Elk in the Way!

Everyone dreams of seeing an elk buck sporting a large rack of antlers. Or, maybe they dream of seeing a mother nursing her offspring. It is even possible that they wish to see a massive herd of elk roaming the valleys of Yellowstone. No matter what you wish when it comes to elk, if you see them, the will most likely be IN THE WAY!!!

Now, don't get me wrong, I like elk. An elk in a river always makes it much more picturesque (see photo above). The thing about elk is that they always seem to be causing some sort of traffic jam or they are blocking the path you need to take. My tone might sound as though this makes me angry. Actually, I find it quite amusing!!!

Here are some interesting situations I have encountered where elk were in the way:

• In the summer of 1998, a large truck almost plowed into me coming out of the Upper Terrace Loop Drive in order to get the best spot at seeing a buck.
• In the summer of 1999, a herd of elk took over the to the Upper Terraces at Mammoth. This made it nearly impossible to use the Upper Terrace Loop because it had become a parking lot. While navigating through the Loop, a doe and her offspring nearly ran into the side of my car!!!
• On the same day as above, I was returning to Old Faithful from mammoth and ran into a traffic jam right before Madison. The funny thing was, I could see the beginning of the traffic jam, but couldn't tell why the front car was stopped. I watched as one by one, the front car stopped for a few moments and then took off. Finally, my chance to be the front car came. There, on the side of the road were two bucks (one sitting, one standing) each with the biggest set of antlers I had ever seen!! The way that they were sitting there so nonchalantly made me think that if they were human, they would be having a beer!!
• Yet again, on the same day, I was sitting in front of the Lower Hamilton Store, watching the sunset, and enjoying a nice cold bottle of Black Star Lager. All of a sudden, an entire herd of elk came running past the store and up onto the small area of grass at the head of the Old Faithful Inn parking lot. That's right!! The whole herd squeezed itself into that one small area of grass. After a few minutes, rangers came along to control traffic and the herd finally found the courage to venture out into the field. What a mess that created for awhile!! (Note: The whole time this was going on, a George (see Bison section) was chewing grass in the trees across from the Hamilton Store completely ignoring the fiasco!!)

I thought that it was quite funny that three times in one day I saw elk cause such a rukus!!