Elk Photo Safari

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Trip Catalog

 
 
 
 

It was a wonderful surprise to open a birthday card and find that my wife and mother had given me a photo safari with Gerry Lamarre to capture baby Elk in Washington's Tuttle Valley, now home of the Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument.   What a treat, and in just a few months I was off to Portland with a  short drive away.   I have several of Gerry's photos gracing our home and have always admired his work and ability to capture nature and wildlife in honest surroundings.   We met on Saturday morning.   He was pulling a trailer with 4 fine horses.   Red, Rusty, Joker and Jasmine would be our companions on this trip and help us cover ground that cannot be accessed if you are on foot.   We made our way down into the Tuttle Valley, which just 22 years earlier had been the scene of massive mud flows littered with pine trees pummeled to toothpicks.   I expected just a small comeback of the valley floor.   However it was thriving and nature was reclaiming the land

We made camp and then pressed on to scout out the local elk population.   While the eruption had decimated the animals on hand, neighboring populations of   Roosevelt Elk (Cervus Elaphus) moved into the blast zone soon after, and have continued to re-colonize.   We soon encountered several large herds of females and knew that the little ones would not be far away.   With a  PhD. in Forest resource Management, Gerry ensures that as we take pictures, at no time are we endangering any animal nor are we potentially separating mother from child.   We rode into a small wooded area and spied our first candidate.   A 5-6 day old was up and about with mother off feeding.   He was curious at our presence and walked around assessing who exactly we were.   Since we were on four legged steeds, we did not represent a threat and eventually he lay down and went back to sleep, but not before we got some excellent close ups.   The next morning we hit the jackpot and discovered an elk nursery, silently approached and snapped as many frames as we could before Gerry felt that we needed to move on to avoid stressing the newly born.   It was an inspiring event to be so close to the creation of new life!   If you click Elks below, you can view an exciting gallery of Roosevelt Elk. 

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