Well I'm back, but without any elk kills, but plenty of storys. I ended up hunting and camping alone for the whole 4 days, my friends had things happen that kept them from joining me. I had four close calls, nocked arrows four times, but lady luck was with the elk. On my first day, I hiked further than I had before in this area. I checked our usual spots on the "right" side of the mtn. and found that nothing had knocked the frost off of the grasses, so I decided to check the "wrong" side of the mtn., a place that I hadn't been before. When I got to the top, the "wrong" side of the mtn. wasn't at all what I had expected. It look more like sheep country than elk country. I glassed for a bit, and didn't spot anything so I decided to kick back and soak in some rays and eat a snack. About the time I decided to stick to the "right" side of the mtn., I heard a bugle down in the canyon, on the "wrong" side of the mtn. After some more intense glassing, I spotted a small herd of elk about 3/4 mile away, and way below me. As crazy as it seemed to me, I decided to drop down in and at least do a stalk, but I told myself that if I blew it, it would be the best screw up that I had ever done. Well, the stalk was actually pretty easy with the terrain and some wind, I got with in about 35 yards of a nice, not a monster, but a nice 6x6 bull, but THANKFULLY, a cow busted me and saved my ass, and the bulls too as I had decided to shoot if given the chance. I just couldn't fathom packing this elk3miles back to camp, by myself. Here's a picture that I took from where the elk were looking back up to the ridge that I came down. I came down to the left of the shear rock cliff, in the saddle.



By the time I got back to camp that night, I was hurtin' for surtin', and I discovered that I hadn't brought any pain pills. SO that was my only close call on Thursday. I had two close calls, was with in 100 yards of nice bulls on Friday, but I just couldn't do anything with them and all thier cows. And then lateSat. morning, I spotted a 5x5 bull bedded by himself in the timber only about 75 or 80 yards from me. I really thought I was going to kill this bull. First thing I did was to use my powder to check the wind, and it wasn't good, BUT I thought it was workable. Well, I only made it about 10 yards toward him when he stood up. He wasn't spooked, but he started walkin and I tried to flank him without spooking him, and well, let's just say that an elk can walk faster than man in the mtns. I lost him in short order. And then this morning, I only heard one distant bugle and never spotted any elk.
I'll show one more pic. of the snow that we got Thursday night on my next post.