Daniel's favorite place to hike is to Emmaline Lake up in Pingrey Park. The trail is about 7 miles to the lake. He brought me up there about a month and a half ago and it was gorgeous! On our hike, Cirque Meadows is a little over an hour on the trail and there are camping places here. Daniel expressed a strong desire to bike up to these meadows and camp. I loved the idea and asked to come along! I would drive and we would try and time it so we would get there at around the same time. Hmmm....
So, Daniel left yesterday (Oct 4th) at 12:15 pm. He sent me a text at 1:47 pm that he was at the top of the three-tier-climb (a 3-tiered 12% grade climb in Buckhorn Canyon). I left the house at 2:15. I passed Daniel on the Buckhorn road at about 3 pm and made it to the trailhead at 4:15. I am thinking I took off at about 4:20ish.
Daniel let me borrow his backpack which had a tent, sleeping bag, hammock, first aid kit, food, water, and a few clothes for our trek. It was a little heavy and not really meant for me but I made it to Cirque Meadows just before 5:30. I set down the pack, stretched out my pack, had a mini snack and walked around just a bit to see if Daniel was coming. I saw no sign of him (Hindsight: I think he was about 2 hours behind me!). So, I made my way back and took a short video at 5:29.
After filming for you all, I decided to pull out the tent and see if I could get started on setting it up. I pulled it out and set it on the ground when I heard at first a barking sound, then realized it was a deep grunting sound and thought, "Oh crap, MOOSE!" I attempted to keep calm and thought, "What do I do?" and ran for some nearby bushes and hunkered down as he was coming straight for our campsight! I could hear him coming as he was grunting and he was about 3 or 4 yards from me as he wandered into the bushes, kindof circled around and wandered farther away around the meadow. When he wandered around me at about 3 or 4 yards away, I could see the top of his head and his antlers. He seemed younger, maybe around a year as his antlers weren't ginormous and he seemed not as tall as moose can get. I stayed hunkered down and gave a huge sigh of relief as he wandered away. I think I had remembered someone saying that moose cannot see that well and was praying and hoping that was true!
After a few minutes of wondering if he would come back, I stood up and stretched and thought about returning to camp when I heard his deep grunting again and heard him coming closer! I thought, "he's coming back!" So, I stayed hunkered down. He didn't come as close this time but circled around the meadow and was brushing the brush with his antlers and grunting. He wandered away again and I thought, "What do I do?" and "I think I need to get out of here!" So, as I listened and heard him way far off, I slowly and as quiet as possible, crawled out, ran up to our campsite, grabbed my jacket and water bottle to stuff into the pack, grabbed Daniel's tent and poles that were on the ground, threw the backpack on without closing the top and with the tent in my arms, quickly hiked out of that campground and back down to the trailhead.
At first, I was thinking Daniel will be so bummed that he won't be able to make it all the way to Cirque Meadows and camp there. But then, I thought there was NO WAY I was going to camp with a moose in the area! I figured Daniel wouldn't want to either. I met him about 40ish minutes down the trail and told him what happened. At that point, I felt safe enough to put down the pack and re-pack the tent inside and close the top. Daniel was in full agreement that he did not want to camp with moose! Ha! It took him longer than he at first had calculated to bike the distance he did as he was carrying all of his camping gear on his bike. He got off and walked with me back to the trailhead. There is a campground by the trailhead so we decided that we would camp there instead. Much safer! And, no moose!
And similar to our childhood, it was dark when we got to the campsite which meant we put out tents jup in the dark. I have memories of camping with my family where we arrived at the campground at dusk and set up our camp pretty much as the sun was going down then ate spagghettios that dad had cooked on the campstove. All in the dark!
However, it does get cold at night when the sun slips behind the mountains and I was COLD in my little yellow tent. I was cold even before I got in! I was borrowing Daniel's sleeping bag which was great for temps down to 35, but it was around 28 F and I could not get warm. So, at about midnight, I pulled out the sleeping bag and mat and crawled into the back of the car. I was stil chilled but warmer than in the tent. Of course, when the sun came up, everything warmed up significantly! This time of year, warm clothes are nice in the morning, then in the middle of the day, t-shirt and shorts are perfect as it gets hot, then in the evening, it cools off again and in the mountians, it gets cold when the sun sets.
Behind the table is a bear box where one puts all of their food in case of bears. Thankfully, there were no bears. :)
We sat around and read a lot today which was lovely! Daniel was reading a book about different minority groups emmigrating to the US and he was enjoying a nice shady spot.
I however, wanted to soak up as much sun as possible! So, I sat at a sunny picnic table and had some hot tea!! I had a lot of warming up to do!!
I also wandered around a bit and wading in the stream that was behind our campsite.
Daniel checked his work status and decided he would stay for another night while I was not keen on being cold again since the sleeping bag I was borrowing was not warm enough for the temps. So, I left at about 3:30 today and Daniel was getting ready for a ride up to Cirque Meadows and a little farther beyond. He plans to pack up and ride home tomorrow. We shall see if he has any unplanned adventures!
What an adventure!
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