En route home from Sandpoint, ID, Saturday night we were approaching the end of 2MT at Athol when we spotted the outline of an elk bounding across both tracks less than 40 feet ahead of an eastbound, his velvety antlers highlighted by ditch lights. Not all are that lucky. Earlier this year, a UP northbound rounding the corner near Garwood, ID, plowed through an elk herd and came to an abrupt stop after one of the mangled critters managed to unhook an air hose. Where BNSF crosses the ID/WA line west of Hauser Jct., there's a nightly migration of elk and deer out of the nearby woods into the farm fields south of the tracks. Bloated carcasses are a common sight along the ROW there.