I had been hunting for 10 years (since the young age of 14), and had never
shot an elk. I wasn’t sure why it was so difficult. Maybe it was the area we
were hunting (we had previously been hunting near Ute Peak, where the elk
roamed mostly on high mountain ridges). Maybe it was my belief that elk hunting
was difficult, and thus made it my reality. I didn’t know, but, after eating tag
soup for so many years, I wanted to finally conquer that thus-far elusive prey.
Our hunting party had changed areas from central west
Colorado to northwest Colorado, as, that was where the Bears Ears, Black
Mountain, and White River elk herds congregated in the winter. Having around
50,000 head of elk move into a general (albeit still large) area stacked the
odds towards us, but we still had to actually get to where we were going.
Back in my mid-twenties, a challenge awaited when Matt
Archer and I when we left on the Friday evening before opening day, December
1st. As we motored up Rabbit Ears pass in my ’93 Isuzu Rodeo, fat flakes
assailed us. It was another Colorado storm of blinding snow. Pulling a
trailer wasn’t much of a burden, though, as we crawled up one side and down the
other towards Steamboat. Snow plows had cleared the way thus far, with plenty
of gravel on the highway. Visibility was our biggest concern, being that it was
10 PM and the only lights were my own, the 3-D tunnel effect in full force as
each passing mile strained my eyes.
North of Steamboat, Matt piped up, “Wounded deer.” I looked
at him quizzically. “Back there, on the other side of the road.” I hate to see
wounded, struggling animals; I always like to stop and put them out of their
misery. Rodeo and trailer went 180, (no one was on the highway) and parked on
the southbound shoulder (not that there was much of one with the several feet
of snow built up). Matt pointed out the struggling deer. It was a young deer
with a broken leg, trying to climb up the side of the hill next to the highway,
but failing miserably. Aww – poor thing. The young ungulate had been hit by a
vehicle, and the driver didn’t bother to stop and check on it. Most drivers, in
my observation, don’t stop to check on the animal after they hit it… I’m guessing
that the reason for not stopping is because they wouldn’t know what to do,
don’t carry anything to put the animal out of its misery, or they don’t care.
My belief is that since we built the roads through their territory, displacing
them with something wholly unnatural to their environment, we at least owe it
to them to try to undo any damage done to them. Don’t get me wrong – I know
that Mother Nature is a cruel beast. Animals kill and wound each other without
mercy. Snow, hail, freezing, starvation, and heat kills so many of nature’s
children… Mother Nature takes care of its own with alarming prejudice. I feel
it’s our duty to assist those we can, even if it’s simply to slice their throat
or put a bullet in their brain. So that’s what I did; I loaded my 30.06, traversed
the road, put the crosshairs on the ear, and squeezed the trigger. Lights out.
Matt and I carried the deer across to the trailer, and I
grabbed my Marine Corps K-Bar to slice it open. No sense in wasting meat, and I
knew that I could get a tag from the State Patrol for the carcass. An urgent alert
system went off in my head, and I felt I needed to hurry, so it was the
quickest field-dressing job to date. We were parked just around a bend on the
highway, and if any vehicle came along, we had the possibility of getting
smashed. After getting the deer into the trailer, we climbed back into the
Rodeo, fired it up, and I turned the wheel to flip a U-Turn. Lights and
rumbling in the rearview. I floored it. The snow plow, hugging the edge of the
road, narrowly missed the ass-end of my trailer as it rounded the turn. Any
semblance of a gut pile left on the side of the road was now off the edge.
Thankfully Matt and I weren’t part of the blood and guts now buried in the
freezing snow and ice.
A game pole adorned the Trav-O-Tel motel’s landscape, and
the little deer swung frozen in the night air. I didn’t set an alarm, so about
9:30 the next morning, we awoke to begin our hunt. I had a general idea about
where to go, so I let my instincts guide us through the hunting area, up a
two-track dirt road through the steep hill country. I pulled up to a rise and
we crouched as we neared the summit, pulling out our binoculars. Looking
towards an area known as the Godiva Rim, we scanned the country side. A small
herd of elk, about two miles away, dotted the base of the rim. Pointing them
out to Matt, he said, “Yeah, that might be a herd of elk, but right there is
THE herd of elk.” I looked to where he was pointing. About 500 elk were milling
around just to the east of the herd I’d spotted. The ones I’d picked out were
like a satellite herd. Amazing!
We formulated a plan. The straight approach to that herd
would have been hunter-suicide. It was across a large swath of flat land known
as the Bald Mountain Basin. They would have seen us coming and quickly vacated
the area long before we could have moved within rifle range. Plus, at the time,
I was using my 30.06 – a reliable cartridge, but not known for its long-range
capabilities. The plan was to make a “C” approach. We would hug the hillsides,
circling around to them, and approach from the west, using the cover of the
juniper trees and folds in the land to mask our approach.
Traversing the side of the hill, Matt exclaimed, “Leif!
Look!” I glanced to the right. Three dark shapes were moving downhill quickly.
Elk! Although they might have been in range when Matt first spotted them, by the
time I would have been able to take a knee and taken a shot, they would be out
of range. Plus, I didn’t want to risk alerting the large herd of my presence if
I took a shot and missed. So we continued through the snow towards our quarry.
Along the way we came across a herd of deer. About 20 were grouped together as
we approached. We stopped. They looked at us. We looked at them. I didn’t want
them to spook – again, running away at top speed might alert the large herd of
elk (even though we were still at least a mile away at that point, I didn’t
want to take any chances that would deny my chance at the main prize). The deer
eventually moved off, and we moved on.
Around to the base of the rim, we moved up and down the
juniper-covered fingers, slowly making our way towards the elk. We spotted the
elk at about 11:30 that morning – it was now about 3:30. The herd wasn’t visible
for the last hour or so, and we were taking it on faith that the mass of
animals were still hanging around. Every finger we crested, the approach was slow
to the top, peering across to see if that was the final finger before the plain
began. Cresting what was the final finger, we spotted a few elk amongst the
junipers across the ridge. They were looking right at us. Our cover was blown.
I couldn’t judge what the distance was, but I figured I could hit the elk, so I
took a knee, steadied the rifle, and squeezed the trigger. The few elk that
were there took off.
Matt and I raced down to the bottom of the finger and ran up
the other side. Out of breath, we came over the top, emerged from the junipers,
and there was the herd, looking right at us. I looked for the elk that I’d
shot. Blood, but nothing else, was on the ground. I followed the blood trail
out into the sagebrush. In the meantime, the herd bunched up and ran directly
north, towards the rim. I scanned the herd. An elk trailed the herd, limping,
but still managing to keep up. We knelt down in the sagebrush, wondering how
the herd was going to manage running up the slope that eventually ended in a
cliff face. Up they ran, and when encountered with the impossible angle, they
turned around, a massive sea of elk running, moving swiftly across the
sagebrush, and thundering… towards… us…
Matt and I looked at each other. I wasn’t sure what to do,
except think, “this is going to hurt. I might die.” Closer and closer they
came, my eyes becoming saucers. The ground was vibrating, I was getting more
tense, Matt and I looking at the herd and looking at each other. This was it.
We were going to die, trampled by the elk. In the end, I didn’t get my first
elk, my first elk got me.
At 50 yards, Matt stood up. I stood up. We were skinnier
targets standing, and, maybe they might move around us. At the last second,
they veered. The herd thundered past. You could smell the elk in the air. Then,
tagging behind, the elk I’d shot was running. I swung my rifle and as the
crosshairs crossed the chest cavity, I squeezed the trigger. The elk
immediately turned and ran directly away from us. The rest of the herd
thundered off. The silence was deafening. My heart was racing. I looked around.
Matt was grinning at me. There were no elk in sight.
“What do we do now?”
“We find my elk!”
Walking in the direction of where I last saw my elk run, I following
a straight line. After 200 yards, I said, “Start looking for an elk piled up by
a sagebrush.” Sure enough, I came across a dead elk. My first elk, piled up
around a sagebrush plant. My sense of accomplishment was out of this world.
My first elk - after 10 years hunting the elusive beasts
We gutted the animal and propped the chest cavity up on a sagebrush
bush to let it cool down. I knew there was no way we could haul it out that
evening, so I made a mental note of where it was, and, we headed back to my
rodeo. Being able to make a direct line towards where we thought the Rodeo was
parked was easier than the stalk (we weren’t quite sure where it was though, as
the scenery and topography kind of all look the same). Luckily I caught a glint
of reflected late-afternoon sun off one of the mirrors, and we made our way
towards it. Getting out, though, was a hap-hazard guess, as I wasn’t quite sure
how I got there. We ended up on a “shelf” road. This road was essentially a
two-track on the side of a 45-degree hill, and the road was at about a
30-degree angle. As we started crossing it in the dark, I realized what road we
were on. I had seen the road previously, and thought to myself that I would
never traverse it. Now I was traversing it in the dark hauling a trailer. I was
on the “down” side, Matt was on the “up” side, and, he had one hand on the grab
bar, the other hand on the door handle. He told me in no short terms that if we
started rolling down the hill, he was opening the door and jumping for safety.
I would have no such luck, as my door and window were pretty close to the ground.
I expected to start tumbling at any second. Luckily, we made it across the side
of the hill and back to familiar territory.
At the motel, we cut loose the deer from the pole and took
it to the State Patrol. I told him the mile marker where we found it, and,
after checking it over, trying to manipulate the frozen joints to verify the
broken leg (it obviously wasn’t taken for a trophy or intentionally poached),
he issued me a license.
The next morning we went to retrieve the elk. I drove the
Rodeo as close as I could; however, the dirt two-track put us at a half-mile
away. We found the elk still propped up over the sagebrush, and, Matt and I
talked about how to carry it out. I ended up cutting off the lower half of the
elk and strapping it to a pack frame, and cutting off the two front quarters,
loins, and backstraps. I carried all the equipment and meat back to the truck,
except for the ass-end. Matt shouldered that heavy load. Additionally, a
rancher had dug out a trench at the bottom of a hill where water passed
through, so there was a 4-foot gap we had to navigate. I saw Matt take a flying
leap and successfully landed without incident. It’s a good thing he was a
hockey player and had huge quads and calves to carry that much weight.
Thankfully I was also able to jump gap without falling on my ass, and we were
on our way.
After my first elk, I shot 12 more elk within 7
years (a lot of years I was able to get two elk tags per season). It seems that
all I needed to do was be successful once, and after that, I couldn’t help but
to be successful. I had broken through the elk-barrier, and filled my freezer
with delicious meat for many years after.
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