Residents in the Yellowstone gateway community of Gardiner, Montana, are used to seeing lots of elk in town every spring, but locals say it was a first when a cow elk strolled out onto a roof early Tuesday.
“That was the first time we’d ever seen anything like that. That’s why we stopped to take photos,” Dan Buell told Cowboy State Daily.
Normally, elk are just part of the spring scenery for him and his wife, Cindy. They live in Gardiner and run Cheap & Cheesy Yellowstone Tours.
But as they were headed out of town that morning, the sight of a cow elk boldly standing on the roof of one of the buildings in town made them hit the brakes.
The cow must have been trying to beat the rest of the herd to the snack she’d discovered — grass growing on the sod roof.
The structure is an old business building that didn’t appear to be occupied at the time. It’s built partly into the embankment behind it, making the roof easily accessible.
Although the daring cow was the first elk the Buells had ever seen attempt the stunt.
“Usually, you worry about birds flying over, now, we’ve got to worry about elk on our roofs,” Dan said jokingly.
Elk Town
Like Estes Park, Colorado, Gardiner gets overrun with migrating elk a couple of times per year.
In the springtime, the elk are moving back into Yellowstone National Park.
They join a few “resident elk” that spend the entire year in or near Gardiner, Cindy Buell said.
“The elk are all over town right now,” Dan said.
“You have to look left and right for elk every time you step out your door,” Cindy said.
It can be difficult to distinguish individual elk from each other, but Dan said he and Cindy are reasonably sure that the rooftop cow is one of the resident “town elk.”
That would make sense. She might have been eyeing the building’s roof access for a while, before finally deciding to go for it.
‘That Would Top My List’
Avid elk hunter J.R. Larsen of Douglas told Cowboy State Daily that he’s seen elk brave steep slopes in the wild, but seeing an elk up on a roof isn’t something he’d ever expect.
“That would top my list” of unusual places to find elk, said Larsen, the southern Wyoming regional director for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF).
The elk must have taken significant risk striding out on the roof, he said.
Elks’ weight is narrowly distributed through their hoofs, making it likely to punch through a weak spot in the structure, he said.
“Even if that was only a 400-pound cow elk, that’s still 100 pounds on each hoof,” he said.
‘Surreal’
Noted Wyoming outdoorsman Paul Ulrich, who lives in the Pinedale area, said he’s had big game animals show up at his place.
I’ve seen moose and deer walk into my garage, but I’ve never seen an elk on top of my house or anybody else’s, he said.
Ulrich joked that as a dedicated hunter, he’s had elk show up in weird places in his dreams.
“Like, having a cocktail with me in elk camp after a day of hunting,” he said.
“But they never show up where I want them to, when I’m actually hunting,” he added.
He said that the Buells’ photo of the elk on the roof was “awesome.”
“The only thing I could possibly compare it to is when you go down to Estes Park, and the elk are all over town, and it’s a surreal experience. The bonus there is, you get to see a lot of idiots interacting with those elk inappropriately,” Ulrich said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
