Treeline is at about 11,500 feet altitude near Trail Ridge Road.
Hoofed Mammals
The largest mammal of Rocky Mountain National Park is the AMERICAN ELK, or “wapiti.” It is really a big deer—distinctly larger than the local mule deer and usually with a more reddish or brownish coat. The true American representative of the Old World elks is the moose, not found in Rocky Mountain National Park.
American elk were almost exterminated here by ruthless hunting in prepark days. Seventy animals introduced here in 1913 and 1914 from Yellowstone National Park made possible the present population of over 600 elk in this park.
During summer, the elk are usually high in the mountains, feeding on the lush grass of the widespread tundra and the forest glades. Their food consists mostly of grass, herbs, and twigs of woody plants. The summer is a short but prosperous time for these animals. Usually by early autumn, fierce storms in the high country put an end to days of ample forage, and most of the elk move down into the small meadows at lower altitudes. In late September, as the mating season begins and the bulls fight for possession of the herds, large groups of elk can be seen in such places as Horseshoe Park and Beaver Meadows. This is when the bugling challenges of the bulls can be heard echoing across the valleys. In November, this period ends and the more prosaic struggle for survival on the limited winter range begins.
Formerly, during winter, the elk could scatter well below the present site of Estes Park village; now they are “bottled up” within the park meadows, because of the encircling human developments. Or perhaps these introduced elk and their descendants never developed a more extensive winter migration pattern, for the more venturesome individuals among them would have been killed or harried by hunters in the lower country east of the park. In any case, most of them do not move out of the park.
Times are hard for the elk until spring permits their return to the high country, where ample feed awaits them. Grave concern is felt by wildlife experts about the winter food shortages confronting this species. Without deliberate control by the park rangers, in order to keep the population at a level that can be supported by the limited and overused vegetation of the park’s winter ranges, the herd itself would face mass starvation. The absence or near disappearance from this region of some of the most effective predators of the elk—cougar, wolf, and grizzly—has removed most of the aboriginal population controls.
Whether you visit the park in summer or winter, you should be able to see elk—at least with binoculars. In summer (especially in the evenings) you may see them along Trail Ridge Road, emerging from the forests below Fall River Pass or the Rock Cut area. The cirque below Fall River Pass is a good place to look for them with binoculars. From mid-September until March or April, herds of elk are normally to be seen in Beaver Meadows, Horseshoe Park, Moraine Park, and in the meadows north of Grant Lake; but patience and some keenness of observation are required.
