Elk Hunting Chronicles - Part 2

October 8, 2022

Our 11th wedding anniversary ❤️

Slept like shit last night because it was fucking colder than a witches TIT.

Luke caught and saddled the horses after he lit the fire for me. I stayed in bed as long as I possibly could to get warmed back up. Then eventually got up and had some breakfast.

Tony and I were visiting in the cook tent, Luke came into the tent saying there was some bugling going on outside.

We think it was the satellite bull (the 5x5), the 6x6 we saw last night and another little 5x5 bull but couldn't get a clear enough look at any of them because of the poor light and they all eventually disappeared into the timber.

We left camp late but headed east and we made our way through some willow flats. Luke found a little moose antler!!

We had stopped in one patch of willows and Luke used his little cow elk call. We were surprised to hear some more bugling not far from where we were.

We tied Tui & Tally and followed the elk through the thick timber and then across an old burn. We had a fairly good idea of where they were going because the bull kept on bugling!

Walking through the the burn was so noisy compared to the soft moss we were walking in that hadn’t been burnt! Damn dried up fire weed!

It was also hotter than hell. Luke told me right off the bat that we didn't need to bring our packs that had our water and lunches in.

(This isn't the first time this has happened to me and yet I still believe him each time….)

And we were over dressed. Wool pants, layers of long underwear…

We found a beautiful little spring and drank some water right out of it. Still wasn’t enough water lol

The bugling had stopped not long after we found the spring. As it was late morning at this point, actually probably closer to noon and the elk were more than likely bedded for the day.

After navigating through the burn and back into the part of the forest that hadn’t been burned, we ended up getting busted by them. The forest was so thick that we didn’t see the cows and bull bedded 50-60 yards ahead of us… so naturally, they took off. You could hear the bull breaking branches off with his antlers as he ran through the forest.

That was sure disappointing.

So we wandered back down to the horses, had some lunch and drank some much needed water and hung out for a bit. I had found the best moss bed to lay in, it was honestly better than my own mattress lol

Then Luke surprised me with an anniversary card 🥹 he packed it all the way into the mountains for me!

After killing some time (like 2hrs) in the early afternoon, we rode west to these cliffs Luke had been on before.

It was a super steep trail up, with lots of fresh elk tracks! I caught my foot and leg on a burnt stump sticking out onto the trail that tweaked my knee and hip pretty bad. Words cannot describe how bad that hurt, I thought I broke my foot for a moment.

We tied the horses up and made our way up to the cliffs. It was a pretty good vantage point to see back where we'd been hunting this morning.

Luke had told me about a mountain goat he had been seeing that was calling those cliffs home earlier that summer! And of course he wasn’t calling those cliffs home when we were there… dammit. I love mountain goats!

After glassing for a few hours, I started getting extremely crampy and walked back down to the horses. I waited on Luke for about 20 minutes or so. I had a chipmunk friend briefly too! He was running up a tree near Tally and she was not impressed with that!

We walked the horses back down the steep trail back to the base of the mountain and we made it back to camp in decent time.

Today kicked the shit out of me.

Thank god for naproxen 🙏🏼