So I was going to a hiking meetup at Chubb Trail this morning, and I took a wrong turn. Google Maps was all "No worries, I got ya bro, just U-turn here, and turn there and go like 2 miles and turn right and..."
Uhh, Google... that's a dead end. I can't go through there.
"Nah bro, trust me. I got this. Just keep going, and -- wait, what are you doing? OK, that's alright, just do another U-turn and..."
OK, Google, you're fired.
I dropped a comment to the meetup and told them to go on without me, then drove aimlessly around Lone Elk Park until I found the eponymous wapiti:
A little ways further I found the White Bison Trailhead and decided to park and hike! The sign said it was a 3.2 mile hike, and that it was Difficult (with a black diamond symbol). Undaunted, I forged ahead. Spoiler: the trail was not difficult at all, unless you consider a few moderate hills, felled trees, and mud slicks to be major impediments.
Click to Biggify
The hike was straightforward. The trail was clearly visible, but not overdone. None of that pavement or gravel nonsense; just a nice, beaten path. You can see a little bit of it on the right side of the picture above.
Along the way I found another Elk, this one a short ways off the track. He seemed to be enjoying some breakfast, but he was super chill and didn't complain at all when I got a bit closer to snag some shots. I got the feeling he was happy to see me go, though.
I also got this VR photo a little further along the trail. You can see the elk nearby, and an observation tower off to the left, up the hill a ways. The VR photo has an audio recording built in, and if you look at it in a VR headset, it'll play the ambient sounds from the trail for you to give you an even better feel for the scene.
I took a quick detour up the hill to climb the observation tower and took the picture below from the top. Can you spot the elk?
Yeah, me either... But here's a chipmunk:
And that's pretty much it! It was a good time, I'm glad I went, even though it didn't go quite to plan. As it turns out though, that same meetup will be hiking this trail tomorrow morning, so I didn't actually miss the hike, I was just super early for the next one! :D #PostHocRationalizations
Thanks for reading!
All photos taken by me, but Google embellished the first one a bit for me. =) Intellectual property is a lie; use the text and/or photos however you want. If you do, though, you get extra awesome points for mentioning it in a comment!