If I Were Going...: Moosecapade 2023

The Moosecapade goal

I have written before about Caty’s and my annual Moosecapade where we go to Rocky Mountain National Park looking for, primarily, mama and baby Moose to photograph.

Traditionally we go to the west side of the Park by Grand Lake because, up until now, Moose have been far more plentiful there. This year, however, we had about equal numbers on the east and west.

West side, east side

That’s probably because of two factors: as the population numbers have grown, Moose have expanded their territory, moving over the continental divide.

And, the Troublesome Creek fire devastated a lot of their food supply on the west side, probably speeding up the easterly expansion.

A bull in the burn area

Our 2023 trip was a bit later than we normally go, mainly driven by when we could get a campsite (and, thus facilitating our Memorial Day trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone). Then, after an exceptionally wet spring, the weather forecast for the weekend we went was so bad that we abandoned camping and rented a cute little house on a muddy road in Grand Lake. That was a good call; we did have rain.

Wet Moose

As far as Moosecapades go, this was a pretty lackluster one. We saw less Moose that usual and only had one really close-up encounter.

Moose calf

It was a good one and it was on the east side!

It was a mother and calf we had seen before but didn’t stop to photograph because they were very close to the road at a narrow part with no shoulders. There were people standing so close that we became “Park Karens” and told a Ranger that there was some bad tourist behavior going on. She rushed over and dispersed the crowd. At that point, we couldn’t very well stop.

The next morning the same Moose were farther back and we were able to get some nice shots.

Calf and cow at Beaver Ponds

The weather was iffy, but not as bad as predicted. But, on the final morning when we had planned to go east and putter around until time to drive back to Caty’s, snow and ice at high elevations closed Trail Ridge Road.

Swainson's Hawk on our way home

Not knowing how long we’d have to wait to cross over, we cut our losses and drove around the long way through Poudre Canyon to Fort Collins. That's 143 miles vs. 89, so it's a big commitment. Pretty, but longer.

It turns out that Trail Ridge Road did open later that afternoon, but we didn't want to risk getting stuck and having to drive back at night.

With the gray skies and bigger crowds where we did see Moose (the east always has more people), it was just kind of blah.