The Fall Rut at Rocky Mountain National Park

Every fall up at the Rocky Mountain National Park at the end of September and early October is "the rut." What is the rut? I asked the same thing the first year I went. It's when the male bull elk mate for the season. They cover themselves in mud and urine and "bugle", or call for mates. They also have to run off any other males that want to compete with their females. There's usually a lot of females and one male. The males sometime die of exhaustion from being up so long and chasing away rival males. In the picture you can see the antlers of the lone male relaxing with his "harem." Rough, eh?

Another bonus this time of year are the beautiful colors. All of the aspen trees turn bright yellow. These photos just can't capture the real colors when you're up there looking at them in person. The three of us packed a lunch and hit the road Sunday and it turned out to be a perfect day. Clare really enjoyed our picnic lunch and she seemed pretty impressed by the elk too.

In a stand of aspen there were two bulls lying in the grass relaxing and you could literally walk right up to them. I kept a little distance though but managed to get a pretty good shot of one of the bulls. He saw me but didn't seem bothered by my presence at all. I didn't have a problem doing this but I would never think of doing this when there were females around. I've heard stories of people getting charged by males so I didn't want to do anything I'd regret. So, next year if of the Bailey-McLean-Blachowski-Jacobbson clan want to come up and see the elk, we always have room for you!