At the trail head:

What a perfect group for a 5 day elk hunt. You guys have a blast and bring back pics and stories.
 Aim small, miss small!

We started the 1 and a quarter mile hike in the late afternoon.  It didn't take long for the sun to set on us.  We set up camp in the dark and prepared for day 1 of hunting before telling some stories around our modest campfire.

When someone asked why the fire wasn't bigger, my uncle replied, "Injun make small fire, sit close, white man make big fire, sit far back."    

By the way, my uncle and his long time friend Bruce are 72 and 71, respectively.  I sure hope I can do these trips at their age!  They don't hunt like they used, but they had a great time hanging out together in camp!

Day One:

We waited till after first light to get going.  Wanted to have a good look around an unfamiliar place.

There was a 60+ plus foot drop down to the creek about 40 yards from our camp site.



It was a great place to get a good look at alot of the valley and mountain slopes we would be hunting.  My cousin Carter pointed out some areas to us the first morning.



We took the opp to take a few pics of the landscape.

Great start.

Gary, a life long friend of mine from Pennsyltuckey, and I decided to ascend the slopes behind our camp in search of elk.  The camp was at 8900 feet.  Based on what I have been told we expected them to be higher up the mountain.  We found plenty of fresh sign in the form of droppings and rubs, but no elk.







We found a nice pond on top of the mountain.  Moose and elk droppings everywhere.  About 5:30 we decided to head back towards camp so that we would still have daylight left to help us cover the rough and steeply sloped terrain.  Gary pointed out on his GPS that we could take a straighter route down to camp.  Unfortunately, we didn't bother to check the topo map. LOL!  We cam upon sheer drop offs in several areas that forced us to completely back track and go back down the same way we had come up.  It was pitch black by the time we hit camp.  Fortunately, we arrived in time to get our portion of the evening meal before our fellow hunters could eat it all!  We learned a valuable lesson about navigating the mountains!

Hooked... that's called being "rimrocked". A good lesson and reason enough to carry a flash light in the mountains.

Enjoying the story.  

QuoteBy the way, my uncle and his long time friend Bruce are 72 and 71, respectively. I sure hope I can do these trips at their age! They don't hunt like they used, but they had a great time hanging out together in camp!
 

More, More!!!

Wow, thanks for taking me along on you trip. I would go just to sit by that fire and listen to the tales. Hope you get something.

You are on a roll keep er coming

Yup, hunting western mtn ranges you have watch your step, its a long way straight down here in the cascades...PR

Day 2:
You may see this pic more than once, but showing it now because it shows much of the slope Gary and I covered on Day 2.  We crossed the creek at the beaver dam (about center of pic), crossed some meadows and headed up the NE side of the mountain.   The mountain on the left is the one we went up.

Once we got through the meadows the terrain became steeper as we went up.

 

When we reached about 9200 feet there was no way to go up any further!  So we worked our way West before heading back down.

This is what was above us.

 

A little further on I had a grouse who was trying to give me a heart attack.  Twice he jumped up right in front of me.  There wasn't gonna be a third time!  I came to a small drainage that was higher on the opposite side.  Looked up and that grouse was peeking over the top at me.  I grabbed a blunt and slowly came up the rise.  He was 15 yards away in some grass.  Arrow flew just over his back.  Since I didn't have another blunt, I nocked a arrow with one of my 3 blade broadheads and nailed him.  He flew about 20 yards up into the limbs of a tall fir tree.  

I stood there watching him and considering whether it was worth the high possibility of losing an arrow to try and knock him out of the tree.  I waved at Gary who was about 30 yards down the slope.  As he made his way up to me the grouse started wobbling then fell out of the tree.  We had a grand appetizer for dinner that night!

 

I hope there's a lot more to the story!

Highplains,
The best is yet to come!

Where were you in relation to Elliot Ridge? Ethan and I were there a couple weeks ago. I think we could have been looking down into the areas you were in. Was your trailhead near Heeney?

David,
We were just North of Vail.  I am not sure about the other areas you named.  My cousin had hunted this area before, so we followed him in.  

You could see the ski slopes of Vail when we came down the mountain.  The mountain road was called Red Sandstone Road, if that helps any.

We could see the slopes of Vail off in the distance and were close to the northern base of the Eagle's Nest Mtn, more on the Kremmling side so to speak.  

Beautiful country isn't it?

David

The only problem about camping in the valley is that most of the elk were still higher up.  And may of the slopes we went up, you couldn't get to the top because at around 9200-9400 feet you would run into the bottom of a sheer cliff like we did on day two.

There was definitely more sign the farther up the mountain we went.