squirrel
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2013
- Messages
- 709
Ok so maybe I underestimated my audience here with just a paragraph and a few pictures.
There is something about us guys hitting the big half-century mark that makes us go a bit wacko. The catalyst for this event varies with the individual, as does the response. Many of us go out and get a cool old car and a hot new girl. This isn’t my style as both require a lot of maintenance. Some tackle extreme sports they couldn’t have done when they were 20. This is just foolish… My response to the mid-life moment was to see if I could still do that which I had been able to do so easily in my 20’s. My big 5-0 moment was triggered by a simple case of gout in my right foot. I was hiking downhill with a 100 lb. load of elk antlers just after my 50th birthday. When I reached the truck my foot hurt and the next day I was in severe pain, nearly crippling me for the entire summer until I shook it by some pill popping in time to hobble around in some very mellow country for a muzzle loader elk hunt in Sept. I was only in a mile and a half and it was all I could handle to make little circles around the tent for my day hunts. As I lay in the tent at night, feeling sorry for myself, I began to wonder if I would ever be able to do that which I really enjoy, solo hunting in rough country. Self -doubt began to gnaw at me, and I had to answer the question-am I half the man I was, when I was half the age I am??
I have been hunting in several places which will answer this question emphatically- no “C” grade is available, it is pass/fail- and the consequences of failure are severe when you are by yourself. I chose the XXXXX in XXXXXXX Colorado for a muzzle loader elk hunt. It is incredibly steep, beautiful country that will just flat eat you alive if you are not ready to answer her challenge. Drawing a tag is easy as nobody else is dumb enough to go there! My summer was busy with a new job but I made it into some rough country locally with my youngest llamas, good training for them and myself, getting ready for fall. I didn’t lose the pounds I wanted to but I did firm up some geezer muscles. More importantly my gout did not come back when hiking hard, up and downhill. My request for un-paid leave was granted , surprisingly, so a few days before the opener I packed everything into my truck and began the 3 days of travel which would set me up on the edge of elk heaven, about 18 miles from the nearest road. I was camped on the downhill side of the elk habitat allowing me to work uphill with the thermals in my face each morning.
The evening before the opener I hiked about 1000 vertical feet up an avalanche chute and watched the basin from above. There were two distinct herds in the basin, one of which was being bossed by a 320’ish 6x6. I watched until almost dark but it appeared he was the biggest bull in residence. On opening morning I stalked slowly up the creek and glassed up the 320” bull with 15-20 girls far above tree line, feeding peacefully towards the head of the basin, where they bedded for the day. I snuck up to a great overlook and watched them, and a few other scattered elk, mostly single bulls, but none were nearly as big as the 320 bull.
The second day was largely a repeat of the first but I stayed off of the overlook so as to not stink up the honey hole with my scent swirling around through-out the day. A 280’ish 6x6 came in to visit from the west and caused quite a commotion of bugling when he met up with the 320 bull a few hundred yards above me. After this it was a slow day except for watching a nanny goat with her kid in the rocks above me.
Day 3 dawned with me at the same creek side vantage point watching yet another young 6x6 come in from the west, only he managed to steal 7 cows from the 320 bull with hardly any trouble at all. As the sun got warmer I started wondering where this daily migration was originating from. I had never been in the basin to the west , only looked into it from above in the “goat rocks”. To get there I needed to climb about 2000 feet but it was shaping up to be a stunning September day and I was feeling frisky after two days of lounging around and just watching elk from a rock, so I started climbing. I topped out on the ridge at about 13,000 feet at 10 am and saw a 6x6 go into the timber alone on one side of an avalanche chute and a huge blond butt going into the trees on the other side. They bugled back and forth a bit but I was unable to see the big bulls’ head. I had wheezed up the hill for 5 minutes too long… too many birthdays!
I poked around in the rocks far above tree line all day long admiring the views and found some goats to watch below me for awhile, until they fed out of sight. I watched the “home basin“ as the smaller 6x6 moved his stolen girls down the draw past my tent away from the 320 bull. Mid- afternoon saw some storm clouds move in and I hustled back to see what would emerge from the timber to feed in the new basin. By the time I got to my perch high above there were already 7 cows in the chute feeding with a 7x7 bedded above them watching their every move. I set up the spotting scope and decided he was much bigger in the body then the 320 bull but smaller in the antler department, mostly due to shorter point length. I watched for awhile as some smaller bulls came out of the timber and it became clear why they were leaving to go next door. He was a 100% take no prisoners kind of bull, and would not tolerate anyone within 200 yards of his girls who soon numbered about 20, as they filtered out of the trees to feed. He was a trophy bull in every way except his “score” and my definition of trophy has always been a “memento of the hunt” rather than what some book says. In other words, I talked myself into shooting him…
But there is “many a slip twixt the cup and lip”, and he hadn’t gotten so old and dominant by being dumb. I had the wind and his blind side pending the trees being devoid of more girls bedded to catch my approach, so I loaded a round in the .54 and started working my way down to him in a parallel chute keeping the ridge of trees between us. Then when at the right elevation I crept sideways, eventually sliding on my ass a few inches at a time as the cows were bedded on three sides of me, facing every which way watching. I saw him at 150 yards bedded just as he rose to go chase a challenger off for several hundred yards and was pinned down to await his return to the girls, some of which were only 30 yards away. He was gone for an eternity as every eddy in the wind threatened to betray me to his harem. Finally he came bellowing across the chute, his bugle didn’t even have a high note to it, to re-join his girls and came right up past me to sniff the ones closest to me. At 40 yards I took careful aim and touched off the rifle sending a cloud of smoke and cows scattering over the mountain. The old monarch thought he had been sucker punched by another bull, and gouged and hooked his antlers at an imaginary opponent, all the while spouting large gouts of blood out of his nose before falling in the middle of the chute. Now the reality set in of what I had in store. I was 2 miles and 2000’ from camp and 7 miles and 4500’ from my base camp and 18 miles from my truck, with a large dead elk in warm weather.
I left everything at the dead elk and limped into camp at dark-thirty , slept like I was dead and rose in the dark and packed up everything to start the climb to butcher the elk. I got him all boned out, peppered up, and stored in shade by noon and took loins and all my gear in the first load. I had to go down through new country and foolishly chose the shortest route.
An hour later I ran into a sheer gully that would give a mountain goat pause, and it went all the way from top to bottom of the mountain. I did not want to climb that which I had just descended so I went hard downhill hoping to find a way across, or failing that, that I could get into the main wash at the junction of the two. Instead it kept getting worse with 60 foot cliffs bracketing a 10 foot wide scoured rock bottom, and the point I was following kept getting more impassible with every step. As I neared the junction of the tributary and the main wash I got in a real pickle I was forced to follow a sheer cliff edge that got progressively worse and sloped steeply downward to the brink. I had to step off an 18” ledge to a lower ledge and the cliff wall above me wouldn’t let me stand up to do it. I reached a balance point where my pack weight was pulling me over the cliff and I couldn’t go back, nor stand up, if I pushed forward I was going to go over a 60 foot drop. I froze and fumbled with my quick release buckles trying to ditch my pack as it was the difference between an easy descent and a fatal fall. My big fat belly was obstructing access to the buckle though, and because of being doubled up try as I might I could not force the buckle to release. If I just shrugged off the pack’s shoulder straps it would have still drug me off the edge by the belt strap. Blinding panic set in and I had to quell it, and remain frozen and balanced in place while I came up with a solution that did not end up with me in a bloody pile of burger at the bottom of the cliff. It seemed like hours of balancing there before I finally got both sides of the buckle to release at the same time and the pack fell harmlessly back on the rocks and I was able to lunge forward and grab onto something solid. I sat there for quite awhile until my head got back into the game, and I resumed my descent. Some slips, a couple falls of minor importance and some blood from a cut hand and I reached the main wash, hoping it was possible to descend it. It started to pour rain down making all the rocks tougher to walk on but I had gotten out of the cliffs just in time. My climb was very miserable but safe and a couple hours later I reached the main river and set up a very wet camp. I very much wanted to just limp away never to return, but the next day was rainy and snowing up high so I recovered with a day of sleep and food, which helped put things in better perspective.
I needed a better route and was quite certain how to go about it, it was a bit longer but much safer. The next morning at the crack of dawn I headed up a ridgeline roughly parallel to the nasty gulley descent of two days prior. It took me 6 hours of steep and steady climbing to reach the elk and 3 hours to descend but it was a rather uneventful- just brutally hard work. After another night of sleeping like the dead, I got up before dawn to do it again, and again on the next, for the last load, this time bringing the rack out, in addition to 90 pounds of meat, it was a very heavy and unwieldy load. Heavy enough to make every joint suffer and the rack caught every limb on the way down the ridge. To bring the cape would have required another trip and I just could not talk myself into it. Capes just aren’t that hard to come by, and some don’t require a day of work to get them to civilization. From base camp I had a long but safe trip to my vehicle but the llamas were carrying the load, which made all the difference in the world to my tired old bones. Though I badly wanted to camp and get some rest the weather was very warm at the lower elevations and I knew I had to get my bull on ice. I hopped in the truck and drove all night to get back home to put him in the freezer. I pulled into the driveway just as the eastern sky was starting to glow a bit. As I collapsed in my bed after a hot shower I realized that I could still act young but there was a price that must be paid. Further reflection after a day or two of rest made me realize that I had paid a similar fee in my younger days, but that my account had more reserves in it back then! This getting old ‘aint for sissies you know…
There is something about us guys hitting the big half-century mark that makes us go a bit wacko. The catalyst for this event varies with the individual, as does the response. Many of us go out and get a cool old car and a hot new girl. This isn’t my style as both require a lot of maintenance. Some tackle extreme sports they couldn’t have done when they were 20. This is just foolish… My response to the mid-life moment was to see if I could still do that which I had been able to do so easily in my 20’s. My big 5-0 moment was triggered by a simple case of gout in my right foot. I was hiking downhill with a 100 lb. load of elk antlers just after my 50th birthday. When I reached the truck my foot hurt and the next day I was in severe pain, nearly crippling me for the entire summer until I shook it by some pill popping in time to hobble around in some very mellow country for a muzzle loader elk hunt in Sept. I was only in a mile and a half and it was all I could handle to make little circles around the tent for my day hunts. As I lay in the tent at night, feeling sorry for myself, I began to wonder if I would ever be able to do that which I really enjoy, solo hunting in rough country. Self -doubt began to gnaw at me, and I had to answer the question-am I half the man I was, when I was half the age I am??
I have been hunting in several places which will answer this question emphatically- no “C” grade is available, it is pass/fail- and the consequences of failure are severe when you are by yourself. I chose the XXXXX in XXXXXXX Colorado for a muzzle loader elk hunt. It is incredibly steep, beautiful country that will just flat eat you alive if you are not ready to answer her challenge. Drawing a tag is easy as nobody else is dumb enough to go there! My summer was busy with a new job but I made it into some rough country locally with my youngest llamas, good training for them and myself, getting ready for fall. I didn’t lose the pounds I wanted to but I did firm up some geezer muscles. More importantly my gout did not come back when hiking hard, up and downhill. My request for un-paid leave was granted , surprisingly, so a few days before the opener I packed everything into my truck and began the 3 days of travel which would set me up on the edge of elk heaven, about 18 miles from the nearest road. I was camped on the downhill side of the elk habitat allowing me to work uphill with the thermals in my face each morning.
The evening before the opener I hiked about 1000 vertical feet up an avalanche chute and watched the basin from above. There were two distinct herds in the basin, one of which was being bossed by a 320’ish 6x6. I watched until almost dark but it appeared he was the biggest bull in residence. On opening morning I stalked slowly up the creek and glassed up the 320” bull with 15-20 girls far above tree line, feeding peacefully towards the head of the basin, where they bedded for the day. I snuck up to a great overlook and watched them, and a few other scattered elk, mostly single bulls, but none were nearly as big as the 320 bull.
The second day was largely a repeat of the first but I stayed off of the overlook so as to not stink up the honey hole with my scent swirling around through-out the day. A 280’ish 6x6 came in to visit from the west and caused quite a commotion of bugling when he met up with the 320 bull a few hundred yards above me. After this it was a slow day except for watching a nanny goat with her kid in the rocks above me.
Day 3 dawned with me at the same creek side vantage point watching yet another young 6x6 come in from the west, only he managed to steal 7 cows from the 320 bull with hardly any trouble at all. As the sun got warmer I started wondering where this daily migration was originating from. I had never been in the basin to the west , only looked into it from above in the “goat rocks”. To get there I needed to climb about 2000 feet but it was shaping up to be a stunning September day and I was feeling frisky after two days of lounging around and just watching elk from a rock, so I started climbing. I topped out on the ridge at about 13,000 feet at 10 am and saw a 6x6 go into the timber alone on one side of an avalanche chute and a huge blond butt going into the trees on the other side. They bugled back and forth a bit but I was unable to see the big bulls’ head. I had wheezed up the hill for 5 minutes too long… too many birthdays!
I poked around in the rocks far above tree line all day long admiring the views and found some goats to watch below me for awhile, until they fed out of sight. I watched the “home basin“ as the smaller 6x6 moved his stolen girls down the draw past my tent away from the 320 bull. Mid- afternoon saw some storm clouds move in and I hustled back to see what would emerge from the timber to feed in the new basin. By the time I got to my perch high above there were already 7 cows in the chute feeding with a 7x7 bedded above them watching their every move. I set up the spotting scope and decided he was much bigger in the body then the 320 bull but smaller in the antler department, mostly due to shorter point length. I watched for awhile as some smaller bulls came out of the timber and it became clear why they were leaving to go next door. He was a 100% take no prisoners kind of bull, and would not tolerate anyone within 200 yards of his girls who soon numbered about 20, as they filtered out of the trees to feed. He was a trophy bull in every way except his “score” and my definition of trophy has always been a “memento of the hunt” rather than what some book says. In other words, I talked myself into shooting him…
But there is “many a slip twixt the cup and lip”, and he hadn’t gotten so old and dominant by being dumb. I had the wind and his blind side pending the trees being devoid of more girls bedded to catch my approach, so I loaded a round in the .54 and started working my way down to him in a parallel chute keeping the ridge of trees between us. Then when at the right elevation I crept sideways, eventually sliding on my ass a few inches at a time as the cows were bedded on three sides of me, facing every which way watching. I saw him at 150 yards bedded just as he rose to go chase a challenger off for several hundred yards and was pinned down to await his return to the girls, some of which were only 30 yards away. He was gone for an eternity as every eddy in the wind threatened to betray me to his harem. Finally he came bellowing across the chute, his bugle didn’t even have a high note to it, to re-join his girls and came right up past me to sniff the ones closest to me. At 40 yards I took careful aim and touched off the rifle sending a cloud of smoke and cows scattering over the mountain. The old monarch thought he had been sucker punched by another bull, and gouged and hooked his antlers at an imaginary opponent, all the while spouting large gouts of blood out of his nose before falling in the middle of the chute. Now the reality set in of what I had in store. I was 2 miles and 2000’ from camp and 7 miles and 4500’ from my base camp and 18 miles from my truck, with a large dead elk in warm weather.
I left everything at the dead elk and limped into camp at dark-thirty , slept like I was dead and rose in the dark and packed up everything to start the climb to butcher the elk. I got him all boned out, peppered up, and stored in shade by noon and took loins and all my gear in the first load. I had to go down through new country and foolishly chose the shortest route.
An hour later I ran into a sheer gully that would give a mountain goat pause, and it went all the way from top to bottom of the mountain. I did not want to climb that which I had just descended so I went hard downhill hoping to find a way across, or failing that, that I could get into the main wash at the junction of the two. Instead it kept getting worse with 60 foot cliffs bracketing a 10 foot wide scoured rock bottom, and the point I was following kept getting more impassible with every step. As I neared the junction of the tributary and the main wash I got in a real pickle I was forced to follow a sheer cliff edge that got progressively worse and sloped steeply downward to the brink. I had to step off an 18” ledge to a lower ledge and the cliff wall above me wouldn’t let me stand up to do it. I reached a balance point where my pack weight was pulling me over the cliff and I couldn’t go back, nor stand up, if I pushed forward I was going to go over a 60 foot drop. I froze and fumbled with my quick release buckles trying to ditch my pack as it was the difference between an easy descent and a fatal fall. My big fat belly was obstructing access to the buckle though, and because of being doubled up try as I might I could not force the buckle to release. If I just shrugged off the pack’s shoulder straps it would have still drug me off the edge by the belt strap. Blinding panic set in and I had to quell it, and remain frozen and balanced in place while I came up with a solution that did not end up with me in a bloody pile of burger at the bottom of the cliff. It seemed like hours of balancing there before I finally got both sides of the buckle to release at the same time and the pack fell harmlessly back on the rocks and I was able to lunge forward and grab onto something solid. I sat there for quite awhile until my head got back into the game, and I resumed my descent. Some slips, a couple falls of minor importance and some blood from a cut hand and I reached the main wash, hoping it was possible to descend it. It started to pour rain down making all the rocks tougher to walk on but I had gotten out of the cliffs just in time. My climb was very miserable but safe and a couple hours later I reached the main river and set up a very wet camp. I very much wanted to just limp away never to return, but the next day was rainy and snowing up high so I recovered with a day of sleep and food, which helped put things in better perspective.
I needed a better route and was quite certain how to go about it, it was a bit longer but much safer. The next morning at the crack of dawn I headed up a ridgeline roughly parallel to the nasty gulley descent of two days prior. It took me 6 hours of steep and steady climbing to reach the elk and 3 hours to descend but it was a rather uneventful- just brutally hard work. After another night of sleeping like the dead, I got up before dawn to do it again, and again on the next, for the last load, this time bringing the rack out, in addition to 90 pounds of meat, it was a very heavy and unwieldy load. Heavy enough to make every joint suffer and the rack caught every limb on the way down the ridge. To bring the cape would have required another trip and I just could not talk myself into it. Capes just aren’t that hard to come by, and some don’t require a day of work to get them to civilization. From base camp I had a long but safe trip to my vehicle but the llamas were carrying the load, which made all the difference in the world to my tired old bones. Though I badly wanted to camp and get some rest the weather was very warm at the lower elevations and I knew I had to get my bull on ice. I hopped in the truck and drove all night to get back home to put him in the freezer. I pulled into the driveway just as the eastern sky was starting to glow a bit. As I collapsed in my bed after a hot shower I realized that I could still act young but there was a price that must be paid. Further reflection after a day or two of rest made me realize that I had paid a similar fee in my younger days, but that my account had more reserves in it back then! This getting old ‘aint for sissies you know…
