“People just stop on the roads,” said Wendy Rigby, a longtime resident and former editor of the Estes Park Trail-Gazette who is a spokeswoman for the town’s hospital, Estes Park Health. “We have elk jams, so when you drive to work, you have to be careful. People are like, ‘Oh, there’s an elk,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, there are elk everywhere; just go to the golf course.’ If you’re going to stop, that’s fine, but pull off. You can’t just stop in the middle of a street or highway.
Elk attacks in Rocky Mountain National Park are rare, according to Kyle Patterson, the park’s public affairs officer. “We put a lot of things in place to try to avoid that as much as possible,” Patterson said., who station themselves in elk-viewing areas to “keep visitors safe from elk and elk safe from visitors,” Patterson said.
“We do everything we can to keep elk safe from visitors,” Patterson said. “It depends on the time of the rut as well. When you get toward the end of rut season, many of the large bulls are exhausted. They’ve lost a lot of their body weight. It can be a very intense, stressful time for many of the large bulls. They often have less patience and can be more aggressive. We certainly hear of situations where elk will move toward a human or act in an aggressive way.
A bull elk bugles in search of a mate in a meadow near Moraine Park on Sept. 24, 2023, in Rocky Mountain National Park. Rhett and Kim Sinclair came from Aiken, S.C., to visit a niece and nephew in Colorado Springs, who suggested an elk-watching trip to Estes Park while they were here. Kiszla: Broncos didn't win game for Sean Payton, they averted another crisis of grumpy coach's making.