Highway 101 through Blacksmith Fork Canyon, from Hyrum to the Hardware Ranch Wildlife Management Area is one my favorite roads for an afternoon “hey, let go for ride,” because it is like a natural exhibit of the animals of northern Utah. For fifteen miles, especially in the winter, you are likely to get up close and personal with moose, deer, elk, eagles, and fox.
On my last ride, the snow covered mountain slopes provided me with new and unique experiences that literally had me squealing and pointing like a child. It also caused a couple of moments of white knuckled panic. I should explain that I am a deer magnet. In my youth I officially hit two deer, although I contend that one of them hit me. As a deer magnet, I couldn’t help but be a little nervous as literally hundreds of deer in dozens of groups ran across, along, or in the road. For reasons I don’t know, the deer where primarily smaller, one- and two-year olds. The small male deer, sporting thin toothpick antlers, seemed to strut among the does like teenagers at the mall. Their daring sprints across the road could have been the result of “hey, Bambi, I dare you to play chicken with that car.”
It was among these juvenile delinquents that I lost all respect from the passengers in my car. I rounded a turn and saw what looked like a deer that had been rolling around in the snow, but as we got closer it turned out to be an all white albino (admittedly, some in the car thought it was merely a blond deer). I couldn’t help but start pointing and squawking, “Albino. It’s an albino. Albino deer,” and all other combinations of albino, deer, and the English language. The deer, by itself, and seemingly shunned by the group of brown does gathered only fifty yards away, just stared at us, possibly thinking, “Look at that pasty white human pointing and squealing.” With the frantic action of a madman, I slammed the car into park, yelled for my wife to “give me the camera” and jumped out of the car to capture “The Ghost of Blacksmith Canyon,” the slightly dramatic name I gave the deer. Despite my gymnastics, and much to my disappointment, the waning light of a late winter evening resulted in photos that have a sort of blurry bigfoot quality to them, much to my disappointment.
The next moment of surprise came about two-thirds of the way through the canyon. One of my passengers noticed big dark shapes in the branches of several trees. I got out of the car and realized that the dark balls of feathers were actually wild turkeys. Somewhere between 50 and 75 full-grown turkeys had flown into the trees to roost, often four or five sat on the same branch. Below the trees, turkey runways crisscrossed the snow, where the large birds had had lumbered to-takeoff speed, their large wings making a line of snow angels in the otherwise undisturbed powder. After taking several photos of motionless birds in leafless trees, I was treated to a production of the turkey world’s Three Stooges. I watched as a turkey gracelessly flew from one branch, to another with two turkeys on it. As it landed, the branch broke sending the three turkeys in mass of feathers tumbling towards the ground. Somehow they all seemed to get their wings going and slowed their fall before hitting the snow, but I could almost hear one of the turkeys saying “Curly, why I oughta ….”
The bookend to a drive in Blacksmith Fork Canyon is the Hardware Ranch Wildlife Management Area. Just over a rise in the road and past the ranch’s working farm is a sprawling snow covered valley floor that is the winter hangout for hundreds of elk. Every year the ranch feeds 500-600 elk 300 tons of hay. In exchange for full bellies, the elk allow the public to ride among them in a large horse drawn wagon. If you can take a little cold, the wagon ride is a unique and worthwhile experience. The wagon makes a large loop through the lounging elk herd, getting you with in touching distance of cow and bull elk. When I say bull elk, I mean some of the biggest and baddest in northern Utah, complete with the largest spear tipped antlers that the casual outdoorsperson may ever see. On my last trip to the ranch I missed the last wagon ride of the day, largely because of the time I spent with the albino deer (seriously, an albino deer) and roosting turkey, but as the last rays of sun reached through the mountain peaks, I simply enjoyed watching the elk through my binoculars. And yes, I was looking for an albino elk.
On a side note, I was once asked by a visitor from another country, “When do the deer turn into elk?” While I understood how someone that has never been around deer or elk, may think that elk simply look like bigger, darker, shaggier deer, I want to assure everyone that read this post that the deer and elk are two different types of animals.
Hardware Ranch Wildlife Management Area: http://wildlife.utah.gov/hardwareranch/