Three Quiet Days

Just before we left Grand Teton National Park, Ellen tweaked her back, so she has been a sore puppy for the last few days. Not to worry, she is starting to feel better. So, our first three days at Rocky Mountain National Park have been pretty quiet.

The most exciting part of Monday was waking up. We were just getting up when we heard what seemed to be random shuffling and knocking behind our campsite. As there was another site in that direction, we first assumed that it was just the campers out making breakfast, but we were wrong.

As we opened the curtains, we saw three big elk bucks who seemed to be practicing for the rut, which is just starting here in the park's elk herd. They were clashing antlers in mock battles, seemingly taking turns fighting. All this was happening about ten feet from Speedy's back door. This went on for about 15 minutes before they wandered off into the woods and disappeared.

The only other activity on Monday was a short walk up to the Fall River Visitor Center via an unpublicized back route. There is a bridge at the bottom of the campground that crosses the Fall River (what else?), goes out of the park past a riding stable to the back of the visitor center, probably saving about a mile of walking. This was a critical savings.

Yesterday we switched campgrounds, moving from Aspenglen, near the Fall River entrance, to Moraine Park, more central to the eastern side of the park. This is a reservation campground, as was Aspenglen. With the holiday weekend coming up, openings were few, but we were able to make an online reservation through Thursday at Moraine Park.

We left Aspenglen just shortly after 6 AM, as there is a daily guided bird walk at Beaver Meadows at 7 AM, which is on the the way to Moraine Park. It is listed as a short guided walk and Ellen seemed up to doing it. It was very interesting. It was lead by a nature photographer from Estes Park. With a group of just six, we walked through the woods and fields behind the Beaver Meadows parking lot, seeing not only birds, but marmots, trout and elk skeletons as well, the last probably winter deaths that get picked clean by the wildlife, although there are mountain lions in the park. Ellen logged 11 birds, four that she had't seen before. After the bird walk, we checked into the Moraine Park Campground, after a quick stop at the Moraine Park Visitor Center (gotta get the stamp, you know), which is in a great old log building.

We took it fairly easy after that, driving into Estes Park in the afternoon for some food shopping...and a stop at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center, which was on the way. For a small park, they have a lot of visitor centers. After that it was back to camp for a quiet afternoon until the daily thunderstorm arrived. It was the threat of rain that led us to go to town, where it had already rained by the time we got there. The thunderstorms, so far, seem to be mostly thunder, some wind and very little rain.

The bird walk was so interesting yesterday, that we decided to do it again today. They have a different volunteer each day, so today's was quite different from yesterday. While it started in the same place, we walked through a different section of the woods. One thing that is interesting about these bird walks, is that they don't follow the trails and go across country.

We spent a fair amount of time just behind the parking lot where there is an "Elk Exclosure". There are about 200 acres of fenced areas in the park designed to keep the elk out. The elk herd is much too large for the park as it has no predators (the mountain lions are quite few and don't usually try to take elk). The elk's natural predator is the wolf and they were extirpated long ago. Because the park is relatively small and it near urban areas, the Park Service will not reintroduce wolf to the park,but if they happen to work their way down from Yellowstone, as a couple have on occasion, and establish a pack in the park, they won't prevent it.

Back to elk exclosures. The elk are voracious eaters of aspen and willow saplings and small trees, as well as the bark of older trees. They have decimated the new growth of aspen. As a side effect of this, the beaver population in the park has crashed, since the same woods are also their primary food and the source of wood for their dams. This has led to the loss of beaver ponds and wetlands in the park, which were a rich ecosystem for birds and other small wildlife.

Part of the solution is the creation of elk exclosures (another part is culling, but that's a different topic). These fenced off areas have fencing with a gap underneath that allows small animals, even bears to get through and the the fences are low enough for the deer to jump over, but too tall for the elk. This allows the aspen and other plants to re-establish themselves. It also provides great habitat for birds. There were quite a few to be seen this morning. Ellen logged another eight, four of which were new for her.

After the bird walk, we decided to do a little auto-touring, going back up the road to the top and back, stopping at all of the viewpoints and looking for more birds. Supposedly there were Clark's Nutcrackers at Rainbow Curve and Ptarmigan near Tombstone Ridge on the Ute Trail. So, off we went. We stopped at the Rainbow Curve overlook on the way up and saw no Clark's Nutcrackers, although the park volunteers assured us that they come every day. We did see a pair of Red Crossbills, another new one for Ellen.

After a couple of stops to admire the views, we reached the Trail Ridge Visitor center at the top, where we weren't as out of breath and light-headed as on Sunday. There were yet more bicyclists who had climbed the over the pass, including a couple on a tandem that we had passed at one point on the way up, and a couple of women cyclists from Boulder who had been out on a week long tour and had just climbed from the west side on their way back to Boulder. One was pulling a BOB trailer. I know that well...pulling a BOB, not cycling over Milner Pass.

We headed back down, stoping at each overlook to admire the Rockies and scan for birds. When we reached the Ute Trail, we went searching for Ptarmigan. Ellen had recovered enough for a short hike through the tundra. We walked to the bottom of Tombstone Ridge, about a mile, and climbed a bit of it, but no Ptarmigan were to be seen. We did see Marmot on the ridge and a harem of about two dozen elk, guarded by a very jealous bull, in the flats of Forest Canyon below. There was a bit of bugling and chasing off of other young males. It was threatening rain as we climbed towards Tombstone Ridge, so we beat a retreat at that point and turned back to Speedy.

When we reached Rainbow Bend for the second time, we stopped again. The volunteers said they had seen the Nutcracker fly by, so we stayed for another look. The crossbills were still there, along with Steller's Jays and Dark-eyed Juncos, as well as chipmunks and ground squirrels, but no Clark's Nutcracker. The volunteers ended their shift and left.

About two minutes later the pair of Clark's Nutcrackers arrived, landing on the wall of the overlook, playing to the crowd, some of whom were more than willing to offer peanuts to the birds, who were more than willing to take the nuts right from the hand. Since feeding the animals is strictly forbidden in National Parks, it was if the Nutcrackers had been waiting for the park volunteers to leave, so they could take advantage of the weak morals of the crowd.

Another desirable bird for Ellen's list, one she had been looking to positively identify since Glacier, and off we went. After we got to the bottom of the road, we took a side trip out to the Alluvial Fan area. This is a large fan of debris and boulders at the base of Roaring River along the side of Horseshoe Park, where there was a flood in 1982 when a dam at Lawn Lake collapsed and dumped the lake into the river, flooding Horseshoe Park and Aspenglen campground, where two campers were killed, and flooding Estes Park under six feet of water. Roaring River is now a rocky cascade into its confluence with the Fall River. We'd hoped to see American Dippers, but no luck.

Back to the campground, just in time for dinner and to rest up for tomorrow and maybe a longer hike.