Another Wild Adventure

So me and G (ok, his name is Garrett, and yes, we are officially "dating seriously") both love to try new things, especially when it comes to outdoor fun. We decided to go cross-country skiing last Wednesday up Millcreek Canyon outside of Salt Lake. It had just snowed in the mountains and it snowed on us the whole way up the canyon. It was a little more difficult than I remembered from when I did it last--at 5 years old! It was pretty easy trekking up the steady sloping hill, and we went a little over 3 miles up the canyon. But when it came time to come back down, haha I SUCKED! I couldn't get "the wedge" down to a stop and fell about 5 times, haha. Not to mention the trail wasn't in the best cross-country skiing condition... But it was super fun and I want to continue to do it. Just takes practice, right?

On the way down, we were about a mile from the car, when the trail got thick with trees ahead and there was a curve. As we approached the curve we were both kind of looking down at our skis, and in a moment, we looked ahead and saw two huge dark figures with big antlers the size of a dining room chair. They were two BULL MOOSE!!! Oh my gosh. I had never seen bull moose before, and to see them this close (about 40 yards) was a little unnerving!! We both saw them at the same time and were just in shock and stood there looking at them. We were on skis so couldn't exactly move away fast without going TOWARD them down the hill. We saw they were getting nervous (other skiers were coming UP the trail, cornering them, so they had to either go up or go down, and we figured they'd go up, toward us, because the people down had a dog barking at them). They were even butting their antlers together. My survival mode kicked in, as I remembered the stories of people getting attacked by these massive animals (they were about as big as draft horses (about 1,000 pounds)) and knew it was best to not stand there staring and to turn around and move away from them. So we awkwardly turned around with our skis on (it seriously takes like 10 minutes to turn around in those things) and starting trekking back up the hill. We kept looking back to see what they were up to, and noticed they certainly seemed less nervous when we we moving away from them. But they did start walking up the trail in our direction. We ditched the skis and jumped into the thick of the woods off the trail and crouched down to watch them. They crossed the creek away from us and headed up the slope, and that's when I got this picture of one of them (sorry for the poor quality, it was my little point-and-shoot!).

We were thankful they left the trail, but when we got back on the trail and joined the people that had come up the trail, we watched them and could tell they really wanted back on the trail where we were. So after watching them in awe for a few more minutes, we started moving back down the trail and were back to falling and sliding all over the place (ok so just me, although G did fall a couple times, much to my amusement). Of course after my laughter subsided, he pushed me into a pile of snow, and thankfully the car was in sight, because I was laughing so hard and was so sore from falling that I probably would have just walked the rest of the way down, ha!

We had a good time, and will always remember the two huge bull moose that caught us by surprise.