What Was That?

I’m a little delayed to getting to this post because of the holidays. The week before Christmas I was up in Summit County, Colorado, at my Cabin. I was anxiously looking forward to my first snow shoe run of the season before we hit the slopes at Vail. I headed out in the morning and it was absolutely wonderful! As I headed down the trail, I passed a guy with his two dogs and continued down Wildernest Trail. No one else was out and I was hitting fresh untouched snow. I was about 20 minutes into my hour run when I glanced over through the trees and saw a big black hairy thing. I thought to myself “Hmmm. The hair is too long on that animal to be a deer.” As I continued on, this “Thing” heard me and moved and I saw short stubby ears off a real big head. I thought to myself again “I really should turn around, but I’m not ready to, it hasn’t been long enough”. Then I got a feeling… “You really should turn around!” I followed my gut and did just that. As I headed back in the direction I had just come from, I turned around probably 10 times to make sure there wasn’t anything hunting me down. My heart was racing a bit and I continued to think… “was that a moose or a bear, was that a moose or a bear? Was that a moose or a bear!!” I’m not sure I will ever figure it out, unless bears really do hibernate; then it was a moose. Regardless, from what I’ve heard, they both have mean streaks ;)