Moose are one of my favorite animals to see in the wild. The one thing I always tell people about them - they are WAY bigger than you think they are.
A time their incredible size stands out to me is when I was camping along the river in Montana. If memory serves, I was heading to the Tendoy Lake Trail in the morning, so I couldn't have been far from there. It was late in the year so the leaves were all turned, there was snow falling in the high country, and the nights were brisk. In other words- my dog and I were the lone campers in this particular dispersed spot.
I had already had my dinner for the evening, and the sun had been down for hours. I was reading Thoreau by fire light enjoying some local whiskey- from Willie's Distillery. My dog was curled up at my feet in her dog bed, bundled in blankets. As a solo female hiker, I have a ritual of doing a scan with my headlamp every so often...just to be safe.
Well my heart about fell out of my body when on one of these scans, I was met with what looked like 4 dim lights. Lights that were getting closer. "What the H-E-double hockey sticks is that?" These couldn't be people, the small bulbs of luminescence coming towards me were simply TOO FAR off the ground. I honestly couldn't make sense of it for what felt like a long time. I'm sure it was only seconds, but it was long enough to be unnerving.
The moment I realized what it was, I slowly and quietly got to my feet, scooped up my dog, and put her in the bed of my 4-Runner. There weren't 4 bulbs, there were 6. And they weren't lights. They were eyes. It was a female cow and her two calves. They were coming right into my campsite, and they didn't care a lick that I was sitting there with a dog and campfire. I backed against my vehicle, so that I could hop in in a moment if mama got mad that I was so close to her little ones. I watched silently as the trio made their way into the river that my site butted up against. They took their time, near the water's edge, still in my very near vicinity, for quite awhile before crossing.
It was such an awesome moment, but at the same time, I was left with the same amount of utter astonishment that I felt every other time I've ever seen moose with my own eyes. Those things aren't mammals- they're dinosaurs! However big you think they are, they're bigger. Even knowing that, their height seemed extraordinary as they made their way into the ring of light my campfire threw off.
Has anyone else had similar experiences running into moose in the wild? I can't be the only one whose jaw drops every time I lay eyes on these giant forest dwellers!
The closest I've seen one was on the highway. You see moose crossing signs and think, "whatever, what are the odds I'll see one?" and then one day bam! It's like there is an elephant in the road and you can't believe what you're seeing!
Just as fast as it appeared it walked off into the darkness. If I didn't know it was a moose, I could have easily mistaken it for bigfoot!