Mudge's Musings: Critters in Colorado

In early August we managed a quick trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Our favorite campground is Glacier Basin and here are the reasons why:

The views are great.
It is very convenient to the free shuttle bus system. The one bus stop in the campground was right at our loop! The Park and Ride is a 10 minute walk if you miss the bus.
A couple of trails begin/end at or near the campground.
It is the closest campground to the wonderful Bear Lake and Glacier Gorge trailheads.
It has two loops of 'first come, first served' campsites. Monday through Tuesday that works great!
While much of the campground lost its trees due to beetle kill, the two loops described above have some of their trees. They get inoculated every spring at a cost of $1000 each.
Remember those views?

While the Bear Lake and Glacier Gorge trails are wonderful, they are very busy and not where you expect to see any wildlife except those fat, aggressive, tourist-fed chipmunks. Imagine our surprise when we saw three elk, all within about 10 minutes in the very busy mid-afternoon!

Okay, a bit of camouflage....

I never managed to get the antlers... just the rear view!

About a mile away from Glacier Basin is a day area at Sprague Lake. This is lake is VERY shallow and it is common to see fisher-people standing knee deep out in the middle! While attending the evening ranger talk on coyotes, we were told that several moose were frequenting Sprague Lake and a bull had been there earlier in the evening. So the next evening we skipped the ranger talk and headed to Sprague Lake. (Well, we went earlier too but no moose.) There he was, oblivious to camera flashes and tourists walking by him on three sides. He just kept on slurping up the slimy stuff from the lake bottom.

Slurp, slurp.

Something caught my eye off to the right! It looked like a muskrat. Quick! Change to zoom back to normal and snap! Amazingly, I got both the moose and the muskrat in the same shot. If I'd been a bit faster with the zoom, the grass and leaves wouldn't have interfered but I still like it!