It turns out that my experience in the Canyon took my breath away in a literal sense as well. For those of you who have not visited the South Rim, there is a visitor center when you enter the park. When I arrived on Wednesday afternoon there were several large female elks wandering around amidst the tourists, who were busy taking photos. It was a funny scene but one that left me with a feeling that the elk were a peaceful bunch. How wrong I was, as I came face to face with an elk and narrowly escaped being one of those stories you see in the last 10 minutes of the nightly news.
On Thursday morning I decided to get up early and go for a run along the South Rim of the Canyon. I arrived early, before 6am, to find it mostly uncrowded but for the day hikers who were heading into the Canyon. It was beautiful, cool, and I had a view that can simply never be replicated on my trail runs back home. As I was nearing the end of my run, I decided to take the Green Trail back to the visitor's center.
The Green Trail runs parallel to the road but through the woods. As I was nearing the center, I saw something out of my left eye, and turned to see a large elk running through the woods just ahead of me. I stopped, motioning for it to cross the path, for clearly elk understand sign language. We stood there looking at each other, and for a moment I thought "oh, this is a sweet moment, perhaps this elk is my spirit animal!" As I took a step forward, so did the elk. We then stood there frozen for a minute. I realized that this sweet spirit animal of mine was not going to budge. I then turned around and started to slowly move away, then started to run back from whence I came. The elk began to run after me, and I yelled and ducked behind a tree. Now for those who think I am embellishing this story, let me assure you that I am not. So the elk is standing about 10 yards in front of the tree, with me behind the tree. The road was about 20 yards to my right, and I quickly assessed that there were two other trees between me and the road. I stood there breathing shallowly, and made my move to the next tree. The elk followed, even closer this time, and the thing was fast and did not look happy. At this point I begin to think I am in deep crap, as the tree wasn't that big but the elk was.
From across the street I see a shuttle bus, whose driver must have seen what was going on. He yelled "we've got a runner!" and I wasn't sure if he was talking about me or the elk, but he pulled his bus up on the road and said to me "you have to run for it". There was about a two foot lip up to the road, so I sprinted from the tree, elk in close pursuit, jumped over the edge of the woods and in front of the bus, who then moved it to block the elk. I sprinted like I was Usain Bolt across the parking lot to the visitor center. I wish I had my Garmin on and could record this run as it would definitely be a PR. Someone asked me later why I didn't jump on the bus, for which I had no answer other than to say when you think a huge elk is chasing you you don't want to wait for a bus door to open.
After splashing water on my face, I came out of the restroom and a man was standing there. I had to share this with someone so I said "you won't believe what just happened" and he asked me if I was the woman in the woods being chased by the elk. Apparently his wife (who by now had joined us) and he were behind me on the Green Trail and saw it all go down. We learned later that this was a mama elk who was understandably protecting her baby. No matter, it was a bit scary. As I was explaining this all later that night to my brother Dan he suggested that maybe the elk IS my spirit animal, helping me to run fast, away from my fears. It sounds nice, but I am not buying it!
| This is pretty much the look she was giving me. |
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