Two Miles High, Part V: Mega-Midi-Mini-Micro Charisma
We expected charismatic megafauna. That’s why we took bear spray, attached bear bells to our packs, put our food in a bear can, put anything else that might have any attractive odor to it at all in a bear bag and hung the lot from a tree. It’s also why, even with the bear spray, Amy insisted on sleeping with one of her trekking poles, as well, which she dubbed “Pokey.” As much as we didn’t want to see a bear, Amy wanted badly to see a moose. Three years ago, when I first took her to Idaho and we made an abortive trip to Yellowstone (the roads in May were just to icy for comfort), she left disappointed. Coming up the canyon trail, we’d met many other hikers on their way out who’d talked about how many bears and moose they had seen. We saw neither. A young hiker we met on the way out pointed to a pile of manure on the trail and announced it was moose scat, but given the number of horses we encountered, I rather doubt there were any antlers involved in the pr...