It all started in late 2010, my good friend, and fellow Lost Flatlander, started talking about his elk hunting adventures that he went on yearly with his dad. I have always loved the mountains and adding that with a relatively new hunting passion of mine it sounded like the best of both worlds! So, we started planning and in 2011 I put in for my first draw in Colorado, I was unsuccessful with the draw and along with that we ended up buying a new house that required a lot of work which led to me making the decision to not go on the hunt. But the ember had been lit and it was just a matter of time until the fire was roaring.
Fast-forward to 2015, I had let things slide in my life, I was climbing the career ladder at work and gaining more responsibility, which led to less focus on family and personnel endeavors. Add to that I was also 30+ pounds overweight and had lost complete focus on fitness in my life. Late in 2015 I had an eye-opening experience in my career which ultimately resulted in changes that would alter the course of my life in a positive way. I was in a dark place for a while trying to understand what had happened and makes sense of everything. I needed focus, a goal, something I could drive myself towards. It was at just that time that I discovered podcasts and fell into the Gritty Bowmen like many others at that time. The knowledge and enthusiasm that I gained listening to the podcast was the fuel that ember needed to take off. At the beginning of 2016 I started the journey many others have, I had found a new religion.
As this fire started roaring I talked with Michael and told him my plans. His exact words were “You’re Crazy! You’ve never hunted elk, and never backcountry camped and you’re going to do that all at once!” Just the fuel I needed to keep that flame burning hot! I had hoped and planned on doing this hunt with Michael however life had different plans for him and he and his wife were expecting their second child. Through a series of events I found a hunting partner with nearly the same back story as myself through Rokslide! We talked a lot, made plans, and met face to face for the first time the day before we were going into the backcountry. We were both lucky, and as far as hunting partners go it couldn’t have been a better match.
We arrived at the trail head having an idea of where we wanted to camp the first night, but also not having a clue what we were doing and began our initial hike in. I was well prepared, I hadn’t left anything at home including the kitchen sink, I estimate I had 75 lbs of gear in my pack…hiking at 10-11k feet of elevation began to suck quickly. We moved spots after the first night to a location on the mountain. Over the first couple of days and nights we had a couple of grouse encounters as we hiked around looking for Elk or sign of them. We were only able to find older sign of where they had been that summer.
On Sunday (my day to hunt) I picked a place on the map, it had all the makings of the perfect elk spot…or at least what the experts told me made a perfect spot. North facing, timber, water nearby, and a large meadow. I just knew the elk had to be nearby. We started hiking early and worked our way through and around drainages throughout most of the morning. Stopping only for lunch and a short rest. It was just after lunch and we found our first real sign…a tree that was raked to high heaven…this was just the spark we needed. As we neared the point on the map I asked my partner, “What do you think? Do we go up and over or around?”. He chose right we went up and over and as we came up the hill we walked right into a saddle that contained the freshest Elk sign I had seen, what started as a trail and widened into an elk highway!
As we approached the edge where it dropped off, Mitch glassed down in the bottom of the chute and quickly grabbed my arm to stop me. “There’s an elk down there!” He whispered. I picked up my binos and checked it out, as we took a second to sit back and assess the situation from what we could gather there was 4-5 cows and a bull around 150 yards away, literally right in the spot I had pointed at on the map! Just about that time the bull started to stand up and began bugling and rounding up his cows. It was taking all the restraint I had to not just charge off after them. We began to ease down the hill working our way trying to stay in cover and monitoring the wind.
As we worked our way down the hill the elk continued to move, and eventually we lost sight of them, however the bull was very vocal and we were able to monitor his position as he sounded off occasionally. As we made it to the bottom of the drainage we came to a river. The elk continued to sound off and we could tell they had crossed the river and began climbing on the other side. I looked at Mitch and he said “You never leave a bugling bull!”. We crossed the river and began climbing toward the last call we heard. We found a fresh game trail so I stopped and nocked an arrow thinking they could be very close. We climbed for just a few minutes and I stopped and looked up and the bull was 20 yards in front of me, head down behind a tree feeding with all of the vitals exposed. I looked back at Mitch who called out a range, and said “SHOOT IT!!” I drew back and set the pin and let’er rip.
The bull spun around and went uphill jumping up a 6’ rock face and ran off. I was wondering what just happened, everything looked and felt good. However, everyone knows bulls don’t run uphill if their hit, right? We didn’t hear a crash or anything else happen so we approached the hit location looking for any signs of blood or the arrow. Not a drop of blood in the immediate area and no arrow…I was starting to wonder what happened did I just blow it?
As we waited we discussed plans for the pack out and what we were going to do. After waiting the “prescribed” 45 minutes before we began our tracking job. As we started following the tracks up the hill and came up over the rock face only 25 yards from the shoot location I spotted the bull before seeing the first drop of blood. He had only made it 5 maybe 10 seconds from the shot and fallen over dead. The arrow had entered near the back of the rib cage and bedded in the off-side shoulder, catching all the goodies on the way to its final resting place.
It was about 5:00 pm, now the work began. We started boning the animal out and getting the meat placed in game bags. By the time we got the boning process complete it was well past sunset, neither one of us was overly confident in hiking back to camp in the dark, so we decided to stay the night. The beginning of many lessons learned started that evening huddled around a small campfire to stay warm.
As we woke up in the morning we began moving half of the meat from the kill area down to the river to put it in dry sacks and place in the river to keep it cool for the second trip. The second load we brought down and started to pack it out, we decided to take a longer route back to camp that provided the use of trails to make it back however it was an 8-mile hike vs 4-5 miles off trail.
We made it about a quarter of a mile before bailing on that plan and placing the second half of the meat in the river and continuing our hike out. We made it back to camp exhausted, sunburned, and starving. After eating a dehydrated meal, we both feel asleep. After waking up we began talking about plans to get the meat out and what we were going to do. Ultimately, we ended up getting help from a local rancher who helped us out with horses and we packed the meat out what ended up being a 26-mile round trip horseback ride that left us feeling a new type of sore, we had never prepared for. The meat was in great condition and we split it equally between the two of us. Afterwards we made plans for the next year to meet up again with the goal of getting Mitch an Elk.
Of the many lessons learned a few stand-out in my mind:
–Don’t overpack and kill yourself on the hike in– study your gear list and don’t listen to the “good-idea fairy”, my bag had room so if I thought I might need it I brought it.
–ALWAYS carry your puffy jacket!– I left mine at camp the night we stayed out
–Always bring an extra food– we only had the food left for that day with plans of being back at camp that night. It also didn’t occur to us in our follies that we had 200+ lbs of elk meat we should have ate to provide additional calories (duh)!
–Know your hunting area– sometimes it might be rougher but a more direct route if possible would be my choice for packing meat. While trails are nice, it added a ton of distance and an extra 1,000 ft of elevation to climb.
–Split the loads into manageable portions– I estimate we were in the 70-80 lbs pack weight with the first load of meat we tried to haul. With our lack of calories, and the elevations 10-12,500 feet that we were facing it was a recipe for disaster.