Moose (and their photographers) popular at Brainard Lake in the morning

Dawn at Brainard Lake, a good hour from most Front Range civilization, means an awfully early morning. For me, in Boulder, it meant 4:30 a.m. On a Sunday. That's the downside. The upsides? The temperature up there at 10,000 feet was 35 - the morning excursion marked the only part of my day that involved cool. The dawn light was magnificent, painting the east-facing granite slabs of Mount Audobon a sublime pink-lilac. But the moose were the highlights. And they weren't alone - photographers from along the Front Range were there snapping away, as they are most weekend mornings. One group involved a cow, two calves, and at least two bulls, the whole mess of them just standing in chest-high (in human terms, overhead) vegetation and eating leaves. Mostly willow. Another patch of meadow held a single bull, working his way through the feast.