I'm Goin' to Jackson...

...What song is that? Who sang it? If you know the answer to that well... good for you. No prizes sorry!

Rick, Katie, Grammie, and I went to Jackson today to see the Elk herd at the refuge. It was AWESOME!!! The elk come down to the refuge in November and hang out, eat, and rest until spring. To see the elk we had to take a horse and sleigh. It was pretty neat, and something we will have to do again. There is lots of other wildlife on the refuge, including about 800 bison, wolves, coyotes, eagles, swans, ducks, and much more. The wolves, and bison stay up on the Northern edge of the refuge, and are only occasionally seen.

Elk have four stomach's like cow's and have to chew their cud after morning meal. That is what most of them were doing this morning.

We saw elk of all kinds, and the sleigh driver explained all about their genetic abnormalities, such as this poor guy who is "non typical" wouldn't you hate to be called "non typical"?? I would. See his rack. One is up, and one is almost straight out in front of him. He is a spike, meaning he is only about a year or two old. Each spring his horns will fall off, and new ones will grow. The new ones will have more points on it, such as:

..this guy. We don't know exactly how old they are when they look like this though. The only way to really tell is by extracting a tooth and counting the rings, like on a tree. This one looks like a 6 point on one side and six on the other. He is a large bull elk, but he isn't a trophy elk. Trophy elk go in a record book called Boone and Crockett. They measure the horns, and if they score over a, I think, 380 then they qualify for the book. The current record bull elk measured in at 440. He must have been a monster, and must be sitting on someones wall.

As I said earlier the elk "drop" their rack each year. If they do it on the reserve then the boy scouts come and pick them up, lock them in a barn, and they go up for auction each year. The horns are rather valuable, some going for $2500 for a set. People use the dropped horns to mount on the wall, make into knife handles, chandeliers, etc. The money goes back into the reserve to buy feed, and other supplies needed to feed these beauties for the next year. There are over 500 reserves of this type in the US. I have seen two since I moved here. This one being the COOLEST!!

This is a cottonwood tree, and you'll see in the next picture why it is so cool...

A bald eagle flew into the tree. He or she sat there and let us take lots of pictures from under him/her. It was really neat. I have never been so close!

The team of horses that pulled us around the refuge was really neat. The elk are used to the horses, and sleigh because they have been pulling people around these elk for almost 100 years.

But, and I mean BUT, if you get out of the sleigh the elk will stampede to the hills. We are one of their predators after all.

A couple of miles past the refuge we entered the Grand Teton, National Park. Rick wanted to get a couple of pictures of the mountains. They were gorgeous.

This is the town square in Jackson. Each corner has an elk horn arch. I am sure some of you have heard this place called both Jackson, and Jackson Hole. Jackson is the town. Jackson Hole is the entire bowl in this mountain area. This was Jackson's (and I'll have to get back to you on his first name) hunting hole. Jackson was a mountain man in the area.

I know this post was full of exciting facts, and you are feeling much smarter than before. I hope you can come visit sometime and see some of these awesome sites we are exploring. Just think, if you visit, we know better what to show you. We are the modern "explorers"!!!