This is what it sounds like when elks cry

Salt Lake City to Rocky Mountain National Park (10/5):

We woke to clear skies in Salt Lake and got to see for the first time the mountains that surround the city. Those suckers are huge! We crossed through the mountains in a semi-blizzard, stopping in Park City for breakfast where we saw from afar the ski jumps from the 2002 Olympics. We drove a LONG time through the non-varying landscape of Wyoming before making it to Rocky Mountain National Park after dark. It is currently elk mating season, and our campsite is in the middle of the prime area for this, so we heard a lot of elk "bugling" as it is called, which sounds kind of like a warbling moan if moans were high-pitched. It's a nice sound, though probably will not make it to any white noise machines anytime soon. The campsite is at 8,500 feet, and as mentioned before, I've discovered that I start feeling the effects of altitude at embarrassingly low levels (like 7500 feet), so I'm a bit out of breath.

This is what our drive looked like for several hours until it just became several hours of yellow/green fields (notice the wind turbines!):


-M