The Great Hunting Road Trip - The Next Day

Even though I've filled my tags, I didn't come all this way to sit around.  A few of the other hunters here have elk tags. I decided to tag along with them this morning. It didn't take long to regret that decision.

Day Seven

First of all, elk hunting starts early. Elk hang out in the tall timber up in the mountains. In order to get there in time for shooting light we left one hour before sunrise. Since last night included a few celebratory toasts in honor of my wall-hanger buck, getting out of my nice comfortable bed this morning was a little tough.

Another factor of the elk's habitat preference is the mode of transportation. Trucks can't get into the timberlands, so we use horses. One advantage of horses is that they can go where trucks can't which means less walking - or so I thought. More on that later. My trusty steed was Two Bits (note the brand on his hip).

One advantage trucks have over horses, however, is that trucks are much, much warmer. You may have noticed that Two Bits is standing in the snow. When we left the corral it was dark, the wind was howling, the snow was pelting us, and the temperature was 21 degrees. The pictures below show, in succession, frozen water coming out of a roof gutter downspout, the snug little cabin I'm staying in before the snow, and after.

Here's what my truck looked like when we got back. Fortunately, my brand new snow and ice scraper cleared it off in no time.

Okay, back to this morning's elk hunt. We rode for about an hour, then stopped and glassed for elk. Saw several bulls right away. We immediately dismounted and began stalking them on foot. Closed the distance to about 150 yards. The guy who had the first shot selected his target - a nice bull standing broadside and unsuspecting - settled into shooting position, squeezed the trigger ... and flat out missed!

The bulls took off over the skyline. After a brief counsel we decided to follow them, hoping that they would settle down in the next little valley. Of course, it was about half a mile to that ridge ... uphill ... in the snow. This was antelope hunting all over again, except the animals were bigger and the mountains were steeper - much steeper. Plus we were at somewhere between 5500 - 6000 feet of altitude. Now I consider myself in pretty good shape for an overweight 61-year-old who eats and drinks too much and doesn't exercise enough, but the combination of steep slopes and thin air was kicking my ass. I wasn't the only one doing a steam engine imitation, however. Everyone else was gasping for air like they'd just finished running a marathon, except for our guide. He was doing an excellent mountain goat imitation, bounding up ahead then hurrying back to tell us "Just a few more steps."

Yeah, right...

Of course we never caught a glimpse of those elk again. Or any others, for that matter. So after a couple of hours of mountain climbing we decided to go back to where we'd left our horse ... about a mile back ... uphill again (how does that work?) ... in the snow. Sigh...

We finally got back about four hours after we left - wet, cold, tired, and hungry. Thank goodness lunch was ready. Hot chicken and dumplings! It was manna from heaven. It restored enough of my strength that I was able to totter back to my cabin and take a nap.

I hit the road tomorrow for the return trip home. The forecast for Wyoming and Colorado calls for snow and freezing temperatures, so the trip could be quite an adventure. Everything I know about driving on snow and ice I learned in Texas: when in doubt, step on the gas.

The adventure continues...