The Elk Lodge

Elk Tracks: it takes an expert eye to spot them

I spent last Friday and Saturday hunting with a couple of friends up near Grand Lake, Colorado.  I fully intended to come back with enough elk meat to fill our big freezer for the next year.  Instead the elk are having a party,  pointing at my footprints in the snow and telling elk jokes about the safest place in the forest being as close as possible to Jim when he's carrying a rifle. I'm sure that they were playing the elk-version of "Look at me - I'm imitating a tree". There is a positive note, however; I tracked my first elk in the snow (actually several elk) for over an hour - through a creek, into green patch of fir trees, up a hill and finally to the summit of a ridge - all in knee-deep snow.  When I reached the top of the hill, I  realized I'd been following elk tracks all right, but ...  the WRONG WAY.  You'd think it would be easy to determine which way the animals are heading - but they're sneaky, and sometimes they walk backwards just to keep you guessing.  They left plenty of poo and pee along the path too, just to convince me they were around the corner - when in reality they were all back at the Elk Lodge, sitting by the fire, drinking beers and toasting each other.  

I'd just had my ATV "repaired" the day we left, and I was looking forward to some awesome trail rides thanks to my four-wheel-drive wonder.  We got as far up the road as we could in the truck, and then two of us jumped on the Quad to head to the hunting area.  We rode about two miles, and the engine died.   We did manage to get the ATV back to the truck, and I'm grateful for that.  Pushing an 800 pound machine through the snow would not have been my idea of a good time. 

Much to my joy and delight, I found out when I got home that while I was wandering aimlessly in the snow drifts, my neighbor shot an elk about 150 yards from my back deck.  There were only 40 or 50 of them to choose from, so I felt sorry for him.  Now I know that as soon as we arrived at Grand Lake, the elk herd hopped on a bus and headed down to Conifer to soak up the sunshine.  At least Brian broke up the party.


There is more to being a Pastor than hunting, believe it or not.  There's also cutting down trees, splitting firewood, and building decks.  Seriously though, our church is growing by leaps and bounds.  All three of our weekend services are getting full, and we calculated that we have somewhere between 350-380 regular attenders or members.  For a church up in the mountains, that's actually incredible.  I'm still teaching the Wednesday night service, and I'm loving it.  We've reached  John chapter 14, and tomorrow evening I'll cover one of my favorite topics: the role of the Holy Spirit. I've found over the years that the Holy Spirit is the most misunderstood of the three persons of the Trinity, and we've given Him all kinds of strange characteristics, or we attribute people's bizarre behavior to His influence.  Should be fun!

One of the ways we're trying to draw more people to the church is through a 15-second ad that we've put in two movie theaters down in Denver.  I'll add it to the blog so you can see it.  I got to help shoot the ad, and it was hilarious.  When we started filming, the buffalo were 100 yards away on the opposite side of the fence.  However, their curiosity got the better of them, and by the time we were done filming several of them had come almost up to the fence.  I think the fake buffalo head was what did the trick.  The voice you'll hear at the end is Daphne - just in case you didn't recognize her.