DH and I went snowshoeing up the Mill Creek Canyon Road today. The canyon is a bit south and east of Salt Lake City and the road is closed about 5 miles up. There are always a lot of cross-country skiers and snowshoers on the road. As we were on our way up the road, a huge, HUGE, bull moose appeared around a bend in the road. At that point, he was far enough away that my first thought was, "Oh, I wish I brought my camera." Then, as he continued walking down the road in our direction, my thoughts turned to, "Oh, I wish we brought our bear spray."

DH suggested we get off the road, but the snow was so deep that he sunk in almost to his knees, even with snowshoes on. We then retreated down the canyon road. However, as we started down the road, the moose picked up speed and started chasing us. DH said, "Get behind a tree!" (DH has done mountain ultramarathons, so he had read a book a while ago about what to do when you see a moose, a cougar (which he encountered in this same canyon a couple of summers ago), etc.) Unfortunately, we had to cross the road to get to the trees as all we had on our side of the road were saplings and such. We booked across the road, but I couldn't quite make it to the trees, so I held my breath and stood still as the moose ran by me, oh say 15 feet away. He continued right past me, and ran right by the tree that DH was hiding behind. We saw the moose stop further down the road and, if there was a thought bubble above his head, it would have said, "HUH?" We stayed out of his line of sight and then he went into the woods. I wish I had my heart rate monitor on just to see how hard my heart was beating!

I honestly can't say that I'll go snowshoeing up Mill Creek Canyon again!

Right before we saw the moose, I was saying that we should have brought our dog with us, as he would have enjoyed the exercise. I'm so glad he wasn't with us. I just did some Internet research and, apparently, moose will charge and chase dogs, especially if the dog is barking. I am 100% certain that my dog would have barked at the moose. Yikes!

We told the people coming down the canyon road what we had seen, so that they could be prepared. It was truly the most frightening thing I have experienced in a very long time!

Alex