You’ll Never Get Closer to Elk: Oak Creek Feeding Station

At the beginning of March, two other travel writers, a VisitRainier employee and I experienced the feeding of the elk at Oak Creek Feeding Station, off Highway 12 near Naches in Eastern Washington (yes, it was a press trip). We got close enough to these four-legged giants to make eye contact.

 

This supplemental feeding program, began in 1945. It was adopted so that the elk wouldn’t venture into any of the agricultural areas nearby looking for food in the winter. Depending on the weather, feedings begin sometime in December and continue until March. If you visit in January or February, you’ll have the best chance of participating.

Everything is free – you just have to sign up and put your John Henry on a disclaimer. Then you can ride out into the field in a U.S. Army truck and witness the feeding of as many as 700 elk at a time. While you patiently wait your driver dispenses facts and figures about the program and cows and bulls snuffle and shift positions anticipating the upcoming buffet of hay. Then two other vehicles roll out and automatically start dispensing the bales while the regal animals jockey for position.

 

A bull can weigh up to 600 pounds, but they have no interest in the humans staring at them. They only want the food so you’re safe.

I have never witnessed anything like this and highly recommend it as a family outing.

Here’s a story my friend Carrie Uffindall wrote about it: 

Arrive before 1 p.m. to check in, visit the small museum and watch the elk head down the hill for lunch.

14 thoughts on “You’ll Never Get Closer to Elk: Oak Creek Feeding Station

  1. Roxanne

    Our local elk herd came back last night. They winter elsewhere, but they come to our valley to calve in the spring. They are very, very neat. And, huge. My dogs once flushed one up out of the creek. One dog went one way. The other went the other way, and they drove the big BULL elk right toward me. Scary! He veered at the last minute and cleared our fence. Sometimes, though, the whole herd comes through, and they just mash down our fences. Silly!

    Reply
  2. Male Enhancer

    I truly wanted to develop a simple word in order to express gratitude to you for all the nice solutions you are giving at this website. My rather long internet research has at the end of the day been compensated with useful concept to write about with my co-workers. I ‘d believe that many of us readers are quite lucky to be in a perfect website with so many lovely professionals with helpful ideas. I feel very much happy to have used your site and look forward to plenty of more pleasurable minutes reading here. Thanks a lot once more for a lot of things.

    Reply
  3. Rolex Fake

    Hello very cool website!! Guy .. Beautiful .. Wonderful .
    . I’ll bookmark your site and take the feeds also? I’m satisfied to seek out so many useful info here in the post, we’d like develop extra strategies in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .

    Reply
  4. Ralph Lauren Australia

    Howdy would you mind sharing which blog platform you’re using? I’m looking to start my own blog soon but I’m having a hard time selecting between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your layout seems different then most blogs and I’m
    looking for something unique. P.S Apologies for
    being off-topic but I had to ask!

    Reply
  5. geloescht

    We absolutely love your blog and find almost all of your post’s to be exactly what I’m looking for.
    Would you offer guest writers to write content to suit your
    needs? I wouldn’t mind creating a post or elaborating on a few of the subjects you write with regards to here. Again, awesome site!

    Here is my homepage :: geloescht

    Reply

Leave a Reply to geloescht Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.