Three great elk shots from Colorado
Stacy Wiltshire sent in these shots from a recent trip to Colorado, where she was camping at Estes Park with her husband and son. Below are her descriptions of the shots.
“We were all very excited with all the wildlife encounters we experienced and I wanted to share our ‘trophy’ shots with your readers. For anyone who’s never been to see the Rocky Mountains, I strongly recommend it. If you can camp there, even better.
The first picture is an elk sleeping in a creek that drained into the trout pond in our campground. I took this picture from the car with my husband’s Panasonic Lumix 12.1 megapixel digital camera. The elk never moved from his nap until later in the evening. This one was funny because there was a lady on the other side of campground entrance road fishing in the trout pond not even 200 feet away from this guy and she didn’t know he was there.
The next picture is of the “alarm clock” for the last morning there. Notice the guy coming out of his RV. The elk had been bumping his horns on the back of their RV five minutes earlier trying to get the grass from underneath.
The final shot is in Rocky Mountain National Park above the timberline. There was a huge herd of elk crossing the road as we were coming back down the eastern side of the mountains so we stopped at the overlook and started taking “digital shots” at them. The bottom two pictures were both taken with my Fuji Finepix E900 9.0 Megapixel digital camera.
Outside of the lens, we saw a coyote, a fox, three huge mountain owls, elk by the dozens, big horn sheep, a bear running through town, moose, and four cute little ground squirrels that my son had a wonderful time feeding sunflower seeds to. We had a great time in Colorado and very much look forward to another camping trip out west.”
September 9, 2010 - 1:06 PM
Great photos. Tropy shots don’t have to involved a proud hunter holding horns in the background, but I would be fine saying cheese next to any of these fine wapiti.
great pictures, thanks for sharing. I can remember driving through Yellowstone with my dad in 1989 right at daybreak and seeing folks emerge from their campers to see elk all over the place.
The way Trophy Shots should be pictured indeed!
Dewey,
I am very much looking forward to a Yellowstone trip someday. We would like to do a trip to the Grand Canyon as well before our son grows into “being too cool” to hang with his dorky camping parents. We did get a preview of the Grand Canyon by making a side trip to Palo Duro Canyon 30 minutes outside of Amarillo, TX. It was awesome and another adventure I would recommend for those that seek the “out of the norm” tourist attractions. My upbringing on a dairy farm in southwest VA has always been near and dear to my heart and I’m doing my best due diligence in instilling respect and compassion for all creatures and appreciation for the outdoors into my son’s values. Thank God for visionaries such as John Muir who helped pave the way for conservation of some of our most beautiful natural resources for us to enjoy.
Now back to my search for jobs for my husband and I in Colorado.
Awesome pictures, thank you for sharing. Makes me excited about the program to re-introduce Elk here in SWVA. For those not aware, you can also see similar elk in Great Smoky Mountain National park. We captured some similar “Trophy” shots this spring although the elk were antler-less in the spring.
Stacie,
We were on our way back from an elk hunting trip in Idaho and only got to spend one day in Yellowstone but I would love to be able to take my wife and kids there some day. We were there about a year after one of the large fires but the place was beautiful. Best wishes on the job search!!
Great pics and must have been a great experience. Hmmmm, if I ever want to hunt Elk in Colorado, I’m going to be sure to camp in one of these big RVs…. Sounds like you guys saw a lot of different critters out there!