A Visit to North Park, Looking for Moose

On Monday, we hitched up the RV and headed for the redundantly named State Forest State Park. We stopped at the Moose Visitor Center and asked where to see moose. We had booked a very nice campsite looking out over North Michigan Reservoir, with a great view of the mountains. The campground is full of hunters with their off-road vehicles; we even saw one group with a small chest freezer on a trailer. We took a short hike to the other side of the lake. We drove around in the evening, all the way to Walden, hoping to see a moose, no luck. We did see a unique storm cloud, lit by the sunset. Richard had lived in Colorado forty years, and never seen a moose, even though he often visited this area.

North park, Jackson County, has only one town, Walden, population about 800. The valley or park is surrounded by mountains; the valley is mostly sagebrush, although there are wetlands, lakes, and Arapahoe National Wildlife Refuge. The primary businesses appear to be large cattle ranches, fishing and hunting. It is officially the moose capital of Colorado.

Cabin seen on hike

Tuesday, we stopped at the Yurt business, and met Suze, a local character. We learned that the yurts have outhouses and no running water. We started at the visitor center, and hiked five miles round trip in the direction of Ranger Lakes. We continued to look for moose. The occasional rain helped us decide to turn around, and we made it back to the car without getting too wet. We had lunch at the River Rock Cafe in Walden, which was full of hunters. After lunch, we visited the Pioneer Museum, which is a large museum full of donated objects of all kinds, including the projectors from the movie theater, now defunct. The museum is a history of the pioneer families of the valley, and a better than average museum of its type. On the way back, we saw a storm cloud dramatically lit by the sunset. Richard took a nap, and we got some great photos of a rainbow. Richard went fishing in the evening, and caught an 8 inch rainbow trout.

More ducks than you can count

Wednesday, we bought safety orange clothing, since it was hunting season. Then we drove to the Arapahoe National Wildlife Refuge, where we met the manager and only employee! She luckily had a group of volunteers during the summer months. We took a nature hike along the Illinois River, and then drove the auto tour loop. Each pond in the refuge was full of many species of migrating ducks, which Richard struggled to identify. Unfortunately, we had not brought our spotting scope. We came back, Richard took a nap, Richard fished for an hour, had some strikes, and Sandi finished her book. At sunset, we went for a drive to Cameron pass, where several people had mentioned there had been moose spottings. Just east of the visitor center, Sandi saw a large brown spot in the willows. Sure enough, we had seen our moose.

A moose!

Thursday we drove home