Cheyenne Mountain mornings

Scouting for lettuce

In late January I woke up debated whether to go hiking or visit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I didn’t have to debate - the country’s highest zoo allows for both. Despite being 20 minutes from my front door, obstacles popped up anytime I planned a visit. Most days when I contemplated the drive to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in late 2019, it snowed without fail. My boss told me to take a half-day – zoo hours were covered in snow. The road rises gradually from the Broadmoor, the city’s famed luxury resort. Thin clouds drifted in but big sky blue dominated. At a few minutes after nine, traffics was minimal. Minutes later, I was a member of the zoo and huffing up its main road toward the African exhibits. A sweater and jeans were enough in the sunny morning.

All our lionesses in a row

Just after the zoo opened, few of the large African mammal ventured outside. A few zebras chomped at their hay. A lone elephant roamed the pachyderm pen, with another half-dozen elephants warmer in the adjacent barn. It issued noises that sounded somewhere between grunts and growls; they could have been heavy breaths through its trunk. A second elephant stood near the entrance to the barn – as I entered the barn, it trumpeted loudly.

As I emerged from the barn, other noises emerged, a rowdy display from the lions. Earlier the two males reflected the same behaviors as my old backyard cat colony, running up against each other as they waited for their breakfast. Once fed, they skulked around a nook near dozens of visitors. A female continued to pace near the grated entry where the keepers passed food.

After a pass through the Australian exhibit, with emus in the yard and red-necked wallabies inside for the winter (not to be confused with redneck wallabies), I headed for the Rocky Mountain exhibit. The one visible grizzly bear slept soundly – at his time, his wild comrades would be denned down for the winter. The river otters were quite active and talkative (at least to each other). An Amur leopard paced through its enclosure – it sometimes seemed as if every zoo has a cat for which the enclosure isn’t enough territory. The mountain lion exhibit was closed due to an unfortunate incident with its resident cubs.

Tahoma's past antlers

 In the Rocky exhibit, I spent most of my time in a close encounter with Tahoma, Cheyenne Mountain’s resident moose. At 13years old, Tahoma shows some white fur on his muzzle, but otherwise seems quite spry. His antlers for 2019 fell off a month ago, and a building near his pen exhibits his antlers from past years.

He munched on the few leaves and licked his chops regularly. He stood just 10 feet away, seemingly as curious in passing people as they were  in him. I would prefer a wild encounter with a moose, although not as close as the one I had with Tahoma – at least he was used to gawkers like me.

The primate building housed everything from blind mole rats to great apes. This collection of great apes was impossible to ignore. The female orangutan had a one-year old, and they dared you to look away. I could have watched that baby orangutan till closing time. Like a human baby, she jumped toward every distraction. They tore open the bag of food lowered to them, then the baby turned the bag into a toy. She bounded around after her mother moved to the off-display area. It was hard to leave, but it will be interesting to watch the little orangutan grow.

The siamangs hooted and shouted, advertising the primate building from across the zoo. Up close, they dangled from rope wires and continued their conversations. Lowland gorillas were visible though reinforced windows into their enclosure. As I observed them, all three migrated indoors. Only later when reviewing photos did I notice that one of the few shots I took captured one of them appearing to smile.

With one of the world’s largest captive herds, no one could leave the zoo without a trip to the giraffe village. They moved gracefully toward the scores of people surrounding their enclosure. Three dollars of lettuce provides a little trip to heaven and heavy attention from the herd. Try to pose with one giraffe and another intent on lettuce will photo-bomb your picture. The giraffes will connive and jockey for those leaves.

Looking north from the Shrine to the Sun

The Shrine
On a January day this nice, I didn’t want to descend without stopping at Will Rogers Shrine to the Sun. After walking through the zoo, driving through its main route felt a little strange. The Cheyenne Mountain Highway runs through the zoo, and it’s the only route to the shrine higher up the mountain. Driving up the road, I realized I was not in any condition to run the May race to the shrine and back down.

By luck I hit the shrine right at noon, when it plays several minutes of music. Broadmoor Hotel founder Spencer Penrose and his wife Julie are buried in a chapel at the tower’s base. Penrose founded the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo after he began a collection of animals at his estate. He later paid for construction of the Pikes Peak Highway.

The first level has a chapel with murals depicting the history of the Pikes Peak Region from Indian times to Zebulon Pike’s party to the gold rush at Cripple Creek. A room on each floor provides history and context about Rogers, including a photo of the plane crash that killed him in 1935.

There are memorials and tributes to the Oklahoma-born Rogers all over, but it’s hard to argue with the views from this one. The balcony at the top gives the best views of Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods, Black Forest and land rippling east into the Colorado Plains. Despite the presence of others, it was a serene place, a window unto the entire region and its history.

A thousand feet below the shrine, the zoo seemed small. The huge elephant barn and array of other buildings clustered together seemed a far cry from the zoo I just walked through.

Tahoma stairs out during his zookeeper talk

Lunch break
After noting that the zookeeper talk for Tahoma the moose fell late morning on Friday, I decided to take an early lunch. Membership privileges include lunch breaks at the zoo. I didn’t wander far into the zoo that day, beelining for the moose enclosure, where Tahoma feasted on bark while the turkeys who shared his exhibit warbled to remind spectators that the moose wasn’t alone.

The keepers opened a “window” on Tahoma’s fence, and administered a laser treatment on his arthritic joints while he sampled from a bucket of vegetables that included what the keepers said were his first mushrooms ever. He didn’t hesitate. Tahoma has spent most of his life on Cheyenne Mountain – born in a Canadian zoo, he came to Cheyenne Mountain about the time when his mother began to haze him off, as she would in the wild.

At nearly 13 years old, he received laser treatments on his joints to ease arthritis symptoms. From 10 feet away, Tahoma didn’t seem in any obvious pain, just chewing trough his branches and vegetables. Feet away from Tahoma, nine-month-old mountain lion cubs stalked and pounced in the snow.

There were three cubs but the other died due to complications in surgery when the zoo spayed and neutered the cats, a necessity for captive animals that could have wild counterparts roaming Cheyenne Mountain.

In the wild, an elder moose and young mountain lions would interact poorly. In the curves of the zoo’s terraced path and enclosures, the animals lived separate lives.

Enrichment