Mind The Moose (Springtime On Gibson Jack)

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What is it about moose in spring?  We call them “March Moose” around here.  I know.  That’s tremendously clever of us.  However, if you’ve ever run into a cow moose in the spring you probably know how insane they can be.  I ran into one tonight, while out gallivanting with the dogs on Gibson Jack (which is, to be sure, as pretty as anywhere — look at that wonderful view behind me in the above image!  Melt your heart and make your soul bones chatter).  That moose.  That moose!  Meeting her was a hot mess and I’m glad we all survived.  She charged me not once, not twice, but six times.  We were all pinned in place on a treed slope and I had to continuously howl at the dogs to get away from me and to run for the forest — ooh, she wanted to stomp them into smithereens.  She was growling at us!  Have you heard a moose growl?  It’s an unearthly sound.  Fortunately, I had a handful of stout fir trees around me and I ducked behind a trunk or two when she opened up her can of crazy, again and again and again.  She was close enough for me to pet a couple of times.  Finally, right before she charged me a seventh time, I had about enough and I charged HER.  I’m not joking, I really did.  The little girl in the woods in red corduroy pants waving her arms and hooting like a hyperventilating owl, that was me.  It was a purely reflexive response, not premeditated in any way so I am very glad the antic was successful.  I don’t recommend aggressively chasing a cow moose in springtime but I was going to be up there all night long and a dog was going to get squashed if I didn’t fight back and chase her off with my blond hair waving like medusa snakes in the breeze and my scrawny limbs spinning like windmills.  It was madness but it worked.  That moose took to the trees up slope of us, I hollered for the dogs to get on ahead of me, made sure we had Penelope and we galloped like heck down the mountain.  Back at the trailhead, we opted to head up the mountain on the trail opposite that dang blasted moose and boy howdy, it was one of those springtime nights that only Idaho knows how to do.  The birds were singing out their alleluias, the creek whistling show tunes, the aspen poofing with green fizz, and the grass turning shaggy beneath my feet.

Tater Tot found pheasant and they shot across the valley like rockets, cackling and streaming their tail feathers through the pink of dusk.

The balsam root is just starting to bloom here and patches of yellow grace the hillsides like sonnets woven with love ballads.  I would lay down and play “he loves me, he loves me not” with these simple yellow beauties but I know Robert loves me, I’m sure of it…and there’s the issue of ticks (get your dogs oiled up, people).  I still took my sweet old time photographing a few patches for you.  Balsam root is so merry and utterly irresistible.  A true harbinger of summer.

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It snowed this morning.  I stepped out of the house, first thing, to grab some cat food from the garage and noticed it was nippy out.  By the time I was back in the kitchen setting the kettle on the stove top, the sky opened up quietly and the flakes began their gentle descent.  It’s ridiculously beautiful here, as a result.  Fresh white caps on the mountains, conifer stands laced with the residue of the squall, the last of winter pressed up against the green turning and the green is radical, rule breaking, irrepressible in every way.  Spring is a sweet old badass that pushes on no matter what, a trooper bound to the no-nonsense orbit of our planet, bound to the laws of the universe!  Oh, she’s a stickler for the rules.

Onward, upward, forever the bloom, forever the sun, forever these long days trailing into the staccato of short nights. 
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Comments

  1. No way! I’ve just got back from a trip to Nimes and there was a stuffed moose in the natural history museum there…those things are fricking HUGE! I know how scared you were, not quite so dramatically but equally as terrifying my dog nearly got trampled by a bolting horse the other day.

    • Yes.
      They are VERY big.
      When they’re trying to trample you, they are unpleasantly big. It was terrifying.

      Oh yes. Horses who do not like dogs are a terror as well. Tater was trampled by six of my dad’s horses when he was a babe. I thought for sure he was a goner. But he just yelped a little and then got right back at exploring the Saskatchewan prairie!

      Thanks for being here, doll.

  2. Yowza, you wild moose chaser – Don’t mess with the plume!

    This post is making my heart burst, pining for those views!

    Much love

  3. A Moose! I’ve never come across one and surely hope I do not cross paths with a March Moose!

    Down here in my neck of the woods we have a mountain lion with 3 littles that runs the ridge behind my house. We also have a bear that tends to occasionally hop our fence and leave foot prints near our back door and a pile ‘o poo in the yard just to let us know he was around.

    I tell you this… on the occasional (rare) occasions that I skitter out after dark around here I’m always doing this funny little fast walk / hop / almost run but not really because I don’t want something to chase me / looking over my shoulder / scanning the trees / jig with the hair on the back of my neck and arms at full attention. Heaven forbid some innocent cotton tail come hopping out of the brush as I’m pretty sure I’d either morph into a air walking ninja or pass out on the spot! LOL

    • Ack! I am not a fan of the lions.
      They’re sneaky and they love to tear women up for some reasons…not a fan at all.

      I had to laugh at your description of night walking there! Ha ha ha!!! When we lived in Alaska in an unplumbed cabin our outhouse was located 100ft from the front door. I used to hate my bladder at night. 🙂

  4. Jillian!!! How freaky! Moose are crazy! I’ve never run into one, but they are plentiful in Maine and NH where we are planning on moving to soon (one or the other, not sure yet).
    Once when out in South Dakota, we were driving along in the height of tourist season near Custer State Park, and saw a ton of cars pulled off the road. We pulled over to see what was up and noticed a CROWD of people on the side of the road staring at a cow moose and her calf. One guy and his kid were advancing on them, about 30 feet off!! A local pulled over and screeched at them to “@#&$*%^! get the heck away!” I was embarrassed to be a tourist myself that day! Moose are crazy!!
    I can’t believe that tale! I can just see you going bonkers on that moose. I reached that level of do or die once when I was a kid trapped in a tree house by a bunch of neighborhood boys pelting it with crab apples and yelling. After being stuck and scared for a while, I sort of cracked and leaped out of the tree brandishing my pocket knife and screaming like a banshee! LOL! I don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t all run away from me! We all have our limit.
    (I must have drunk too much coffee this morning – I can’t stop typing. HA!)

    • Oh yes. They are, at times, quite loco, especially the cows. I never understand why people call themselves mama bears when referring to motherhood and their protective instincts. March Moose would be more appropriate!

      DO NOT APPROACH the cow moose. Not ever. 🙂

      And just guffawed until tea shot out my nose at your story of the rotten boys with their crab apples! Too funny! Love the idea of you brandishing your POCKET KNIFE!!! HA HA HA!!!!! Somedays it’s do or die, either way you go, no matter what you choose. 🙂
      X

  5. apparently you are a force to be reckoned with in more ways than one! goodness gracious, i’m glad you and the dogs are ok!
    please squeeze all of the snow out of your clouds and do not send them over here… i have officially packed up and moved into spring– the sunny and warmish parts of it, anyway. the horse pens are a lunar landscape since the deep muds and i just want to give them a chance to smooth out a bit.
    your balsam root photos have an ethereal quality to them, quite dreamy. another beautiful post.
    xx

  6. That’s quite a scary story! Glad you and the dogs are all okay. You are brave to charge the moose, but it worked! And your words are so lovely, Jillian. I’m amazed the aspen have leaves and the balsamroot is in bloom. Here in NW Montana, the aspens are in catkin stage and even the earliest Glacier lilies are weeks from blooming. Seven snow squalls yesterday!

    • Oh…I don’t think it was brave to charge that moose. I think it was crazy and a little instinctive but certainly not smart or brave. I really do not recommend it but I didn’t have another option at the time and I was very scared for the dogs. 🙂

      Isn’t it funny, all the different rates at which different areas creep into the seasons? I talked to my mum on the phone yesterday and she says that Saskatoon is JUST starting to come out of the deep freeze.

      Seven snow squalls yesterday! LUCKY you! They are SO wild and beautiful when they pass through.
      X

  7. I hope you had your you know what 😉
    And, yikes!
    I’m glad noone got stomped on.
    Snowing here this morning.
    Miss you lady, thinking about this summer’s riding.

  8. Good grief! I thought you carried a pistol on you though? I’m glad you’re all okay. Moose are a force to be respected, certainly.
    The green here is still a little shy, but coming along steadily. For now I am quite happy to squish and stomp in the mud!
    xx

    • I haven’t been carrying my Glock lately. This trail is actually pretty close to town and I don’t usually pack it when I know I’ll see other people on the trails. Even if I had it on this hike, I don’t think I would have pulled it on that moose…I carry it more for predators.

      OH!
      Shy green! I love that…so poetic.

  9. Elizabeth Waggoner says

    Holy Smokin’ Moose Chaser!!!! What an adventure! I remember the Spring Moose up in Moran (Wyoming) and they were some kind of fierce. I was lucky enough to live on a ranch there for a while and it used to drive the owner nuts when the moose would come to graze on the hay meant for the cows. It was both terrifying and hysterical to watch him chase them around the hay wagon and then run to the other side when they chased him back. In the end it was kind of a losing battle, but always entertaining. I think I still have pictures of the one that came up on the front porch of the wee cabin where we lived.
    Don’t you love the Balsam Root? I think they are so cheerful. I would pick them by the handfuls with Paintbrush and make these brilliant bouquets all over the house. And then the Columbine would bloom. I spent one gorgeous summer learning the names of all the wildflowers and blooming weeds that I could find. I don’t remember them all now – but it was a wonderful peaceful time. Can’t wait to get there this fall and hug a mountain again.

    • What’s worse than buying hay or seeing all the hard work that goes into cutting and baling a field be consumed by something other than your livestock? Sometimes farmers and ranchers have it hard. If the hail isn’t bringing down the wheat, the mule deer are into the hay bales.

      I have such a picture in my mind of that fellow chasing those moose with his rig! HA!

      I do love the balsam root. It makes spring feel…official.

  10. Elizabeth Waggoner says

    PS: Don’t you love watching the green chase the snow up the mountain slopes in the spring. ~~~~~sigh~~~~~

  11. Erin Gerge Halls says

    What? You didn’t ask her to pose for a photo?? Seriously, though, careful out there, Miss! I have a recurring dream in which I have to survive in our Northern Minnesota wilderness, after being trampled and knocked unconscious by a moose. I’ve had the dreams so many times, for so many years, I swear I *would* survive, and be master of such a fate, after all the scenarios that have played out in my slumber. But, alas, that most likely means I’ll meet my fate another way! Or maybe Moose has been incredibly patient with whatever message she is sending! Ha! Live to wander another day!

    • She wouldn’t give me a moment of peace to get my camera out! It was seriously unsafe! HA!!!

      That dream isn’t too far away from what could have been my reality last night. Except someone probably would have found my unconscious body this morning. 🙂

  12. that moose probably thought “holy coyote….this gal just opened her can of crazy!….i’m outta here!”

    [i would have done exactly the same thing.
    in fact, i *have* charged and hollered-off a moose, back in my sled-dog days.]

    stay wild and beautiful, dear friend!

  13. oh boy do i have ever know that feeling. one year a very aggressive moose got into a little bit of chicken feed. I pulled the feed into the house, but she could still smell it and proceeded to trap me in the house while she banged on the deck with her hoof. I tried setting off bear bangers (m80s), no reaction, i smacked her straight on the forehead with an empty five gallon water jug (no reaction except more growling), i was finally able to drive her and her calf away by throwing five pound free weights at them. that growling is such a freaky noise.

    • Crazy moose. CRAZY MOOSE!

      She probably could have used a rump full of Vitamin 9. Just saying.

      And I am glad you can attest to the freakiness of the moose growl. It’s a weird, demonic sort of sound, isn’t it? Ugh. I just shivered.

  14. I once chased a moose at a gallop on horseback. It was probably a stupid idea. But it was kind of exhilarating, and I felt like I was truly part of the land. Like maybe I was the horse? Or some other creature who is allowed to gallop with moose? It was kind of amazing. The poor moose probably did not think it was so amazing.

  15. Goodness girl! I encountered a darn moose when I was 5 months pregnant off of Portneuf in the Caribou Nat’l Forest. I had nothing w/ me because, like you, it was close enough to town and well traveled, or so I thought. Not my best moment on the trail. I can’t believe you charged her-teach her a thing or two about messing with a true wild thing. 🙂 Glad you are safe!

    On a separate note, my hubby is going to Pokey to bid adieu to his old boss (retirement) w/o me. Wah! I told him to bring me something “Idaho-ee” (yes, I made that up)…I don’t even care if it is a pine cone, just something.

    • I still cannot believe I charged her, either. Like I said, totally instincual…and I do feel lucky that the situation went in my favor. I would have made a wide loop around her but the dogs were going crazy and every time I moved, every time the dogs moved, she came after us. I was in a tight spot.

      Glad you and your embryo made it away safe!

      You should not have said “anything”. He will probably bring you a bag of potatoes from Fred Meyer! GUFFAW!

  16. I was up Gib Jack just last week, and had a similar encounter with a cow moose. We were hiking down the last switchbacks across the bridge just after dark and spooked her. She was just off the trail with a small calf. Oh man! She got on the trail, stood broadside, pinned her ear back, and put her head down. We backed up very slowly, and gave her space. Luckily, she didn’t charge us in the dark. We weren’t sure where he calf ended up, so we bushwhacked around them to the parking lot.

    • Sounds like the same moose. I might go up there tomorrow and post a note on the trail sign. I bet that cow gets pestered by people, dogs, and dirtbikes all day long. No wonder she is so strung out.

      Glad you guys made it away safe.

  17. Just wanted to say THANK YOU all for your moose stories! I just love this comment section to bits. X