I haven't been getting out into the woods as much as I'd like to. It used to be that almost every weekend I'd spend one day wandering around looking at things. Last Sunday I had the opportunity and I took it.
Warning; The following contains some photos of scat (poo poo) and dead animals. If you are traumatized by seeing either of these things don't read below the fold.
Snow is only in the most shady northern exposures at 8,600 feet. I wanted to go to a place I used to check out using only my topo maps. One has to be careful what with private land and county land and National Forest. All have different rules. I now have a GPS with a land designation overlay.
There are no signs indicating borders. Old barbed wire is very arbitrary and can be anywhere, usually it only signifies a place back when the area was ranched or horse pasture that someone didn't want their animals straying beyond. In no way are barbed wire fences property lines. They only serve to entangle wildlife now anyway. Mostly they are more on the ground than in the air.
Driving up I spotted what I was looking for.
Grazers.
I like looking at elk. Maybe I enjoy it more than many, but seen from the road doesn't count. The elk are habituated to the road and cars. The area I was hiking in has a few of the rare meadows in this part of the mountains, the place the elk are grazing in the photo is perhaps the lushest grass for miles. Notice the buds coming out on the aspen?
To get to where I wanted to go I had to hike way around private land by starting at a forest service access trail. The trail is really an old road now gated off and never used. As usual on trails mostly I saw humans and signs of humans. Bike tracks, little bags of dog shit. Usually when taking my kids hiking we walk at 90 degrees to the trail until we are far enough away not to be seen. Trails are loud and sandy, hard to see tracks or walk quietly.
This time I took the trail, it offers a quick way to cover a mile back close to where I wanted to be. I heard loud voices and stepped to the side of the trail. Three bikers rode past talking about someone who wasn't present and the degrees he and his wife had and their job prospects. They didn't see me until they were almost on me. Helmets, sunglasses, cycling uniforms. Cat food.
I carry bear spray. Recently I commented about how timid black bears are, even moms with cubs, which though true, it would be just my luck to be hassled by some to early out of hibernation old boar. Besides the spray I'd nothing that could be called a weapon, not even my usual swiss army knife. When my kids are along one of them carries a 243, not exactly bear medicine but it will do.
The woods I walk in has an overabundance of habituated bears and cats. I see trail cam photos online all the time of the wildlife, some large bears and cats.
I saw no recent tracks of wildlife at all, and hardly any scat. A noticeable dearth of deer tracks.
Above coyote or fox or something scat on the sandy trail.
More below, it gets better.
At the end of the road I started to see more sign, mostly old.
Above moose scat at least a quarter mile from any water.
Above fresh seeming elk scatt, maybe just wet from the rain. I call them nuggets.
As I cut down the hill and out onto a bench half way I heard incessant barking from across the small valley. I don't remember any houses that close by. At the edge of the bench where I could see through the trees I spotted some people and some dogs out walking. Photo is taken at 45X so it's more than a little blurry. They are probably more than a half mile away.
Watching them through the binoculars it appears there were two different parties of people and the dogs were barking at each other. I think the people were from nearby houses on private land. Otherwise they'd of had to hike up out of Boulder Canyon through heavy deadfall and steep terrain.
I still saw very little recent sign of any animals as I headed down through lodgepole to the flat part of a meadow. I've always seen lots of sign of elk bedding up in the winter, but nothing this time. There has been a lot of rain, hard rain, only the most recent tracks would have lasted, the rest washed away.
Out on the meadow I saw a raven fussing at something over a small rise.
Dead elk.
Notice the horns? Those aren't cut off, they have hair growing over the buttons. That elk died just after it's antlers dropped a month or so ago.
I'm more used to looking at elk carcasses from human predation so that's what I kept looking for here. The legs were all there, no one took the quarters. I didn't get it. There were a couple of guys who just shot elk for fun, and they used to shoot them around here, but they were reported, and busted. Why didn't a bear drag it into the woods? Why hadn't the coyotes and ravens picked it to the bone?
Over on the other side I began to get the idea.
There was a hole three ribs wide. The hair was off to the side away from the carcass. The still intact guts from the stomach and below were drug mostly out of the carcass. Cat. First the cat cuts the hair off the chest cavity using it's front teeth to clip just like a barber, then it eats through a couple ribs to get at the chest, then eats the chest. Heart, lungs, liver, and all the fat surrounding them. On a full grown elk such as this one, those three organs plus surrounding tissue adds up to well more than 25 lbs of the most nutritious parts of the elk. Finally the cat drags the digestive tract free of the carcass to keep the strong acids from spoiling the meat.
The neck was bent backwards at what seemed an unnatural angle. I've heard some cats break the necks of deer by bending them backwards, could this have happened here? On a mature bull elk?
The hike back to the car was more of a slog, uphill for a good ways, hard sleet then rain, then the sun again. Turning around the clouds parted enough for a view of the divide. Still lots of snow.
Sometimes it's good to take a look at what is everyday scenery and appreciate it.
On the way out I stopped to take a look at the elk I'd seen in the meadow.
See how pregnant the cow is? Won't be long now. Maybe 2 or 3 weeks. That calf inside of the cow will be hunted by coyotes, and bears until it's old enough at a couple or three weeks of age to run away. It will spend it's life fearful of the cat.