Editor's note: This story originally appeared in the August 26, 2007 edition of The Kansas City Star
Everyone has a favorite place in the world. This is mine.
Other destinations have taken a run at the title - the coast of Northern California, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Caribbean and Hawaiian beaches. None of those would be a bad choice. But I could visit Rocky Mountain National Park every year for the rest of my life and never tire of the long, steep trails to pristine lakes or looking out over the scenic vistas along Trail Ridge Road.
On the other hand, it's going to be a long time before I return to the park at midsummer.
Don't get me wrong. The park was as beautiful this summer as I have ever seen it. Wildflowers painted marshy areas along icy ponds in hues of yellow and red, white, pink and lavender. The meadows were a soft, grassy green.
Problem?
The animals were missing.
For two days in mid-July I scoured the mountainsides and walked the wooded trails, but the largest animals I encountered were slurping ice cream cones along Elkhorn Avenue in Estes Park.
I did see a lone coyote ambling along U.S. 34 one misty morning and a single mule deer the next day. I saw dozens of fearless ground squirrels and chipmunks, nearly all of them hoping for a handout from tourists.
But not a single elk grazed in the park meadows for my camera. No bighorn sheep tumbled down the mountain. No moose drank from ponds in the higher elevations.
Bummer.
Rock steady
Rocky Mountain National Park is home to about 350 bighorn sheep, ranger Richard Boyer told a small crowd of visitors who gathered one Friday morning to hear his talk, "The Ballad of the Bighorn Sheep." A herd of 61 or so lives on Bighorn Mountain, across the highway from Horseshoe Park, where we had gathered in anticipation.
Of anywhere in the 265,000-acre park, this is the place to see sheep. So where were they? And, more important, when would they be coming down?
"Statistically, I can tell you that they are most likely to be here between 10 a.m. and noon on a Saturday morning," Boyer said. "But don't come here expecting them then."
And probably not today. "They haven't been seen on a Friday in seven weeks," Boyer said.
Rangers who keep careful track of the animals know they will come eventually to munch on the mineral-rich mud in the nearby meadow and to drink from the lake. There's just no telling when or how many.
Most often, the sheep cross between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. and stay a few minutes or a few hours. Good news for the hopeful folks who had camped out in their plastic and nylon chairs, binoculars focused on the rising slope across the blacktop.
Could be the sheep are nervous. Predators include black bears, golden eagles and, much more likely, coyotes.
"We had one down here earlier today, so that may be one reason they aren't here," Boyer said.
But it's not likely they're unnerved by summer visitors. Surely by now they're used to the parking lots full of people and the rangers who act as crossing guards when they approach the highway.
But the mountain is silent, so we settle in for Boyer's often-repeated talk and learn that:
Rams can weigh up to 300 pounds, ewes, 150 pounds.
Each of an adult ram's two horns can weigh up to 25 pounds. (Imagine carrying those around on your head.)
Sheep can run as fast as 30 or 40 miles an hour - uphill.
And that will have to do unless, well, what's that up there?
"It's hard to spot them unless they are moving," Boyer said. "Sometimes you'll say, `Oh, there's one,' and then it's a rock."
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