Today I walked out of my house, heading to work, and was so surprised I nearly leapt out of my snow boots. Standing right in front of me was a full grown female moose, wandering through and nibbling on the trees in the yard! Moments like this remind me so much of living on the Ranch, where all you have to do is step outside to get some up close encounters with some of the local wildlife (and I don’t just mean the wranglers).
All summer, we saw bighorn sheep roaming on Flag Mountain, mountain goats grazing in the high meadows, a local fox who made friends with the kitchen staff, and we had a single cougar sighting, high above treeline on our overnight pack trip. Yet, when I saw the moose in my yard, it was like the world paused for a moment, completely still and quiet in the snow. I had never seen a moose so close before, and I stared at it. It was huge, taller than I had imagined, with thick, warm fur covering its bony hips, leading down to spindly legs. (Sorry, no pictures of this moose- I was a little too surprised to pull out the camera.)
As I am experiencing winter in the Rockies for the first time, I am realizing that it is just as incredible as summer, but in different ways. In the summer, I love spending time outside, hiking, kayaking, and camping. In the winter, these favorite pastimes are slowly being replaced by snowshoeing, moonlit cross country skiing, and ice skating on the ponds nearby. The mountains that I love seeing soaked in sunshine in the summer I am now enjoying seeing outlined with snow on every ridge. The first big snowfall was a exciting for me as my first springtime hike will be! The more time I spend in the mountains, the more I enjoy them. And with that, I’ll end with a quote from one of my favorite mountain writers and explorers, John Muir:
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity…
