What a season it has been. I spent most of the last three months in the mountains. Started with a back pack hunt in the interior for a couple weeks, that base camp horse hunting for a few months. Now day hunting with my kid. I have hiked literally hundreds of miles through that back country, seen over 50 bulls, thousands of elk, bear, mule deer, whitetail, wolves, bobcat, coyote, pine martin, moose, sheep, goats, and hundreds of birds and waterfowl. Saw a coyote chasing a herd of antelope, then the herd stop and start chasing him. Got within a few feet of a 7x7 bull, had a wolf running at us on a ridge, cut cattle off a peak at 7K feet in the middle of the night on my pony. Been sweating, been frozen, been excited, been disappointed.
I can strap on the back pack and hunt areas I could barely walk to just three months ago. My legs are in great shape, my lungs used to the high mountain air, best shape I have achieved in years. I started at 226lbs, today I am 185lbs. Most importatly, I squeezed all i could out of the entire hunting seaason for the first time in my life. I have three days left to try to get my kid into an elk. He shot his first loper back in October. What I have learned through this excursion is there is a whole world out there in the wild, if you are just willing to put in the effort and do the work and explore. Walk. Leave the trailhead behind and climb the mountain, hike. I plan to squeeze every ounce out of these last three days. Sunday, it is over til next year.