The Mountain Thread | Estes Park | September 24, 2026 |
 |
BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD
Moe and I got stuck behind an elk on Elkhorn Avenue Tuesday night. Four cars, one bull, nobody moving, and not one person in that line honking.
Moe asked how long they've been doing this to us.
Shorter than you'd think, is the answer. This valley ran out of elk completely once, and the town had to send away for more. That story's below.
Autumn Gold takes Bond Park both days this weekend, the park finally eased the fire ban last week, and the meadows are still closed to you every night through October.
SIT DOWN. THIS ONE'S GOOD. |
Were There Ever No Elk in Estes Park?
For about thirty years there were none at all. Moe and I sat on Elkhorn Avenue Tuesday evening and watched four cars stop dead for one bull who had decided the centerline was his. Somebody's kid hung out a back window with a phone. The bull didn't care. Moe said the elk run this town in September. They do now. They didn't in 1890. There were no elk left in the Estes Valley by then, and there hadn't been for a decade. People with rifles and wagons shot every one of them and sold the meat in Denver. Moe said he'd heard that and never quite believed it. Believe it. It's the best documented part of the whole story.
How Do You Kill Off Every Elk in a Valley?
With a wagon, a repeating rifle, and a buyer at the other end. Abner Sprague, who settled Moraine Park and wrote about the early years, laid it out. "Our [elk] only lasted about three years," he wrote. "They came down from their high range just before Christmas, 1875, by the thousands and were met by hunters with repeating rifles and four horse teams; hauled to Denver for three or four cents per pound." A 2006 National Park Service report on the ecological role of elk in this park quotes that passage, and that's where I read it. Three or four cents a pound. By the thousands. Moe wanted to know how long it took. Not long. Market hunting here ran out in the late 1870s, and it ran out for the reason you'd guess. The last elk anybody wrote down was killed in 1878.
How Many Elk Were in That Shipment?....Read More... |
This Weekend
Autumn Gold takes over Bond Park both days. Saturday, September 26, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, September 27, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ten dollars a day at the gate, kids 12 and under free. Wendy Woo opens Saturday at 11, Stone Beat Invasion at 1:30, Last Men On Earth at 4. Sunday it's the Wrenn Van Band at 11 and The Long Run at 2:30. Estes Valley Sunrise Rotary runs the whole thing, and the raffle money goes to scholarships for local graduates.
The Estes Epic runs both days too. Saturday is a 50k mountain bike race, Sunday adds the Heavy Half and a trail 50k. Expect bikes out early. runningwildevents.com.
Allenspark's Wild Turkey Fest is free, Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Live music, beer garden, costume contest, calling contests, scavenger hunt, local vendors. Down Highway 7 and worth the drive. wildturkeyfest.com.
The Park Theatre premieres "Stream of Conscience" Monday, September 28, at 7 p.m. Nick Mollé Productions and the Rocky Mountain Channel. rockymountainchannel.com. |
Trivia Question❓Rocky Mountain National Park was established on January 26, 1915. The elk living here now are descended from animals brought down from Yellowstone. Did those elk arrive before the park existed, or after? Answer at the bottom of the newsletter |
| ★★★★★ |
|
|
|
RMNP UPDATE
The total fire ban is off. On September 18 the park stepped back from the full ban it put in place June 29. Stage 1 now: campfires are allowed again in the designated rings in frontcountry campgrounds and picnic areas, and nowhere else. Camp stoves and portable charcoal grills are fine. Fireworks never, anywhere, any year. The Estes Valley Fire Protection District is holding at Stage 1 as well. Where two jurisdictions overlap, the stricter one wins, and the fire district is at 970-577-0900 if you want it straight from them.
The five meadows are still closed to you at night. Horseshoe Park, Moraine Park, Upper Beaver Meadows, Harbison Meadow and Holzwarth Meadow are off limits away from roads and trails from 5 p.m. to 10 a.m. daily, through October 31. Stay 75 feet back from any elk, and put the calls and the spotlights away.
Glacier Gorge Trailhead shuts down twice over the next two weeks. September 28 through October 1, then again October 5 through 8. Parking area and trailhead both, vehicles and shuttles. Plan your Loch Vale day around it.
Timed entry is nearly done for the year. Standard permits are required 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. through October 12. Bear Lake Road permits run 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. through October 18. Trail Ridge Road is open for now, and the recorded road line is 970-586-1222. |
DID YOU KNOW?
Colorado shut elk hunting down across most of the state from 1903 to 1933. Thirty years with the season closed. Around 1910 the Forest Service put the count for the entire state somewhere between 500 and 1,000 animals.
Colorado now has the largest elk population in North America, roughly 280,000. From a few hundred.
The wolves were gone from this country by about 1900, and the grizzlies with them. An elk turned loose here in 1913 walked into a valley with nothing left in it that hunted elk.
The average winter closing date for Trail Ridge Road is October 23. The latest it ever stayed open was December 2, 1933. |
Joke Of The Day |
What do you call a town that kills off every elk in the valley, then sends away for more? Estes Park. (1913 and 1914. The local improvement association handled it, and the elk came down from Yellowstone.) |
 |
💡 Answer to Trivia Question: Before. The Estes Park Protective and Improvement Association, a local booster group, worked with the U.S. Forest Service to bring elk here in 1913 and 1914, more than a year ahead of the park itself. |
UNTIL NEXT WEEK
Moe asked if I'd be at Autumn Gold.
Told him I'd be there for the brats, and that I'd probably end up telling somebody this story in the beer line whether they asked for it or not.
Elk Fest lands the weekend after, October 3 and 4, its 28th year. Same animals. More booths.
"Stay smart, stay safe, and leave the mountains louder than you found them."
- Buck Timber The Mountain Thread themountainthread.com/signup
WHERE THIS CAME FROM
This account draws from the Colorado Encyclopedia's articles on elk culling and Rocky Mountain elk, a 2006 National Park Service report on the ecological role of elk in this park, which is where Abner Sprague's and Joel Estes's own words come from, the Park Service's elk and vegetation management background pages, and the Park Science piece by Johnson and colleagues on a century of elk management here. The facts are as solid as I could get them. I arranged this for the telling and I did not arrange the facts, and where two federal documents flatly disagree on how many elk arrived, I said so instead of picking the prettier number. A town that had eaten every elk in its own valley really did pay to have more brought down from Yellowstone. |