Cow moose on trail
Frenchy, Phishstick and I are climbing up this steep 'Mainers don't do switchback' ascent. Got my hat down on my forehead, watching the footsteps. I wrote Karen a note regarding our encounter:
Maine woods - there are a lot fewer people and a lot more moose. Moose tracks, moose mud, moose droppings - wandering along the trail with one's eyes glued to the ground three feet in front of you - to avoid tripping over that rock, this root, that mud. Suddenly you realize there are two very odd-looking saplings growing in the middle of the trail. Only, they aren't trees and between them flits (is that a word, flits? well, I'll pretend so) flits this tail. Kind of looks like a horse tail. Yes, it's horse-like. No blazes painted on either sapling - and way up there, past the saplings, past the flitting thing, well beyond the large brown/black boulder balanced upon them from which the flitting thing erupts, some distance up - is a head. Looks like a head, 'cause it is staring back at you, and mouth-like parts are into that chewing motion. About that time, while part of your brain is still solving the 'it's a large rock I've got to get around and I've lost my 3 mph pace' problem, a smaller part of your brain (the part I haven't had to use much since April) is saying something unintelligable - something akin to 'you're standing eye-level to the business end of a fully-armed moose and it knows you are there'. It's from this particular vantage point, staring at the rear end from arm's length away, that I've come to know Maine's largest mammal, twice. Did I mention the roots and mud?
Frenchy and Phishstick pull up right behind me. This is Phishstick's first moose, and he's wrestling with his camera. The cow stood by within feet of us as we passed, keeping to the trail. I count my blessings she didn't kick me back into New Hampshire.