Caught on camera: Moose charges group of hikers in Utah; trapping them on hiking trail



OGDEN, Utah -- A frightening encounter between a moose and a group of hikers in Utah was caught on camera! 

"He's coming!" one hiker is heard saying in the video as a moose charges down the hiking trail.

"She came down and she was like a steamroller. When she came down, we only had seconds before she was right on us," William Barba said.

Barba and more than a dozen others met up to snowshoe and hike in the Wheeler Creek area off Art Nord Drive in Ogden, Utah.

The group hadn't even made it a mile up the trail when it happened.

"The member that had the dog that spooked the moose in the first place, he said something like, 'moose is coming, moose!' That's all it took," Barba said.

The moose charged past half the group and came barreling down toward the others.

"It came by me. He looked at me and he snorted as he went by," David Vance said.

Chauntelle McAlhany watched the moose nearly trample her dog Bella.

"The moose just went right over the top of her and somehow, miraculously, she didn't get hurt," McAlhany said.

The hikers tried to back away, but there was a problem. The moose was now down the trail -- blocking their way to safety.

"We were stuck. We were cold. We wanted to get back down to our car and it was the only way. There's no way to go around the moose. I mean, it's a narrow trail," McAlhany said.

The moose charged at least three separate times, while the group of hikers hunkered down and tried to stay safe.

"This moose is putting on a bluff charge. It's a stress response to scare away danger," Phil Douglass with the Department of Wildlife Resources said.

Douglass said this moose was exhibiting classic behavior, especially this time of year.

"We've had a heavy snowfall in the last few weeks. It's moving the animals down. The animals are going to places where it's easy to walk, like a well-traveled trail like Wheeler Canyon is," Douglass said.

Douglass said hikers will need to take extra precautions and know what to do in case this happens to them. It's a good idea to have extra supplies on hand in case you have to wait it out.

Eventually, two hikers in this group were able to get back down to their vehicles, but the others, who were further up the trail, spent an extra two hours hiking up the trail even further to get to the road in a round-about way.