I was walking up to my tee box when a massive mammal about 100 feet away caught my eye.  A moose and her baby were walking out of the brush to a small creek nearby in search of water.

Harkening back to what the river guide told us a couple of days ago, I froze – not wanting to spook the mother moose – but I so, so wanted to go pet the little baby.  It was absolutely precious, fuzzy antlers and the whole bit.

Then this afternoon when we were hiking around back around the lodge, we had another encounter.

We had taken the chair lift up to the summit and were hiking back to the base when we saw another sweet little calf, who was about 50 feet away….and then we saw his mother, who was even closer.  Luckily, that unobservant moose was too intent on her food to notice us but they were right in the middle of the trail.  So we had to quietly and quickly scale down the side of the mountain before she realized we were there.

We crossed a brook and crawled over more than one fallen tree before we felt like we could breathe again.  Though, I must say, it was rather exciting.  While being stampeded by a moose in the wilds of Montana would have be a tough way to go, evading that fate was pretty thrilling.

 

Comments Off on Moose Tracks