Snowy Elk Adventure

We just got home from quite the morning. We were up very early today to travel up to Jewel Meadows Wildlife Refuge to go and feed the elk! The drive was a little nerve racking for me, but enjoyable. The snow everywhere was beautiful. Grandpa Allen rode with us and the boys. Chase and James knew something was up and stayed awake the whole drive up, even though I told them to go back to sleep cause it was a long drive. We got there at about 8 am and could easily see the large herd of cows and calf's and then the bachelors off kinda by themselves. The elk knew it was feeding time and were patiently waiting for the wagon of hay. It was absolutely gorgeous!
We got all bundled up and waited for the rest of the crew, the volunteer ODF&W guy brought around the tractor and wagon with hay, and we all boarded the wagon. James and Chase of course thought that it was really cool! They took us a little ways down the road and into the field. We got to throw out flakes of alfalfa and the elk came right up to start eating. It was great being surrounded by so many magnificent animals! There were over one hundred head, from about three different herds that had all come together. Once we fed out all the hay, we turned around and parked to take pictures and watch them feed. I got some great video of males sparing and females bickering(over food). The calves were mewing to their mamma's and one large baby was lucky and still got to have some milk from mamma! It looked so funny, the calf was almost as big as the cow! James and Chase started to get cold, they just don't make warm enough foot wear for kids... James serinaded the whole valley, the elk listened to the strange sound. All in all it was a great time. So here are some pics... Oh, yeah, we even saw a coyote. What an awesome experiance!