Polygamist Elk

WC and I went up to Estes Park this weekend for a little 24 hour getaway. It's been a rough month/summer with work and I wanted a quiet little reminder of what nature feels like.

When I brought it up to WC, I said "I want to go to Estes Park and snuggle and sit in a hot tub. I mean, aren't the elk fighting right now? Let's go see dude elk fight over lady elk. Plus, we can find a hotel with a hot tub."

He was in.


We drove through the city of Estes Park which was teeming with tourists due to some beer festival and WC jokingly pointed at a giant bronze status of an elk and shouted "ELK!"

I startled because someone shouted, and then calmly pointed out the real elk munching away on the other side of the road.

 Lesson #1? Don't fuck with me.

I've lived in Colorado a long time, and I know that most of our wild animals do not actually WANT to be seen... at least not the ones you want to see. Snakes seem to have little shame and lizards are happy to jump out in front of you while you're hiking and cause you to shriek as if it were a mountain lion. Don't even get me started about that time I thought I saw a bear, but it was just a cow.

Shut up.

Anyway, my expectations were low for further animal sightings, but were high for beautiful fall views. Nature did not disappoint.

But then nature delivered the unexpected. Me, shrieking like a lizard had just jumped out at me: "LOOK!"

And then: 

The guy above had just chased off another man elk (WC: "It's called a buck") who was sniffing around his ladies. The ladies were herded by this alpha motherfucker over the ridge so you couldn't see them anymore. We watched for awhile, but eventually a dumb tourist with an elk-call started to piss me off, so we left.

We drove on. 

Me (pointing to the right): More elk!

WC: Those are cows

Me (confused): Like moo cows? 

WC: (Laughing...like a jerk)

Me: Is this like when I thought I saw a bear, but it was a cow? 

WC: No, that's what you call female elk: cows.

Me: I bet they don't like that at all.... Why didn't we stop to look at the lady elk like we did the men? 

WC: Because... um... 

Me: Because you're elk-sexist. First you call them cows and then you don't even give them tourist love. This is elk-misogyny. 

WC: I'm in trouble, aren't I?

Me: We're furious. 

Giving my lady elk some paparazzi lovin'. 

Me: Look! Another team of elk! 

WC: Team? 

Me: Group? Platoon? Gang? 

WC: Herd

Me: Heard what? I didn't hear anything. Looks like a good team to me. 

Here's the alpha scolding his posse of broads.

A bunch of lady elk butts. Totally not cows at all.
No elk-shaming here.

"Bitches... I'm watching you..."

Me: So, every time we see a team of elk, there's 1 dude and like 6-20 ladies. Are there just more males born than females? 

WC: No, they're out there. 

Me: Where? Why don't they want the paparazzi all over them like these assholes? 

WC: I don't know. Stop asking so many questions and just enjoy what we're seeing. 

Me: Psh... always trying to keep us women down....Elk patriarchy and shit... 

Here's the only video I have where I'm not cussing in the background. (I have no idea why elk make me cuss like a sailor, but I'm sure it's due to feminism or something.) You can hear the man elk bugle and the lady elk making weird cat noises and then him LITERALLY chasing tail. 

We then had dinner at The Stanley Hotel which was Stephen King's inspiration for The Shining. The kitchen must have been haunted by terrible chefs because the $30 entrees were scary bad. If you go, I recommend drinking heavily and having the french fries. Those were awesome.

Please join me in making the world aware of the forced polygamy of the the elkish lifestyle. These so called "alpha males" fight off the younger, weaker males and then force the women to mate with them when they're in heat and are truly just looking for some man, any man, to mate with them. Terrible.