That's how skier David Marx described the moose that stood him down Thursday in a popular out-of-bounds powder cache on the back side of Whitefish Mountain Resort.
Days before Marx had his close encounter, a moose - presumably the same angry ungulate - had kicked in a couple of snowmobiles. And after Marx left, the moose charged yet another skier, taking a ski pole to the nose before backing off.
The reports of a moose terrorizing the Canyon Creek area, on the north slope of Big Mountain, have been piling up since Christmas.
A groomer, smoothing the snowmobile trails that climb Canyon Creek from the North Fork Flathead River to the summit of the resort, said he was charged Dec. 27.
Two days later, a snowmobiler reported that a moose blocked the trail, attacked his machine, and drove its hoof through the snowmobile's fiberglass hood. When it pulled back, the hood came with it, and the moose banged around for a moment with the cowling stuck to its leg.
Later that same day, free finally of the snowmobile parts, a moose attacked and kicked yet another snowmobile in the same area.
At that point, Fraley said, wildlife specialists from his department began patrolling the area, looking for signs of angry animals.
“We saw some moose,” he said, “and lots of moose tracks, but we didn't see anything out of the ordinary.”
And neither did anyone else. Until, that is, Marx and a friend skied out of the resort and down into Canyon Creek not too long after lunch on Thursday.
Down near the snowmobile trail, Marx reported, they startled a moose out of its day-bed. It bolted onto the packed snowmobile track, where the walking is easier, and began ambling up toward the summit. But snowmobilers were coming down from that direction, and the animal was pinned between skiers and sledders.
“She basically staked out the trail,” Fraley said, “rather than wade into the deeper snow in the woods.”
Marx eventually retreated back up through the trees he had just skied down, but an hour or so later another group of skiers in the same area was challenged.
“It sounded really scary for those skiers,” Fraley said. “The moose apparently charged to within about three feet, and one of the guys smacked it in the nose with a ski pole to drive it off.”
That guy was Kevin Green, who “skied to within 15 feet of the moose before I saw her. I looked at it and thought, ‘Oh, my God, it's that moose everyone's talking about.' ”
The moose hunched its shoulders, Green said, and began moving slowly toward him.
He got one ski off.
“Then she charged in fast,” he said. “I was yelling, waving my arms around and everything.”
At 3 feet, “I smacked it sideways across the nose, and it backed off.”
That gave him time to pull off his other ski, but then the charge was on again.
“She came at me about 10 more times,” Green said. “It was just mad and coming right at me. I just kept backing my way up the hill into the trees.”
Eventually, he hid behind a tree and the moose lost interest. “Maybe she couldn't see me,” Green said.
Marx, a photographer as well as a skier, captured several images that seem to show something wrong with the moose's eyes. That jibes with reports from survivors of other close encounters, who have said the animal's eyes are clouded over and hazy.
“We don't know, but certainly if there's something wrong with its eyesight then that could help to explain the aggressive behavior,” Fraley said. “We're still trying to locate the moose and see what we can find out about this. We just don't know enough to be sure of anything yet.”
But Green, for one, is willing to speculate. “Personally,” he said, “I think the thing is just tired and not doing so well, and it's being buzzed by snowmobiles and people. It can't see what's happening, and it's confused.”
Fraley said reports indicate the moose is a cow, “but it could be a young bull that's already dropped its antlers,” he said. The reports also suggest vision problems, “but we can't see through the eyes of the moose.”
Fraley is not even willing to assume all the provocations are the actions of the same moose. “It would appear to be just one moose,” he said, “but we still can't say for sure. We haven't been able to locate the problem.”
On Friday, wildlife officials were again patrolling the area, and officials from both the resort and the U.S. Forest Service were urging people to steer clear of the Canyon Creek trail until the situation is resolved.
“Once we find the moose, then we'll evaluate again,” Fraley said.
Moose are notoriously hard to tranquilize - they don't respond well to the usual drugs, and the drugs that do work are dangerous. Adding to the problem is the fact that the encounters all have occurred in a relatively remote area.
“It's 12 miles from the nearest trailhead,” Fraley said, “and that poses challenges of its own.”
As to what might happen when the animal is found, Fraley said only that “it's not the time to speculate. We need to learn more about what's going on up there. Recreationists have been co-existing with wildlife in that drainage for decades, and we don't want to make any decisions until we have a clearer picture of the problem.”
Marx, meanwhile, has a whole stack of clear photos of a cloudy-eyed moose in an afternoon standoff with a snowmobile. And while wildlife specialists hunt the moose to learn more, Marx already knows what he's going to do about it.
“I am skiing with my bear spray from now on.”
On Missoulian.com
To see photos of the mad moose and to read about skier David Marx's close encounter, drop by http://www.Missoulian.com and click through to the online newspaper's snowsports blog. Or, link direct at http://www.montanasnowsports.com.
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