I had a spare hour today, so Dustin and I drove up into Rocky Mountain National Park to fool around a bit. I was hoping to get a picture for the picture of the day, and was specifically hoping to see some elk.

Boy, were we lucky. Everywhere we went, there were elk. The first herd we came across was right after the entrance gate to the park, and I grabbed a couple shots there. Farther into the park, near the alluvial fan, we spotted the bull elk (elk mostly stay in single-sex groups except during their mating season, called a rut). We were lucky that the bull elk still had full racks of antlers – they’ll probably shed them for the season in the next week or two.

The first is the official photo of the day. The rest are bonus.

Attended a pre-conference workshop today about survival skills. We ended up focusing mostly on fire craft (which was awesome) and cooking methods. We also covered preparing various types of meat for cooking – including cooking a pork loin on wood hooks suspended from a tripod. Mmm.

Also included in this picture is a trout frying on a rock, stew, pork chops on a spit, veggies and potatoes in foil and cornbread in our rock “oven.”

Skiing at Eldora Mountain today…