Is it worth waking up at 4:45 a.m. to see the wildlife?

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

July 21, 2023

According to our original plans, we would have left the Snowy Mountains this morning. But because we got to move into a new camp site last night, we have two more days to enjoy this beautiful area. While we were unsuccessful in our evening drive looking for wildlife, our campground host told us that early morning was the best time to see animals. He had been camp-hosting here for six years, and he was right! It was tough getting up thirty minutes before first light. But as soon as we were on the road this early morning, we saw two elk crossing the road just a couple miles from the campground. We were at the first recommended viewing site before sun rise. You might notice that the tops of the wooden hand rails were white this morning. That was a thick coating of frosty ice . . . in July.

We were up at 4:45 this morning to go for this little drive. We call this a "hot air balloon" alarm, because this was the same time we woke up to work on the balloon crew. But it got us up before first light when the animals start to stir. A few more miles down the road we found this moose in the distance, then two more elk that were too quick to photograph.

While we were both looking in the distance for animals, we almost missed this moose that was standing right by the road.

He was eating the tender willows, and didn't seem interested in moving even when we pulled over to take pictures.

The sun hadn't risen yet, but it was painting the early morning sky in stripes of color over Silver Lake.

We stopped in at Lake Marie, where we had kayaked in the rain the afternoon before. We finally got that mirrored glassy water photo as the rising sun lit up the mountains behind the lake.

Mirror Lake had water ripples that prevented the mirror effect, but the mountains were lovely at 6:00 in the morning.

We stopped in at the observation point at the top of the pass. The sign there explained that we were looking at the Snowy Range, which is part of the Medicine Bow Mountains. We were driving on a highway that was originally built by the CCC in the 1930s. 

The sign also pointed out mountain names like The Diamond (11,720 feet), Old Main (11,755 feet), Medicine Bow Peak (12,013 feet). One other couple was out on this early morning, and we traded taking cold weather pictures in front of the mountains.

Just below the CCC-built observation tower, Denisa spotted a mother and baby marmot in the rocks.

They were actually chewing on the rocks, and we could hear their nibbling in the very still and quiet early morning quiet.

We had been instructed to also check a lake just a couple miles east of the highway summit, and we were glad we got that tip.

While we thought the Snowy Range didn't have much wildlife, we were just looking for it at the wrong time. We kept finding more moose around the lake.

It was getting late enough in the summer that the moose antlers were getting more impressive.

We weren't alone at the lake. We saw several photographers with professional cameras and tripods that were taking advantage of these great moose sightings.

In total, we found six more moose at the lake, and all of them were quite close to the road. 

We found five bulls and one cow moose before we tore ourselves away from the lake. We have wandered into another of God's wonders!

Since we were up so early this morning, we actually got a parking place at Lewis Lake. This was one of the lakes that we kayaked the day before. We found that this lot fills up early, so people have to park along the road up to a half-mile away to get close to this area. But before 7:00 in the morning we had our choice of spots right on the lake.

The campground host from the nearby Sugarloaf campground was at the lake, with his camera pointed towards the rocks. He has been camp-hosting here for three summers, and he loves it. We can see that there isn't much turn-over among campground hosts in these beautiful campgrounds. He told us that he comes down to the lake almost every morning to see if the baby marmots are out. We saw the first one make an appearance on the rocks in the sunshine.

Then its sibling showed up, so Denisa had to take another picture.

The most baby marmots the camp host has ever seen was three, and we got that triplet picture this morning. 

Getting up at 4:45 that morning was tough, but we were certainly blessed with lots of animal sightings. 

By 8:00 a.m. we saw 4 elk, 9 moose, and 5 marmots. Plus we scored a great parking place for a nice hike this morning. But that hike must wait for another blog because this one was already full of early morning animal pictures. Yes, it was worth waking up at 4:45 to see the wildlife!