We drove east out of Jasper on an animal quest. We first came across a small herd of young bighorn sheep and their mom right by the side of the road and our car (15 feet away). They were very beautiful eating grasses. Occasionally they’d get scared and run about 20 yards. Then they’d walk back in our direction. As we continued on the road, we saw a black bear on the other side of the road about 30 yards away. He was cool but left pretty quickly. As we drove on, we went to a huge beaver dam and beaver lodge in a pond. We watched many young beavers continually coming out of the lodge, swimming past us to grasses and sticks they’d gather in their mouths and then swimming back to the lodge. We loved watching them swim with sticks/twigs longer than their entire body and also seeing their flat tails paddling. We also liked how they’d do a rolling dive at the end with the twigs in their mouths so they could enter their lodge from underwater. Then, a HUGE beaver swam out (2 feet long + his almost 2 foot long tail) and swam straight to where Sarah was standing on a boardwalk. He then climbed out of the pond and went to a large plant. Sarah was standing less than 5 feet from him and got to watch him use his long teeth and paws as he gnawed off many branches (some 1 inch thick). As he was doing this, Andrea and Ryan then also got to within 5 feet of him. He didn’t mind people. He had such a cute big black nose and large flat black tail. He climbed back into the water and swam back to the lodge with many branches larger than him in his mouth. He then dove under and into his lodge. It was one of the coolest outdoor animal experiences we’ve ever had. Sam was quite a ways away and missed it. So we waited a while and then he came out again and went to the exact same place. We were all waiting for him and all four of us got to see the busy beaver 5 feet away do it again. During this time, there were many smaller beavers and even muskrats continually swimming back and forth to the lodge. It was wonderful. As Sarah stated, “It was one of the best wild animal experiences we’ve ever had!”
On the drive back to camp, we saw a few elk, including one right on the side of the road sprinting full speed about 30 feet away. We drove alongside him for a long 10 seconds. Incredible. We then saw more elk and a few deer too. We love animals and today was a great day for animal watching!
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| herd of young bighorn sheep running 10 feet from road |
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| Beaver swimming in front of his dam |
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| Beaver 5 feet from us after gnawing plants and taking them back to his lodge. |
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| Sarah with beaver lodge behind her |
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| Young bighorn sheep eating grasses. |
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