Long Story, Short Hunt - Colorado Elk

Since we were on the road for the two months following our Colorado elk hunt, I never got a chance to post the notes of this hunt, which I have since filled in with more details for a magazine that has asked for the story. Not sure if it will get published or in what format, so I figured I may as well post it here and get some use out of the hours spent writing it.




Somethings in life are worth waiting for. Some things worth fighting for. All, worth living for. Chasing elk in the wild Colorado canyons cover all the above.

Laying in my tent, my mind rolled back to the first time I mailed money to Colorado, hoping I would be chasing elk on this mesa, on these public lands. Licking that envelope, I could not have imagined it would be nineteen years of rejection until, the twentieth attempt, when I would stand atop the preference point pile and do what I had dreamed of two decades prior.

My last waking thoughts was the antlered herd we spotted just before dark, scattered in small bachelor groups as post-rut bulls will do; hunkered down in the worst terrain, far from motors, daring any elk hunter to make the hike to chase them. And daring them further to pull the trigger and starting what would surely be a multi-day extraction of meat, hide, and trophy.

Sleep comes easy in the pure air of 9,000’ in the Colorado Rockies. Alarms come early, validating my friend’s favorite rise and shine line, “Doesn’t take long to spend the night around here.” No, it didn’t.

No time for my morning coffee ritual. Calling me was a pre-dawn hike to a glassing ridge where the southeast sun would hopefully illuminate these bulls, outlining one of them to be worth waiting forty-percent of my living years for this chance to match wits and skill. A brisk hour hike, following an hour in the UTV, would give me time to reflect on the journey to get here, the elk these canyons conceal, and with any luck, a plan to notch a tag.

Waiting for glassing light tests every hunter’s patience, even those with a quarter century experience. I kept peering through the spotter, dialing the magnification down to 15X, hoping to capture what little light was advancing. I smiled, thinking how many mornings I had repeated that same exercise, always with the same result; blurry objects my mind wanted to confirm as elk.

Age trains one to better handle frustrations born of impatience. I rummaged through my pack for the banana bread that is more than my wife’s fine baking; her good luck token and a reminder that she finds happiness in my happiness. Sniffing and inspecting this treat passed enough minutes that when I returned to the spotter the images were less blurry, though still not wearing obvious antlers.

My layers, once moist from sweating to climb here, dried quickly as morning thermals coursed this large basin from where an impenetrable sandstone canyon disappeared. Last evening’s bulls, if spotted today, would require my greatest navigation talent. No passage seemed to exist. Waiting for more light, I pulled my GPS to solve the canyon’s riddle. If a route existed, the topo lines, stacked thick and discouraging, hid it.
With my naked eye, the closer images could be identified. High elevation faces across this huge chasm accepted the first full morning light. Time to angle my glass there, then grid my way east across the face, and chase the dropping shadow line to the low country.

Sometimes luck finds you. My first roll of the spotter’s focus wheel seemed to have an elk. Yup, an elk, antlers included. I had not even panned the scope and here was an elk. And given antlers could be seen in this low light, at a mile and a quarter, he obviously was worth investigation. Rolling back the magnification widened my field of view, allowing me to search the edges of the lens in hopes he was not alone. Nope, he’s not alone. Four antlered buddies were enjoying once-burned oaks for breakfast, mixed with an assortment of other greens low -intensity fires deliver.

Yes, after all these years, this seemed worth the wait. The bulls of last night had only moved a few hundred yards, albeit a few hundred mean yards when measured in terms of sheer cliff angles and clothes-tearing oak jungle. Impatience was replaced by hunter’s watching the bulls go about their morning bask, undeterred by the activities of man. Enough distance from humans and discouraging topography put elk at ease. And what this spot lacked in distance, it more than made up for with discouraging topography.

A yellow band of sparsely leaved aspens, spared by the recent fires, rolled off the mesa into this long-running gut, serving as a landmark that would allow me to relocate these bulls when I finished following the sun as it worked its way to the lower benches.

With no distant gun shots, no whining of small motors, I began to wonder, “Am I really on public land; did hunting season really opened this morning?”

This first hour of legal shooting light revealed many elk-colored shapes dotting the terrain across from my glassing position, ranging in distance of one-plus miles to almost two miles. In total, four bachelor groups of bulls and not a single cow to be found. All fed undisturbed, seeming in a random arrangement across the rugged faces, though reasons for being here were far from random; security, sanctuary, escapement, rare late-season food in the quality and abundance only a fire can bring, and probably most driven by instinct.

With so many candidates to chase, I drew my map from my pack and laid it out on a large rock still trying to shed the night’s frost. Comparing the big map to my GPS chip revealed the reasons for such an accumulation of elk. The nearest road came from the northwest, but crossed a large section of State Trust Land. Under Colorado law, these State Trust Lands are off limits to hunting unless you are the lessee. I had inquired of that leaseholder and they explained that their private and State Trust Land property is leased to a hunting group for deer and elk, along with some private hunting of their family. Polite as they were firm, it was apparent that permission to approach across those tamer State Trust Lands was not option. Searching for a silver lining in the access cloud, I rationalized that one benefit of this access challenge was that with no reasonable access across those State Land show as blue on my surface map, this would be a sanctuary; something my desk scouting projected and a discussion with a past tag holder confirmed.

With a western approach eliminated, I had to find a way around this huge canyon, the likes of which make western Colorado such a scenic wonder. I would have to hike back out, catch the Forest Road, and loop far east, in hopes I could come at these bulls from the north. Not my preferred choice, as a fumble on the stalk would send them further into the canyons or due west to the State Trust Land, possibly putting them off limits for my entire hunt. No other choice existed. I didn’t wait this long and travel this far just to watch distant bulls in a spotting scope.

Yeah, it was the first day of a nine-day season, but on public land, he who hesitates often loses. Before loading my pack to hike down to the rig, I placed markers on my GPS, doing so based on experience that distance tends to flatten terrain and when you get to your spot it always looks much different. I pulled out my cell phone and took pictures of the entire mountain face, starting at the rim where I expected to enter this mess, all the way east to west, and down to where the last fingers merged with the impenetrable canyon maze below. These pics would help serve as reference when I found myself lost in ten-foot-tall oak and aspen scrub.

With one last look, both with binos and the naked eye, I retraced the trail that had brought me here. My steps were light, knowing that sixteen bulls, all mature branch-antlered bulls, were there for my pleasure. What was an hour hike in the morning darkness was barely twenty minutes when spurred by the energy bull elk sightings add to a hunter’s pace. At the vehicle, I charted the maze of roads that would get me around the head of this huge basin. From there I would see what roads and trails would get me closer.

I found myself needing to take my foot off the gas a time or two. My mind was racing at the prospect that the largest of these bulls might be as big as he looked from two miles off. Yeah, it would take two days to retrieve his parts and pieces, but what the hell else would I rather be doing for those two days.

As I got closer to my last turn off, a large camp of wall tents and trailers throttled down my excitement. Wow, this is a lot of hunters. I waved politely as I passed by the few, who for various reasons, were not out on the chase this fine November morning. Tracks in the dirt and mud told me to expect traffic ahead. Each little turn out held a rig, eventually leaving what I deciphered to be one set of UTV tracks remaining to be accounted for. Where my map showed a bit less than a mile to the road’s end, that green rig was pulled off at a stock tank, it’s occupants in search of deer and elk.

The camp hunters had all short-stopped from where this old road ended. Was that because the road was not much of a road and they valued their vehicles more than I do? Were they all deer hunters avoiding this huge canyon where so many bulls were hanging? My question was soon answered in the form of boulders and rocks that challenged every bit of my driving talent and the engineering that went into my truck. I suspect I could have walked faster in many places.

I arrived much later than anticipated. It had taken over two hours to get here. It was now just an hour before noon. The sun was intense at this elevation, even for November. I parked the truck and walked to the nearest edge in hopes it would reveal a path ahead. Nothing but a steep obstacle course of oak brush like only Colorado can grow. Hmmm.

Walking back to the truck, I spread my map on the tailgate, drilled down the layers of my GPS chip, and examined the pictures on my cell phone. This old Forest Service road went right to where the map indicated. Physics dictated it could go no further. South-southwest was the big nipple of spruce that interrupted this sea of burnt and unburned aspen and oak. Just to the north of that landmark was the face that climbed out of this gut and held the bull I wanted to inspect at closer range.

Getting there and finding a glassing spot seemed impossible from here. The GPS chip showed an old trail that contoured this entire mesa for miles. It was six hundred vertical feet below. Hoping to find that in the maze of brush and then praying it was navigable seemed a huge risk. Hmmm, what to do, what do?

While pondering the sanity to search for more accessible elk, the hum of a motor neared. A vintage CJ rolled around the corner with two guys a few seasons more experienced than me. They killed the motor, rolled down the window and struck up a conversation. Holding cow tags and this mesa being their annual hunting camp, they were happy to share history and stories of hunts past.

Being somewhat guarded of the treasure I found, it took a while before I starting picking for knowledge that would come from decades of hunting here. I mildly led with the fact I saw a group of bulls I was trying to get a better look at. They asked for confirmation of where, to which I gave a general direction in a manner I am sure they knew was purposely veiled.

Information tidbits were provided via many stories of younger days when the trail still existed, even before this unit went on a limited draw, when the rawness of the land and the sturdiness of your knees determined the outcome. They had no interest in shooting a cow in that hole, a place they described with far more color than I’ve written here. Excited to see my intent to follow footsteps they once laid down, the first guy got out of the passenger seat and commenced to giving precise details of how to hit the trail from here and a navigation route to the small spine that created a divide previously invisible from my morning glassing location.
Soon the driver was standing next to us giving as much warning as his partner was giving advice. I felt as though some lucky stars had aligned to connect me to these guys and their generous wealth of knowledge. They seemed as excited to see me head into the depths of this canyonland as I was to investigate the bulls from this morning.

Seeing me look at my watch caused the men to falsely assume I felt they were delaying my descent. They abruptly apologized for the delay and turned to their rig, offering on last bit of advice, “Catch that trail and you’ll make good time. When you start down in there, you’ll see why you want that trail.” Finishing with the disclaimer, “And if that trail has grown in, it’s not our fault.”

The last noise of the CJ bouncing back toward the camps was an indicator to get rolling. It was well past noon and the sun had now pushed the bulls deeper, around the shaded corners that I could not see from my glassing knob south from where I had parked.

I cinched my pack, loaded with a bit more gear than normal, reflecting my confidence that today could turn to a long night if a little luck came my way. I grabbed my trekking poles, marked the truck location on my GPS, and headed to the small spine the hunters had assured was the best vector to find the old trail below.

Many hunting expeditions quickly convince you as to the folly of your plan. This was one of those instances. I had only dropped two hundred of the six hundred vertical feet needed to reach the bench where I was risking an old trail might still exist, when I looked back up to the rim, calculating how much effort would be required to turn around here. I was at that critical point of no return. I pivoted back to the wall of oak brush before me, breathed deep, and thought about how nineteen years of points required I follow my gut, not my brain. Forward and downward.

I’ll spare the cussing of the next half hour as I dropped further into the trap this terrain seemed to have set for me. The slope eventually flattened some where my GPS contours said it would. Yet, no trail to be found, or at least not a discernible trail.

I was now twenty yards past where my electronics told me the trail transected this bench. A weakening in the oak density convinced me to go right. Heading north I envisioned a small spine that erosion had not yet eliminated, hoping it would grant access to the other mesa where I could glass into the cut where the largest bull had disappeared. Given the zero visibility of the brush, I was going on reckoning and GPS confirmation.

Zig zagging north along what my GPS said would be a trail provided no relief to the clothes-clutching jungle. Carrying a pack with a rifle attached only served to slow my pace. I took a break to consider the futility of my plan.

Looking below, I deducted that if I had crossed the trail it had grown in since the old boys had last been here. Or, they had coaxed another enthusiastic non-resident down into a sucker’s hole and were back at camp telling big stories of how they pranked one more hunter tempted by the antlers glimmering in this mess.

Exploring the last bit of this bench before it would again drop eight hundred feet further below seemed to be my only remaining hope in this process of elimination. My map chip said the break was only fifty yards west.

I rose and with considerable struggle traversed twenty yards where I emerged on to what seemed like the world’s biggest rabbit tunnel. Wow, this was like nothing I had expected. A heavy layer of new elk tracks over older tracks, over older deer tracks, pocked this yard-wide trail. Eons of hooves had removed any plant matter, resulting in a trail better than those old boys had detailed. It arrowed north, as they assured me it would, completely hidden by an overhanging canopy of tight woven aspen tops.

Here seemed like a great place to mark the trails intersection with my straight line decent from the truck. My relief of finding the trail was temporary, with reality sinking in that by day’s end I would have to climb that six hundred feet back up to the truck, possibly by headlamp.

Trekking north I made remarkable time. When I got to the rock spine that gapped the head of this canyon, the elk traffic had maintained the trail in impeccable fashion, keeping it easy going as I turned west. From the mid-point of this saddle, I could look south down the canyon toward the knob where I had glassed from this morning. From the canyon’s rim so much contour existed that could not be seen from below. Looking north off this spine was another canyon, steeper at the head, though widening much faster than it’s south-running partner.

This small divide and it’s overlooking vista was calling my hunter’s eye. I had to clear some brush and earn a glassing angle. With so many bulls vanishing into this hole, there had to be elk visible from here. Or, so I hoped.

As hunters, we struggle to stay focused when quarry seems absent. Our minds wander, knowing the next ridge holds what we seek. I found my mind dreaming of this morning when three good bulls took refuge in the few spruce trees fighting for space among the aspens that owned this mesa above and west of here. Surely such darkness would offer shade in these unseasonably warm November temps.

My soul’s restlessness agreed with my hunter’s heart. Within twenty minutes I was repacking my spotter and shouldering my pack for the modest climb up this knife ridge, a climb made easier by the elk that had used this same trail to contour west, driven by the instinctive calling that pushes man and beast further from trailheads.

I had made the first hundred feet of this three-hundred-foot rise, when I looked back south where the trail approached the steepest face of the mesa, opening a view to the far bottoms of this canyon where the bulls faded away this morning. It was too much to resist. I dropped my pack, found a precipice that gave comfort gravity would not pull me off this ledge, and lasered my binos into ever shaded corner where rock interrupted the carpet of oak.

The inviting nature of this viewshed would grab any hunter’s imagination. And so would the number of bulls finding cool shade down below. What had been a bachelor group of six bulls this morning had grown. Within fifteen minutes of scanning, eight bulls were counted, all dispersed over a half square mile, each in a comfortable flat spot interrupting the slopes. None would be considered immense, but all were mature branch-antlered adults worth inspection. Two were most appealing, appearing almost as twins, with one being far more tempting by bedding much closer to the trail. Here, every foot of elevation is earned, sometimes lost and earned again, so proximity to a trail is worth many additional points.

In spite of this pocket spouting bull elk like summer weeds, I could not resist the notion that something better was in the basin just beyond this slope I had partially scaled. Making note and taking inventory, I decided this would be a good “ace in the hole” if my I could not find those three bulls I expected were just to my west.

Two hours of shooting light remained when I got my tripod set up and optics pointed northwest. This bowl was far steeper and much more expansive than it appeared when glassing from two miles south and over a thousand feet below. The elky vista seemed worth the effort to get here.

One small six point must have heard or smelled me as I crossed the narrow isthmus to this mesa. He was making double time from the southeast, auguring through the oaks toward the spruce-aspen mix where the three bulls had crossed this morning. He seemed somewhat confused, stopping to look for what had scared him, allowing the lowering sun to light up his now-bleached flanks. Eventually he was engulfed by the oaks and aspens, giving perspective of what it would take for a hunter and his camera guy to reach the island of dark timber where this mesa topped out.

As if on script, two bulls emerged from where I lost them this morning. Yes, they were very nice bulls. Those who keep score would put them in the 320” range. Soon, there were four. Three seemingly older, judging by mass and beam length. The younger guy made up the age difference by sporting five long unbroken tines on each beam that grew long to a sixth and final point. Barring misfortune, this bull seemed destined to surpass his mates if given the same benefit of age.

Standing with my tripod high enough to gain vantage over the berry brush, I withdrew from the lens, reflecting on the beauty of the moment; one of those truly inspiring times all elk hunters can relate to. With the flat rays of a setting sun smacking their winter coats, these bulls shone bright to the naked eye, their antlers taking turns periscoping over the tops of the purple oaks while the cadre fed with comfort. Looking in all directions I was met with public lands to explore, only halted by the land’s topography and my own enthusiasm.

Being drawn into many of the national debates around land management, which is really land politics, I imagined what my day, what my hunt, and for that matter, what my future would be like if some succeeded in transferring these BLM lands to the Colorado State Land Board; a depressing thought amidst such a splendid late afternoon. I didn’t have to think very long of what this hunt would hold, for Colorado State Land Board rules do not allow hunting, shooting, hiking, camping, or many of the other freedoms I enjoy when lands are held by the BLM or Forest Service.

This little spot of elk nirvana was only a half-dozen square miles of the twenty-three million acres of BLM and Forest Service lands in Colorado, almost every acre of which I can hunt and explore. In a time when hunting is so dependent upon access, it is hard for my mind to reconcile the efforts that would remove so many hunters from the Colorado landscape. My optimistic moments allow me to classify such proponents as possibly well-intended, yet certainly misinformed. In cynical times, I find such advocates purposefully bent on ruining one of the greatest benefits in being a hunter in America; hundreds of millions of public acres available to all with a tag and the inclination to explore.

Deciding I spend enough time on the ugliness known as western public land politics, I forced my mind to focus on all that lay before me. Time was not intent to wait on me. I had to decide if one of these bulls were enticing enough to invest nineteen preference points. Tempting as it was, I was not ready. Knowing that fading light is a hunter’s friend, I hurriedly packed my tripod and retreated back down the trail, hoping to find more bulls enjoying the shade these canyon walls provided as the sun finished its day’s work.

Passing the open scree slope that revealed eight bulls just an hour earlier, I couldn’t resist one more look. Now, I could only count seven and none had grown since I had last seen them. Enough for me. Down to the next opening.

Rounding a switchback, two spike bulls stood sixty yards ahead, intrigued by my appearance as only spike bulls can be. Not having time to waste, I continued down the trail. With the distance cut in half, one spike seemed to find his senses, leading the duo down into the steep mess flowing north of this spine, though in no big hurry. Caused me to ponder how few hunters an elk might encounter in nasty places such as this.

Only a half hour of light remained when I reached where this trail bottomed out, birthing two huge canyons running opposite directions, with the south-flowing gorge again drawing my eye to the benches the eight bulls had rested on earlier. I waded off the trail, finding small gaps in the oaks caused by cliffs where steep openings granted views into previously obscured pockets.

I did find the eighth bull that had separated from the other seven. He was working his way across the face in a vector that would get him closer to the trail I had used to get here. Even with that, he was not in danger of my bullets.

A small band of light eked into the canyon, turning the carpet of oak leaves a brilliant copper hue. Amongst that wave of copper glimmered the unmistakable white of polished antlers. Down and across, probably buried from view when I glassed earlier, fed the finest bull of this day. He sprouted an obvious seventh point on one beam, matched by a big bulb on the opposite side. From above, his antlers looked to run the length of his spine, with good mass. Not a broken point, unusual for a post-rut bull who surely defended a good harem of cows a few weeks prior. His most noticeable deficiency, if one wants to be particular, were the short third points that looked like busted tops among an otherwise perfect picket fence.

His body size exceeded the others by a good margin. He fed without notice of my presence, which the rangefinder said placed me 340 yards above and north of him. What happened in the next five minutes is hard to explain, yet for any hunter whose instincts kick in, is easy to understand.

I was in hunting mode. Every action, every thought, seemed to be rehearsed a thousand times. I eased forward to where the oaks grew to the lowest spot hoping to find a shooting lane. Even there, obstructions required me to break limbs. As the bull fed closer to me, the angle steepened, requiring more pruning. The sun now gone from the canyon, the bull grew harder to see though his white rack exposed him to a trained hunter’s eye.

As the safety moved forward there was no thought of how difficult this shot might be. I practice thousands of rounds all summer, focusing on obscure hunting situations, making this weird rest over the top of some bent oak limbs seem almost bench-solid. Completely blocked by the hunter’s mentality was the immense task this vegetation and terrain would impose on meat recovery, a task made even more complicated by the unseasonably warm forecast.

That and dozens of other mental decisions were completed by instinct and experience. As the bullet sent the bull sliding down through the oaks, only then was my mind released from the predator’s grip. I realized that the slope must be much steeper than estimated for a six-hundred-pound mass of antlered-flesh to roll so far through such dense woody matter.

As the smell of spent gun powder wisped from my barrel, I turned to my cameraman who had been capturing the entire day, doing his best to act the role of a silent and casual observer. An avid elk hunter himself, we worked in tandem, almost without word, to record the frantic events of the last ten minutes.

Now looking at each other, we both knew that elk excitement; that time when sound judgement is overruled by the subconscious instincts formed over generations; instincts with a genesis in sharp sticks hardened by fire, aged and unchanged, woven into the DNA of hunters today carrying center fire rifles. Pursuit instinct, the adrenaline it injects, the way cognitive decisions succumb to training and preparation, remain the same today.

By headlamp, we descended to the small opening where the bull had posed for the shot. From there we followed the furrow of blood-spattered leaves, broken limbs and plowed turf, finding the bull tangled among a thicket that guarded an even steeper break in the terrain. In our lamps, there seemed something unfitting for a beast of such grace and beauty to be contorted as he was. Tying off the antlers to prevent further loss of elevation, we embarked on the three-hour task of disassembly that would convert nature’s finest to table’s finest.

Through the back-wrenching work by headlight, I wondered if the elk heard my cussing, giving him some sort of justice in how the scales are balanced between those unfortunate beings who are prey and us more fortunate beings who pursue them. If such form of justice exists, and I think it might, the bull had imposed a very harsh sentence by the time I lowered the first load from my back in the post-midnight hours.

Those scales were not fully balanced until I toiled for two more days, hauling heavy packs, swimming through seas of brush, leaving blood, boot leather, and memories on the rocks that guarded this special public land elk oasis.

Two days laboring under loads provides ample time to reflect on what happened, how it happened, and why it could happen, to me or any American.

It can happen because these lands are productive and public. It happened because some accept that securing a place, on the land and in our culture, for wildness is not always easy. It happened because some stood tall accepting the discomfort that can come with speaking for wildlife and wild lands. It can happen thanks to vision and resolve by those who fought, no matter the inconvenience, to conserve wild places and the wildlife that needs them.

Like the efforts by those who made this possible, this bull was not easy, success required great discomfort, and the timing and location of our chance encounter was not very convenient. And for all of that, I am thankful.

What a great write up

That is a story of pain and misery, and wonderful adventure. Congratulations again, and good job embracing the "suck".

That's a great article, Randy. Thanks for sharing it with us here.

Great article right there!

Well chosen keystrokes.

Excellent read, have you ever thought about writing a book?
If you ever get time that is!
Cheers
Richard

Great Story/Great Bull!

Great story Randy, thank you for sharing.

Great story thanks for sharing!

Superb writing. Great hunt. Great write-up.... Maybe you have a different calling Randy!

Thank you for sharing & helping us keep public land public.....

Excellent read. Thanks for sharing the story of such a wonderful place.

Amazing!! Congrats Randy and thanks for sharing. Looking forward to watching the episode!

Thanks for taking me along however, I'm glad I was not there for the pack out!

Randy I have always thought that as an accountant you missed your calling as a writer. You have a real gift for communication. Good on you.

Awesome writeup! Congrats again on a great bull.