Elk Hunting Chronicles - Part 8

October 14, 2022

Home time.

I was honestly having a hard time packing and getting ready to leave!

I helped Luke get the pack boxes organized and then packed the big black horse. He was pretty nervous getting packed but didn’t do anything silly.

We left base camp between 9 & 10, overcast and cooler weather… better hunting weather… lol

On the way down I managed to catch a couple of glimpses at “rock rabbits” aka Pika!! They are so stinkin’ cute!

At the halfway point I swapped Luke and he led the black horse the rest of the way. Tui isn’t the best leading horse, she’ll go slow for herself in tricky/hard spots but then when it comes to the horse behind her, she likes to speed right up. Poor black horse lol it was hard to keep her at a nice pace without getting her to worked up..

Such a twat lol

The cooler day made for nice riding. I was leading the way back down through the gorge, I wish I had paid more attention to where canary creek went under ground and came back up. I must explore that a little more if we ever come back up!!

There were definitely no shortage of Whiskey Jacks (a jay like bird) on the way down, they sure have a pretty song!

Luke forgot to top pack the little moose antler on the black horse, so I strategically tied it to my backpack but in the process, trapped all my snacks in the pack… thank goodness I had Spitz sunflower seeds in my saddle bag. I wasn't as hangry by the time we got to the staging area!

We made it back to the staging area just before 2.

We got the black horse unpacked as well as unsaddled the girls, fed the horses and Luke was unloading the bales out of the stock trailer. I had started smelling smoke.

Luke popped the hood of the FERD but it wasn't smoking under the hood.

We did have to play fire fighters for a bit but got it all organized!!

After all of that monkeying around, we loaded the ponies and finally left the staging area. It was neat to see all the country on the way out in the daylight since it was dark when we drove in.

The FERD ever so conveniently stalled out on a one way bridge but luckily she got going again. (I very much dislike that truck) We made it back to Rocky just before 5pm.

Luke dropped me off in Okotoks on the way home so I could have a fun girls weekend with my bestest Ashley!

ps. A hot shower after that week was perfect 🤣