Gosh golly. I haven't blogged in months.
Last time I showed you what mid-winter looks like here in Taos.
It's still winter.
I walk every morning early and I often encounter elk returning from their feeding fields in farms south of us to their daytime nest north of us. This has been before dawn for the last few months and my encounters were most often hearing them gallop away from me through the underbrush and sometimes surprising them and stampeding them across the road, sometimes around me.
But the sun has slowly started to come up earlier and earlier and I think the elk are having to spend more time grazing in the now depleted farms and their return is later and later, so my encounters are now happening when it's almost light.
I decided to bring my camera on these pre-dawn walks "just in case"
I started the other day and saw no elk but it started snowing pretty hard and I was a snowball on my return leg. Then, at the corner of our street near the cluster box, a small herd cautiously cross the road.
So here is my short Elk in a Snow Storm series
I want to thank my neighbors for their implicit permission to use their houses as a background.
The next day, admittedly mostly because of cabin fever, I headed up the High Road to an overview that allowed me to survey the damage from that storm.
Here we mostly see foreground, which is part of the Carson National forest. It contains indigenous fauna, like cougars, bear, elk and deer, coyotes, mountain sheep and goats, fishermen, snowmobilers.
Little old ladies snowshoeing across open fields. Little old men on cross country skis trying to catch them.
Let's get rid of that stuff and focus on the interesting things
That's a little better. Here we can see Taos down in the cove to the left, Peublo Peak sitting atop what is commonly called Taos Mountain in the center and snow covered Mt Wheeler sitting atop the Taos Ski Valley towards the right.
Oh, you in the back there. Do you have a question?
Which one is Pueblo Peak? OK. Well, we'll zoom in a bit more
Pueblo Peak is the snow covered peak standing all by itself in the center.
Bah. Lets get closer to the interesting stuff.
Mt Wheeler is the highest white crest just to the right of Pueblo Peak. And the highest point in New Mexico. Curiously, even tho it is the highest peak around, you can see it only from a few spots because all the other mountains hide it.
But the real interesting part is in that saddle just to the left of Pueblo Peak. You see it there, just on that ridge? That storm damage?
No? Here, lets zoom in on that ridge a bit more.
There, you see it? That tree that fell over in the storm? Isn't that interesting?
...
Oh. I see. Well, that was rude.
The next morning I again stalked the elk. Not snowing, so while these photos are less "moody" than the snowing series. you can actually tell they are elk this time.
Elk love to watch me.
It's an "it" thing. I got it.
You see the dark spots / bumps? That is a skin disease called Fibromatosis and it's caused by a virus. It doesn't hurt the elk but sometimes it can grow to be quite large.
If you want to get grossed out, do a Google image search for "extreme elk fibromatosis". I did that once. Won't do it again.
Anyway, to ease your virus fears, this virus is species specific. It affects only elk and deer. The firomatosis virus hasn't cross over to humans.
At least, not yet.
So the elk tired of me and started to head out
Up the road, back to home, bed and dream.
