Moose and Sunshine...

we started our walk not seeing any moose and thinking the only pictures we'd get were of the frost that had collected there. all puddles were ice crusted. it won't be long now...

we did come upon a guy with a big camera so we looked where he was looking and saw these 3 moose hanging about. the big male hadn't moved according to the camera guy so i took a little walk with blossom up closer to get a better shot and perhaps encourage the guy to stand up for photo ops...i'm kinda crazy like that. feel like all my moose years have taught me a thing or two about moose behaviour. blossom comes with me and everyone was impressed how well behaved she was out there. she just sat by me while i took photo's.

amy, michelle and tanya wait below, karen was right behind me. she loves a good photo op and isn't afraid of a few big moose either. michelle came up eventually as did the camera dude.

there was a female and another young male. the big male didn't seem the least bit impressed or concerned with us, the little ones were a bit more skittish.

they did oblige me for a few photo ops though..so kind of them.

of course, i took way too many photo's of this moose to post. just randomly chose a few pictures. maybe one will end up in this years calendar...i probably should get around to making that.

pretty nice rack. in the spring and summer the rack is covered with velvet, they rub that off before the rut. nobody wants a soft fighting element.

the dogs stayed on leash except right at the bridge. not that there weren't moose around, this is actually where we ran into the bulk of moose. they were a bit off the bridge though so we felt safe letting the dogs have a moment. they would have preferred to run like crazy chasing moose no doubt..but that is generally frowned upon.

they seemed to love that there were chunks of ice out there to play with.

tanya above and amy below. thought they came out nicely.

everyone seemed to have a great time. seeing so many moose has to help that out. i think out towards the bridge area karen counted at least 11-12 moose chilling. karen, our only dogless walker, moved on to look at more moose while we watered the dogs.

hard to catch a picture of her not taking a picture. we are quite similar that way.

this moose was right by the main trail. she watched us, but let us pass by.

i should be swimming right now. have been such a slacker of late. really need to dust off my suit and get more motivated. i think sometimes this time of year you get not melancholy, but you just are effected by the ever increasing darkness and cold. eventually you just adapt. once i'm home it's so easy to just settle in. besides, i needed to do dishes, laundry, clean the cat litter...

they were unsure whether to risk bringing the dogs over to where all the moose were. tanya ended up sticking to the bridge, she had 2 dogs and we all had one each. i left rio at home. i had brought her last time i took moose pictures up here, but it is much easier to just deal with one well behaved dog. blossom really is ideal. rio gets all the scents from every direction and it's a bit tough for her to ignore that. there can be 20-40 moose in here so you really don't know where one will pop out next, especially if there is thicker brush.

eventually everyone else came along and we enjoyed the moose show. lots of males over this way. several sitting back relaxing, but others gave us lots ot observe and photograph.

there were two with really big racks. they walked slowly towards each other, shaking thier racks at each other. we thought we'd get some rack on rack action but they just went through the motions and then moved along eventually.

i'm sure many go back several times just to observe all the activity up here. i suspect we'll be heading to kincaid tomorrow.

seperate pictures of the bigger moose out there.

here they are coming closer to inspect each other in preparation for the competition for the ladies. chivalry is alive in some species still apparently. it was cool to watch them move thier heads/racks side to side. impressive displays.

you can see this guy tipping his rack.

moose stand off

more tipping/tilting.

they moved in and we got ready for the rumble.

pretty impressive pair, even if they opted out of the rumble.

no females about worthy of the battle. there were females they just were hanging closer to the bridge at this moment. who knows how many moose are out there. many are back in brush. you get better at spotting them as you are out there longer. moving in /out of the brush.

with thier colouration it's easy to see how they kinda get lost in the fall colours.

this young male popped out from behind us somewhere.

he came over and sniffed this big guy, who seemed to totally not care. we all wondered if he was looking for his papa. he then moved over to a younger male and nudged him. the younger ones will play fight i've noticed. reminded me of being in churchill with the polar bears. one would lay down to rest and soon another polar bear would come nudge them into another round of play/fighting.

loved all the shadows of the racks on the mooses rumps. cool!

we headed up there at 11 am. this pass can get dark fairly early as the sun gets behind the mountains. when that happens it gets cold and the wind often blows through this valley. we all wore our warmer clothes and ski hats are back out. as we headed back we were back out of the sunshine. these moose were on the other side from the main powerline trail so the sun was still shining and would be for a few more hours.

had to switch over to black and white a few times.

woke at wierd hours last night. tanya said she'd woke about the same time. sometimes i'll find there was a quake that woke us all up that we weren't aware of. i did look and didn't see any big enough to wake us. there are pretty much constant quakes, most just not detectable. it's usually 3.5-4.o before i notice it.

the strange dream i had when i went back to sleep blended the day before. i had stopped by fred meyers and there was a car full of older teen males/young adults. their battery was dead and they said they'd been there quite awhile and nobody would help them. i let them borrow my jumper cables and use my car to get thier car started. it is hard to trust young males. part of you stays suspicious. one of them was petting rio and was saying he didn't understand why nobody wanted to help them. i just said it was because they were young males. i think society in general has become more suspicious of them. plus they all want to dress like gangstars. makes them even less easy to trust. anyway, in my dream i repeated that event and then went on to assist another person who had a dead battery. like none of it happened.

just fun watching all these moose in action...in colour and in black and white

i'm sure all these moose pictures are quite dull for some. i probably could have taken just a few, but how can you not take more?

looking forward to my massage tomorrow. a full hour and a half. yippee! just in time to head back to work and get all knotted up. hehe. oh well. for that time it will feel great! also have dinner plans with a friend. life is going pretty well. i feel more like myself than i've felt in some time. be true to you, be good to you and others will follow.

so many moose in such a small area...

thinking i'll take a bath tonight and relax with a movie after that. have some netflix ones to watch but i replaced several old vhs movies so i think i'll watch one of those, "joy luck club". the other night i watched "milk money". haven't seen either of these for years.

the two young bulls hang out together.

another bull moves in the background

how many more are back in those trees?

must be a bit out of order. this is where the young male nudges the other young male to encourage interaction. so sweet.

the dogs all did great today. all on leashes. tanya was online looking up stuff about malamutes. she hasn't dealt with the male being so alpha before. he does good leashed though. may just need some extra leash time until the excitement phase is over on a walk.

you can see the shade line. we are back on the main powerline pass trail here...chilled.

the big mountain, denali, has been out and visible from anchorage this week. this is actually a frequent winter occurance. it's in the summer when we get more cloudy days and the mountain is obscurred. poor tourists...they really need to come up in winter.

ekko finds this cool ice chunk. the dogs all play chase to see who can win back the prize.

the bridge, heading up to hidden lake. covered in snow up there.

amy, tanya and karen make thier way up the trail. it's pretty flat. they recently put a bike rack near the bridge. seems like a great idea.

puddle with ice at various stages of freezing.

amy and tanya stop to look for moose in the valley. we did this often. this was a picture taking walk...we were on a moose hunt!

hopefully, you enjoyed the moose. i probably have many more pictures of moose, but i think that will be enough for this year. off to watch a movie and relax!