Elk Park and Badger Gulch - Spring 2025

Back to Elk Park to finish up building the exclosure fence, and visited Badger Gulch to set up trail cameras and retrieve weather data.

Weather

⛅ Low 50s, partly sunny. Cool and pleasant with occasional sunbreaks.

Eric, Aden, and I drove back out to Elk Park to finish up building the exclosure fence. We then drove over to Badger Gulch for our first visit of 2025 to retrieve weather data and install the trail cameras.

Elk Park

We had leftover fencing from our South Dakota trip (exactly the right amount!) so we used that to wrap around the entire Elk Park exclosure. I also retreived images from the trail cameras I set up during our last visit on May 8, 2025.

Site activities

• Finish building exclosure
• Add stakes to control grid where slash piles make road hares unusable
• Retrieve preliminary images from trail cameras

Eric & Aden building exclosure fence

Completed Elk Park exclosure

Eric and Aden add stakes to control grid

Badger Gulch

We previously set up the exclosure at Badger Gulch in November of 2024. We returned to the site to retrieve data logger data as well as set up the trail cameras.

Site activities

• Install trail cameras
• Retrieve weather data from data loggers

Jackson setting up trail camera

Badger Gulch exclosure trail camera

Large yellow toadflax plants found at Badger Gulch

Badger Gulch exclosure

Badger Gulch control grid

Eric and Aden working on a data logger

Trail camera images

Captured a couple cool things with our cameras after just two weeks!

Nightime elk visitor to the exclosure

Ground squirrel (bottom left)

A Bobcat! (bottom left)

Morning elk at control grid

Elk munching on camera

Deer at control grid

Elk at control grid

Mid-May snow at the exclosure