Tag: Elk

Brinnon Elk Herd

Brinnon Elk Herd 1

These are all photos of the Brinnon Elk Herd … AKA the Dosewallips Elk Herd. In the winter the elk come down to the lowlands, including along the beach areas near Brinnon, WA … a small (very small) community along Hood Canal on Highway 101. They are used to people, mostly. The exception are the bull elk … they tend to stay away from people and are harder to spot. In a couple of the images, you can see some yearly male elk. They will leave after the first year. (and no, they don’t actually use the soccer nets for playing elk ball)

Brinnon Elk Herd 2
Brinnon Elk Herd 3
Brinnon Elk Herd 4
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I laughed… (not at the elk)

Hidden Photographer

So I was playing around with various image processing software to see what I could do to improve some of my older images… (this one is from 2017). I had just taken some photos of fall foliage and noticed some elk just down stream from my position, crossing the North Fork Skokomish (just a half mile or so up from Staircase Campground in the Olympic National Park.

I had looked at this image dozens of times over the years, but this was the first time I had ever noticed that there was someone on the other side of the river, watching the elk from behind a log. I can’t tell if they had a camera or not, but I image that there presence was why the elk were crossing. (see below)

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Elk in Winter

Elk in Winter 1

The Olympic Elk (or Roosevelt Elk … Teddy, not FDR) are much easier to see in winter when they are hanging out in the lowlands than in the summer when they wander around much of the Olympic National Park and at some high elevations. The first three shots are of the “Dosewallips herd” … in fact, the first two shots were taken in Dosewallips State Park. Number 3 was taken just across the river in the town of Brinnon … in the school yard. Number 4 is of the Skokomish herd, pictured crossing the North Fork of the Skokomish River at the upper end of Lake Cushman.

Elk in Winter 2
Elk in Winter 3
Elk in Winter 4
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From Worst to Best

Cat Basin in Fog

These photos are from a long ago hike. One of the toughest days I have had backpacking … the “off trail” traverse from Appleton Pass to Cat Basin in the Olympic National Park. As we struggled across the side hill, the clouds came in and our visibility dropped. While we were on the sidehill, there was no real chance of losing our way, since we could just keep the uphill side to our right, until we ran into the Cat Basin Trail that comes in from the High Divide. We were tired and set up camp in a small flat spot above the trail. We were sorta miserable and thought the spot was one of the worse we had camped in. But in the morning, the cloud was gone and we were looking directly down into Cat Basin and a herd of a hundred or so Olympic Elk. It went from one of the worse camps we had to one of the best … in a few hours.

Elk in Cat Basin
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