Our most successful hunting ground in the past has been Maligne Lake road. It's always been better in the mornings, but we thought we'd give it a shot. Not a thing. Not even an elk. There was lots of traffic, so no surprises there. We did see a few pikas (above) at Medicine Lake.
Our second plan was to head along the highway toward Hinton. We got as far as the Miette Hot Springs road having seen nothing so we turned around & headed back to Jasper. About half way back we found a mob of Rocky Mountain Sheep (above). They're no smarter than your garden variety domestic sheep & have no road sense what so ever.
Right on sunset the scenery took on a different look including the rise of the full moon.
Just as we'd about given in on seeing any more animals, we spotted a huge bull elk (below) at the side of the road. For the uninitiated, a good sized trophy elk has at least 6 points on each of his antlers (i.e. a 6 point buck). This guy has 7.
He wasn't alone. Just along the road a bit on the edge of town there were six bulls of varying sizes chasing a herdof about 20 females. A park ranger was trying to scare them away from the township to avoid conflict with people during the rut. He was using rubber bullets to scare off the more stubborn ones. One "member of the public" wearing a white shirt got out of his car & started yelling at the ranger to leave the elk alone. He was about as smart as the sheep. Bull elk are incedibly hostile during the rut & wandering around in a herd with a white shirt is asking for trouble. The ranger was not impressed & while they were arguing, one of the bulls made a charge at the man in the white shirt. The ranger waved off the elk just in time. Shawn & Rob were egging the ranger on to shoot the guy with the rubber bullets. He'd shut up & get back in his car then we thought.....
