The Season of Stupid (& elk)

[trb]

Wyoming seriously tempting me for a return to suffer fest with this little nudge about whether my season is done lol

View attachment 297377

You guys' chest freezers must be a hell of a lot bigger than mine. But I'd say absolutely go for it if you can swing it. I usually don't even start hunting my WY cow tags til late November. In my experience there is nothing that sharpens the knife edge of your capacity for suffering quite like hunting WY from Thanksgiving or so to Jan 31st.

 

[Dsnow9]

Wyoming seriously tempting me for a return to suffer fest with this little nudge about whether my season is done lol

View attachment 297377

Don’t end up in the quitters thread!

 

[Deleted member 40728]

Congrats on the elk!! This has been an epic adventure and exciting to follow along with.

I say definitely go back to Wyoming. They always have freezers at Home Depot if you need more space.

 

[CRJR45]

I thoroughly enjoyed this epic adventure , one for the record books , great thread !

 

[TOGIE]

In my experience there is nothing that sharpens the knife edge of your capacity for suffering quite like hunting WY from Thanksgiving or so to Jan 31st.

Can attest.

i swear some of those late cow tags are so readily available to non residents as tricky a form of NR extermination employed by the agency

 

[Dsnow9]

Can attest.

i swear some of those late cow tags are so readily available to non residents as tricky a form of NR extermination employed by the agency

I need to pick your brain. Do the early season death March and a close to the truck Dec/Jan tag

 

[trb]

I need to pick your brain. Do the early season death March and a close to the truck Dec/Jan tag

But then you would miss out on the joys and benefits of the LATE season death march....the death sled!

 

[Dsnow9]

But then you would miss out on the joys and benefits of the LATE season death march....the death sled!
View attachment 297399View attachment 297400

Oh it sounds like a blast. My only problem this fall is that I have a couple commercial projects that need to be completed by the end of the year and I’m already going to be cutting it close. Otherwise @MtnElk wouldn’t have an option and I’d be dragging him out there

 

[Deleted member 52098]

Oh it sounds like a blast. My only problem this fall is that I have a couple commercial projects that need to be completed by the end of the year and I’m already going to be cutting it close. Otherwise @MtnElk wouldn’t have an option and I’d be dragging him out there

Option…? I just said I’m ready to go back. And I already have the perfect sled. And it can easily pull a fidgety 70 lbs

 

[TOGIE]

I need to pick your brain. Do the early season death March and a close to the truck Dec/Jan tag

Pick away. They lure you in with elk 1 mile from the truck. But then, when you find yourself at the truck at like 9:30 pm after 13 hours and shooting one at 4:50 pm you question everything that is right in this world.

But hell yeah I’d go back out there with you

 

[Irrelevant]

I remember questioning how I was going to do anything/everything without getting frostbite.

 

[rtraverdavis]

This thread is one for the ages. Awesome. @MtnElk your poor truck has earned a HUNT TALK MAN bumper magnet. PM me.

 

[noharleyyet]

Could not stop catching up...enjoyable read.

 

[Deleted member 16014]

Congratulations on the harvest. I'm glad that you arrived at an experience that was both meaningful and yielded success.

 

[duckhunt]

Dang you guys take it to a whole different level. Congrats on the first elk.

 

[RyGuy]

Great work guys!! Congrats on the first elk @MtnElk. Sounds like @Dsnow9 really made you work for it.
These stories are so fun to read

 

[Caseknife]

Awesome season so far, fun read.

 

[Sheltowee]

Now I know we hauled 140 lbs of meat out of there (as its been dropped at the processor) and I think we evenly split it - @Dsnow9 can correct me if am I wrong. But that would put our packs at roughly 90-100lbs each, with mine having a rifle, I think it weighed a little more. And this next part will make more sense as the story goes on, but that puts @Dsnow9 at about 260-270 on foot and me at about 360-370 on foot. Remember also that I snapped my good trekking pole at the very start of the day.

So again, we have to try to ascend 300 vertical feet in 450 horizontal feet. D goes first and for about 150 of those horizontal feet, I am fine and am able to follow along. But 1/3 of that way up, I am not able to ascend. I try to follow where D went and I just slip backwards. I come back to where I was before I slipped. I walk right and try to ascend, I end up slipping backwards. I walk left and repeat. Over and over and over again. No joke I am on this same elevation band for no less than 45 mins. Profanities flying. Stress elevating. I literally cannot ascend. If you have ever been on skis and trying to walk up a slope on skis and then slid backwards... then you know how I felt, as both my legs would step up and then slide backwards and out. It was terrible and terribly frustrating. I even tried grabbing sage branches and pulling myself up and just like that Farley clip, the bushes just come right out of the ground and I stumble backwards. F^&*ing A!

I was further left and I think I find a spot. I start to ascend, I start to slip and this time it feels like I am falling backwards, so it grab a sage brush and hold on with all my might... but it doesn't work. I hear the roots coming out of the ground and before I know it, I am on my back between a sage brush and a pine and I cannot roll over

I chuckled at my predicament and then swore. I had to get out of my pack and that was the last thing I wanted. I unclip and get out of my pack. I am covered in mud. My pack is covered in mud. The meat is luckily safely inside a Stone Glacier Load Cell bag. Buy one, you can thank Deacon later for that suggestion. I stand up, get my pack upright and start shuttling it, one lift at a time to my left to an open hillside where there is a semi flat bench of approximately 3x3 feet. The only place where I can my pack back on. As I am doing this, I guess D has started descending with no pack to see what was happening and he starts cracking up at me attempting to keep on my feet and shuttle my pack to this safe spot to reload.

I am a very honest person, but also proud... so it is embarrassing to say that Deacon took my pack from me then and started ascending. It was maddening. For whatever reason the tipping point of ascending or slipping was apparently this formula:

Deacon's weight + 100 lb pack = safe
Bryce's weight + 100 lb pack = nice try, idiot

We made it to the ridge, and dropped my pack. I chugged a ton of water. It was maddening that in the time I was sitting there struggling, D was able to boil 4 liters of water, have a snack and rest. Not only did I feel stupid that I couldn't stop sliding, I also cost us about an hour. My look after falling in the all the bushes


View attachment 297296

We are now on the ridge and have exactly 3 miles and about 1000 feet of ascent and descent ahead of us. I am throughly exhausted from my futile efforts to ascend that hill, but we have about 3 hours until sunset and I know this can be done. We start hiking and after about a 1/4 mile of flat space, we have the vast majority of the ascent. Immediately it's clear that I am going to be covered in mud and sliding for the rest of the day. About a 1/4 of the way up the steepest ascent, I slip, jam my lone trekking pole into the ground to keep me from falling backwards and hear "crack" as I self arrest but snap my one lone trekking pole. This is going to be fun

I get a text on my Zoleo from Deacon that says he is going to go on ahead, drop his load at the truck and come back. I make it through all the shitty deadfall, and am about a mile away from the truck when D finds me somehow covered in more mud, with a broken trekking pole and a tired smile on my face. For whatever reason, even though we just carried loads this heavy the week before - my body is way more wrecked than I was after doing 5x the distance. He offers to take the meat and I let go of my ego and let him; One day I am sure I will return the favor. I think he is relieved that I made through the deadfall. I make a comment that besides being healthier in general, I need to lose weight as it was clear that this was strictly a total weight on foot issues in terms of slipping. I move through the mountains pretty well, but my combined weight was just not working in my favor today. More motivation indeed.

We reach the truck about 5 mins after dark and we both audibly breathe a sigh of relief. One cow, one trip, day one of the season. We are done.

Back at camp, we had that fire roaring so hot the pipe and stove were blazing hot and red. D snapped this photo of me right before we passed out and it was the second happiest I had been all day.

View attachment 297298

It was an amazing hunt and an amazing day I will never forget. I am bummed about the bull, but I can't eat antlers and I'll take 140 pounds of the best meat on the planet any day. We each got home Sunday night and rather than work today, decided to do all the clean up work.

I am exhausted but my heart is happy as can be. Can't wait to do it all again in a month.


Season of Elk Scorecard:

Tag Count: 3/5 punched
Tags to go: 2 (3rd season Bryce, 4th season Deacon)

Y'all ought to learn to hunt closer to the road.

Signed,
A Recovering Eastern Hunter

 

[Deleted member 52098]

Well I doubt our adventures are going to get any less weird... so I figured while replacing my trekking poles, I might want to be prepared.

 

[Irrelevant]

View attachment 297621

Well I doubt our adventures are going to get any less weird... so I figured while replacing my trekking poles, I might want to be prepared.

Look at Black Diamond Whippet ski pole