Elk have few limitations

Yesterday I was out shed hunting a few miles from our ranch in Southern Colorado. I was on a canyon rim, taking a break and began glassing the head of the drainage, checking how much snow is yet up there. I happened to look at the East side of 12,800 ft. Windy Mt., and was a bit fascinated by the big Elk trail coming off the summit. I've been on that mountain, on this exact route many times, so I know exactly what it's like. It's fairly steep, but is really problematic to travel over, is that it's all plates of slide/slab rock. A person really has to watch their footing, or when they step on a slab of rock, it will frequently roll out from under your foot, and then a rock above it will slide down and nail you. When you're walking on it, you hear a lot of rock clatter sounds. So, this herd of Elk apparently are undaunted by traveling over this stuff. I've seen stuff like this before in Elk country, but am always impressed by where they go, and what they do "out there".
I threw in a pick of a small Mulie antler I picked up on my hike.

Wow, that snow line is going up quick. What's it at down there?

Very cool BTW.

When I was bighorn hunting a few years ago I was amazed at all the elk I saw above treeline. They were in high rocky places where I expected to only see sheep and goats.

This reminded me of a Nat Geo film I just saw on the elk migration back into Yellowstone. Its definitely worth watching.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com...e-an-epic-journey-with-the-elk-of-yellowstone

Very cool. I dig the muley shed pic too. I saw a moose near the top of Spuhler Peak in the Tobacco Roots once. Only 10,400 ft but where I saw it it had to have ascended 800 vertical feet of scree. I wonder if sometimes animals get a wild hair and themselves wonder what's on the other side of the mountain.