- Joined
- Jan 28, 2003
- Messages
- 13,341
I have deliberately been waiting to write this as I wanted to give the other guys a chance to tell their story as they saw it first. However I can no longer wait. And since I'm telling the story first please note that this version shall be the historically correct version of this hunt. 
Caste of characters pictured below.
Robert AKA (Poo Hands The Misty Glassed Rock Slayer) is in the orange hat. Justin AKA (Cold stove) is the man in black I am not pictured but surely the guys will post some photos and reveal my elk hunting call sign for the hunt.
The hunt started for me arriving Friday night and setting up camp. Our camp was located at 11,423' in the central Colorado Rockies. after setting camp I took a quick scouting trip and discovered that my fears were correct. the weather was absolutely horrible for elk hunting. It was warm during the day. There was very little snow and virtually no elk sign to be had. early the next morning I was up and headed to one of my honey holes. After about a miles of "ghosting" through dark timber in crunchy iced over snow I found the beds of a cow and calf that were less than an hour old. I took the track and to make a long story short followed them for about three hours until they took me into an incredibly steep ice and snow covered scree field that I was forced to climb up and over as it was simply to treacherous to follow them across it. I lost their tracks and decided to climb over the mountain I was side hilling back to the jeep. It turns out that the elk had circled around the peak and passed with 30 yards of my jeep in the process of ditching me! Oh well elk have a funny way of making you feel small in insignificant when playing with you in their back yard.
The morning hike had taken its toll on me so I returned to camp where I found the guys had just arrived and were in the process of setting up camp. After some struggling with the guy's tent and stove pipe we ate a quick lunch and headed out for an afternoon of elk hunting.
I took the guys up to one of my favorite elk holding draws and after a mile or so it became evident that the only living thing that had been there since the last snow was one big old male Mt lion and a coyote. there wasn't another set of tracks to be seen. So, defeated we plodded up the draw back to the jeep arriving just as the sun disappeared and the blanket of night covered us with a brisk blast of cold air.
Day three was an early morning get up and another " honey hole" check that revealed smoking hot elk sign that after being followed unfortunately wound up leading us to private land causing us to give up on it and return to jeep after several fruitless hours of tracking and glassing.
Basically the whole trip went this way, we'd find some recent sign and sit and glass the area or try to track it fruitlessly. That's the bad news the good news is that we found some great new country for future reference. We hiked some gorgeous canyons and mountains. we played some great tricks on each other and got along very well in general. We had some adventure.
Some of which to include;
Listening to Justin fight with the cylinder stove in their tent which was at times hilarious. Poor old Justin and that stove didn't make friends until the last day or so. He'd go into the tent to start the stove and you'd hear him banging around and clanging stuff. Finally you'd hear him arguing with the stove there would be an expletive or two dropped and finally a frustrated Justin would emerge with one of those "REALLY!" looks on his face as Robert and I would be lounging in camp chairs around the campfire giggling like a couple of school girls at poor Justin's frustration. Thus Justin became (Cold Stove) for the remainder of the trip.
Robert arrived in camp with an old pair of 7x35 binos that were left over from the Roman Empire as far as I could tell. They were decent glass in the days of the Caesar but had suffered from their time on this planet and were just a "bit" clouded and foggy. Robert was the only man to fire a shot during the whole hunt. After days of frustration at not seeing an elk We decided that a rock was to be sacrificed in honor of the hunting gods. Robert was given the honor and picked out a rock at 570 yards, killing it with one shot from his M-70 .375H&H. In between glassing through smoked lenses and killing innocent rocks Robert thought it freaking hilarious when he rubbed chocolate on his hands then without me knowing it was chocolate and not something else much more alarming then jamming his finger under my nose and proudly proclaiming "HEY SMELL THIS!!" Thus becoming known as ( Poo Hands the Misty Glassed Rock killer.)
We did have one serious OH CRAP moment on the trip thanks to an adventurous spirit and a deceptively deep snow field. We were attempting to cross over a pass to get back to camp and hunt our way there. We'd gotten over the top of the pass when and has started down the North side things were going well until suddenly they weren't, when we stuck the jeep solid in deep crusty snow. It was an ugly situation as we were on a very narrow two track and the downhill side was a steep 60 degree slope that led off into a boulder strewn canyon. We took our time and thought it out, then pulled out shovels and were able to dig a path just wide enough to let us turn around with a classic 34 point turn about 20 inches at a time and every time I backed up I was hanging my rear end out over the chasim, one wrong turn and it would have been a long tumbling fall to my death. At one point my rear end slide out of the track and was starting down the slope was in four low and simply dumped the clutch and let the front chains claw me back onto level ground, 4 wheel drive, chains and adrenalin saved the day. If it wasn't for Robert's expert guidance taking me to edge of the track with each turn I'd probably still be up there. In any case that was an hour or so of excitement that ended well.
Looking down from the pass.
The only known photo of Robert getting ready to kill the rock.
The jeep
The guys impressed me with their attitudes and they hung in there through thick and thin. Both paced themselves well and never tried to move faster than their fitness level allowed which I respect whole heartedly. It's tough to have a good attitude when you aren't even seeing any game much less not getting any shot opportunities. Justin and Robert are the kind of guys who are welcome in my elk camp any time and while we had a bit of fun at each other's expense all in all I think we made a good team with everybody pitching in to ease the burden of cold weather camping in the high Rockies.
Caste of characters pictured below.
Robert AKA (Poo Hands The Misty Glassed Rock Slayer) is in the orange hat. Justin AKA (Cold stove) is the man in black I am not pictured but surely the guys will post some photos and reveal my elk hunting call sign for the hunt.
The hunt started for me arriving Friday night and setting up camp. Our camp was located at 11,423' in the central Colorado Rockies. after setting camp I took a quick scouting trip and discovered that my fears were correct. the weather was absolutely horrible for elk hunting. It was warm during the day. There was very little snow and virtually no elk sign to be had. early the next morning I was up and headed to one of my honey holes. After about a miles of "ghosting" through dark timber in crunchy iced over snow I found the beds of a cow and calf that were less than an hour old. I took the track and to make a long story short followed them for about three hours until they took me into an incredibly steep ice and snow covered scree field that I was forced to climb up and over as it was simply to treacherous to follow them across it. I lost their tracks and decided to climb over the mountain I was side hilling back to the jeep. It turns out that the elk had circled around the peak and passed with 30 yards of my jeep in the process of ditching me! Oh well elk have a funny way of making you feel small in insignificant when playing with you in their back yard.
The morning hike had taken its toll on me so I returned to camp where I found the guys had just arrived and were in the process of setting up camp. After some struggling with the guy's tent and stove pipe we ate a quick lunch and headed out for an afternoon of elk hunting.
I took the guys up to one of my favorite elk holding draws and after a mile or so it became evident that the only living thing that had been there since the last snow was one big old male Mt lion and a coyote. there wasn't another set of tracks to be seen. So, defeated we plodded up the draw back to the jeep arriving just as the sun disappeared and the blanket of night covered us with a brisk blast of cold air.
Day three was an early morning get up and another " honey hole" check that revealed smoking hot elk sign that after being followed unfortunately wound up leading us to private land causing us to give up on it and return to jeep after several fruitless hours of tracking and glassing.
Basically the whole trip went this way, we'd find some recent sign and sit and glass the area or try to track it fruitlessly. That's the bad news the good news is that we found some great new country for future reference. We hiked some gorgeous canyons and mountains. we played some great tricks on each other and got along very well in general. We had some adventure.
Some of which to include;
Listening to Justin fight with the cylinder stove in their tent which was at times hilarious. Poor old Justin and that stove didn't make friends until the last day or so. He'd go into the tent to start the stove and you'd hear him banging around and clanging stuff. Finally you'd hear him arguing with the stove there would be an expletive or two dropped and finally a frustrated Justin would emerge with one of those "REALLY!" looks on his face as Robert and I would be lounging in camp chairs around the campfire giggling like a couple of school girls at poor Justin's frustration. Thus Justin became (Cold Stove) for the remainder of the trip.
Robert arrived in camp with an old pair of 7x35 binos that were left over from the Roman Empire as far as I could tell. They were decent glass in the days of the Caesar but had suffered from their time on this planet and were just a "bit" clouded and foggy. Robert was the only man to fire a shot during the whole hunt. After days of frustration at not seeing an elk We decided that a rock was to be sacrificed in honor of the hunting gods. Robert was given the honor and picked out a rock at 570 yards, killing it with one shot from his M-70 .375H&H. In between glassing through smoked lenses and killing innocent rocks Robert thought it freaking hilarious when he rubbed chocolate on his hands then without me knowing it was chocolate and not something else much more alarming then jamming his finger under my nose and proudly proclaiming "HEY SMELL THIS!!" Thus becoming known as ( Poo Hands the Misty Glassed Rock killer.)
We did have one serious OH CRAP moment on the trip thanks to an adventurous spirit and a deceptively deep snow field. We were attempting to cross over a pass to get back to camp and hunt our way there. We'd gotten over the top of the pass when and has started down the North side things were going well until suddenly they weren't, when we stuck the jeep solid in deep crusty snow. It was an ugly situation as we were on a very narrow two track and the downhill side was a steep 60 degree slope that led off into a boulder strewn canyon. We took our time and thought it out, then pulled out shovels and were able to dig a path just wide enough to let us turn around with a classic 34 point turn about 20 inches at a time and every time I backed up I was hanging my rear end out over the chasim, one wrong turn and it would have been a long tumbling fall to my death. At one point my rear end slide out of the track and was starting down the slope was in four low and simply dumped the clutch and let the front chains claw me back onto level ground, 4 wheel drive, chains and adrenalin saved the day. If it wasn't for Robert's expert guidance taking me to edge of the track with each turn I'd probably still be up there. In any case that was an hour or so of excitement that ended well.
Looking down from the pass.
The only known photo of Robert getting ready to kill the rock.
The jeep
The guys impressed me with their attitudes and they hung in there through thick and thin. Both paced themselves well and never tried to move faster than their fitness level allowed which I respect whole heartedly. It's tough to have a good attitude when you aren't even seeing any game much less not getting any shot opportunities. Justin and Robert are the kind of guys who are welcome in my elk camp any time and while we had a bit of fun at each other's expense all in all I think we made a good team with everybody pitching in to ease the burden of cold weather camping in the high Rockies.
