more Rocky Mountain

 

We spotted this large bull sitting in the woods just off the road. Actually we spotted a bunch of cars stopped so we stopped to see what they were looking at. Most of the time in the parks that's how you found any wildlife, just look for the traffic jam.

In addition to the wildlife, the scenery in the park is beautiful. The day we were there was overcast and rainy.

 

On our way back down Bear Lake Road we came across a small head of females plus this bull and watched them for a while. The females were all busy eating grass while this bull followed behind and herded them.

There are some iconic photos I've seen and always want to shoot myself and this is almost one of them. I was able to get the bull elk bugling however it was still summer and too warm so you can't see his breath which makes the iconic shot so amazing. It's definitely on my list to come back later in the year when it's cold and try again.

From Bear Lake Road we headed west on Trail Ridge Road. We didn't have all day so we only drove a small part of it. This is from the Many Parks curve overlook.

One of several wild turkeys we saw on our way out of the park. Since we were heading north once leaving the park we took 34 east through Big Thompson Canyon which was a really pretty drive.

We saw hundreds of wildlife/deer/whatever next x miles signs. It became something of a running joke because we never saw any wildlife after one of the signs, except this time. We came around a corner and had to stop for deer crossing the road. I snapped a photo thru the windshield (it's blurry because it was raining) and it was only later when I uploaded the photos and looked on my laptop I noticed the wildlife sign exactly where they were crossing. I thought Colorado deer must be really smart to follow the crossing signs until I looked closer and noticed the sign wasn't for deer but big horn sheep.