I scared the rabbit away again. About 15 minutes later, I'm not kidding, the rabbit jumped onto the corner of the tarp just above my head. I thought rabbits were these little scared animals who ran from everything.
Finally about 4:30am, since I couldn't sleep, I decided to wake up and eat some breakfast. I aired out my sleeping bag, brushed my teeth, etc. Once I packed up everything inside, I got out of my tent a little after 5am. The sky was just starting to turn blue but it was still pretty dark. As I was pulling up the tent pegs, I noticed this "large animal" in the meadow about 50 feet away from my tent. In the twilight, it kind of looked like a cow. I hadn't seen cow patties on this part of Segment 6 like I had during the first 5 miles but it wasn't completely crazy to see a cow while backpacking. I packed away my tent, then put on my fanny pack and RikSak.
As I started to exit the meadow, going around the 'cow', I started to realize that this animal was bigger than a cow. I was thinking, "what is a horse doing here?" Now that would be unusual! The weirdest thing, the "large animal" started walking over to me, kind of like a horse might. But when it got about 15 feet away from me, I noticed that this wasn't a horse, this was a MOOSE!! In an instant, I remembered that males sometimes charge people. This one didn't have big antlers, but I didn't have any desire to touch a moose. I remembered rounding up cattle at my parent's house in Missouri, waving our arms to keep them from coming our way so I started waving my arms with my trekking poles. It worked and the moose ran back about 35-40 feet. I quickly moved toward the trail and when I looked back, the moose was still following me. I swung around and waved my arms. This time, it stopped and didn't follow after I made it up onto the trail. I was too startled to take a picture and it probably wouldn't have turned out any way. I've since looked through pictures of moose and elk to make sure I wasn't mistaken. It definitely had the weird shaped body of a moose. Definitely the most exciting backpacking trip I've ever had!
I hiked the remaining 7 to 7 1/2 miles and got to my car by 8:15am.
Wow Jim!! I was on the edge of my seat reading your post. I was afraid you were going to say it was a bear! Exciting stuff :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I love how it actually unfolded piece by piece in real life. Before I thought cow, I wondered bear but it was clearly eating the grass. I've never seen a moose in person, much less be 15 feet away from it.
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