Of Moose and Men

I went fishing a couple of days ago with my friends Scott and Dave.  I wanted to try a lake that I'd seen at the base of Mount Bierstadt when our group had climbed the mountain a couple of weeks ago.  We left later in the afternoon, so by the time we arrived it was already around 5 pm.  The setting is totally breathtaking.  The lake - really a large pond - is at 11, 500 ft, so it's above the tree line.  We got our gear together and hiked down to the pond.  When we got there we realized that it is actually a marsh, and there's no solid ground within 10 yards of the edge of the pond.  I had my waders on, so I squooshed my way in to where I could try a few casts while Scott and Dave walked around to the other side to see if there was any firmer footing.  As I trudged through the muck I would occasionally sink up to my thighs, and I was instantly grateful that I was not alone in case I got in deeper than I could get out.  I fished for 15 or 20 minutes, but there was absolutely no sign of any life in the pond.  The two guys had given up by this  time and were sitting on a knoll on the other side of the pond, so I squooshed my way over to them.  I had seen several smaller ponds from up on the mountain, so we decided to take a walk and investigate them for signs of life.  Again, no fish.  When I stepped into one of the smaller ponds I realized that the clear water we could see through was only the top 10 inches, and below that was 3 feet of muck... so it would be impossible for any fish to live there.  Around 7 pm we started our hike back to the car, and along the way we passed the larger pond - and to our amazement there was now an enormous bull moose standing in the water, feeding on the weeds on the bottom of the pond.  I don't know where he came from because we certainly hadn't seen him, and he would have been hard to miss!  I only had my iphone with me, but I took this video anyway.  It's blurry, but you can see the size of his rack pretty clearly.  So, we didn't catch any fish, but we got to see the biggest bull moose any of us had ever seen.  It was all worth it.