Joe Gutkoski, RIP.

[Straight Arrow]

A renown public lands, wilderness, wild rivers, and wildlife advocate and hunter, Joe Gutkoski has passed away at age 94 years young. Joe exemplified the image of mountain man public land hunter and protector of Montana's wild places and wild critters. I recall a story of him biding his time enjoying the outdoors as he waited by the trail for a cow elk to feed by him so he could fill his meat tag with a longbow, then pack her out solo at an age we all wish we could grow "old" to. Another story of him snowshoeing up onto Table Mountain so he could study a wolverine of interest to him.

Whenever a meeting convened to discuss protections for wilderness, public lands, or wild rivers ... Joe was there front and center and spoke softly but meaningfully advocating for protection.

As expected due to his quiet, selfless attitude he has requested no services ... but I doubt that will stand as there are so many who know of him and his legacy. Let us remember and honor him for a life extremely well lived and dedicated to wild things of nature.

 

[Hunts]

Sorry to hear we lost "the toughest man in the Rockies". I knew him well.

 

[Big Fin]

He was the real deal. His stories of hunting elk with only the absolute basics and living in the Gallatin and Madison Ranges for many days at a time, we're epic.

RIP Joe.

 

[Hunts]

F&S Classics: The Great Gutkoski

Who is the toughest hunter of all time? A woodsman by the name of Joe Gutkoski comes to mind. He is a lifelong big game hunter, and a public-land expert at tagging elk.

www.fieldandstream.com

 

[RobG]

F&S Classics: The Great Gutkoski

Who is the toughest hunter of all time? A woodsman by the name of Joe Gutkoski comes to mind. He is a lifelong big game hunter, and a public-land expert at tagging elk.

www.fieldandstream.com

A must read...

 

[RobG]

Here he is at his 90th birthday party.

 

[RobG]

A friend posted this about him story on his blog. http://blog.marchesiphoto.com/it-only-takes-corn-flakes-meet-joe/

 

[Nick87]

A must read...

That was good, thank you.

 

[Irrelevant]

That was a great story, thanks for sharing

 

[theat]

F&S Classics: The Great Gutkoski

Who is the toughest hunter of all time? A woodsman by the name of Joe Gutkoski comes to mind. He is a lifelong big game hunter, and a public-land expert at tagging elk.

www.fieldandstream.com

I was fairly new to serious hunting when I first read that article in 2002. I was fascinated by the man and was able to scrounge up a couple more articles about him and his exploits. Wish I still had them to share. Reading about him helped give me the motivation and confidence to spend many a night alone in the backcountry. There are not many like him left.

 

[RobG]

A longer and more biographical "must read" article.

Last Trek Of The Human Wolverine

Joe Gutkoski, a legendary American conservationist, has passed away. Is his style of relentless advocacy for wildlife and wild places the only hope Greater Yellowstone has for keeping its nature from being tamed?

mountainjournal.org

A few snippets.

Gutkoski pulled out another weathered and cracking map that detailed a proposed road, supported by the forest supervisor, that would’ve been blazed along Buffalo Horn Creek from the present location of the 320 Ranch along US Highway 191 and stretch all the way over the Gallatin Crest, It would have connected with the current dead-end road rising from Paradise Valley into Tom Miner Basin. Had it been built, it would have given Greater Big Sky a quick back-door short cut route to reach the front door of Yellowstone at Gardiner.

“Can you imagine?” Joe mused in July, the same as he had done in other conversations we had. “If the road had been engineered, it would have been constantly improved over the years—all that money in Big Sky would have helped make it happen. And it would have cut the Gallatins in two."

Gutkoski learned that a powerful triumvirate had formed and the plan was to get the road approved in a way that significant public scrutiny would be avoided. Montana Power (today Northwestern Energy) approached the then Gallatin Forest requesting that an access road be approved to allow construction of a power line extending over the mountains. Burlington Northern Railroad, which owned checkerboard sections of land in the Gallatins astride of the proposed road and eventually became Plum Creek Timber, expressed interest is carrying out some significant logging and using the road to get the timber out. At the time, Congress was generous in giving the Forest Service ample money for building roads.

Another time, Gutkoski on a solo trip broke his leg in the wilderness, snapping his fibula in half. “He was heading up Bozeman Creek, across to Lick Creek, planning on going for five days of bow hunting,” McCafferty said. Gutkoski was up in the mountains scrambling, turned around to admire the scenery, then tripped and the bone broke. “He said it sounded like a rifle shot. So what does he do? He crawls out of the mountains. It took him all day. He started before daylight and came out well after dark. Then he drives his ass home and calls me at 10 pm. He asked me if I’d go back in and retrieve his backpack. So, the next morning he drives me in his pickup to the back side of Lick Creek off Hyalite Canyon Road. He gives me a map. I tell him it’s gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack. But you know what, he remembered exactly where he stashed it and based on his description I found it right at a place right off the trail where he said a log would be.”

But that wasn’t all. When McCafferty hoisted the backpack to his shoulders he couldn’t believe the heft of the load. “I thought, by God, what’s in it? I took everything out to take a photograph of its contents. He had a jar of pickled beets in there, three headlamps, containers of black mashed bananas, a $5 sleeping bag, a sheet of tarp to pull over him if it rained, and a container of Folger’s freeze dried. He had so much shit. None of it high-tech, only what he needed based on what worked for him over many years.”

 

[JLS]

Thanks Rob. What a great story.

 

[bigskyblueman]

Sad to hear about Joe...Last time we spoke, in the Town and Country lot, he recounted breaking his leg on an elk hunt...A truly unique and extraordinary man...RIP...

 

[KipCarson]

A friend posted this about him story on his blog. http://blog.marchesiphoto.com/it-only-takes-corn-flakes-meet-joe/

That was great! That would have been a wonderful man to know

 

[ChrisC]

That F&S article was a great read. Some are just built differently. What a life.

"a spare, wiry man with iron-gray hair and the beaked profile of a predatory bird" really paints a picture.

 

[Hem]

Late to this one.
I was grumbling to my wife about all the technology I was packing on a hunt last week....how in my adult life of hunting things have changed significantly. (Smart phone, GPS,, InReach, battery chargers etc). First night of a four day backcountry trip I realized my fuel canister was almost empty, and my one lighter didn't work.
I managed to survive with small fires to heat water( turn jetboil sideways to light tinder).
Wish I had met Joe. He probably scoffed at the modern day hunter.

 

[Southern Elk]

“Nobody ever shot an elk,” he told me as we sat by our fire that night, “after waking up beside his wife.”