Yep, you're right. I wrote Hmmmm because I had some doubts of a statement that I read on the internet.

Yes, Colorado has 50 some "Fourteeners". I've been to the top of several of them. But Colorado is a big state, and there are hundreds of miles between some of those 14,000' peaks. There is a good percentage of Colorado's 300,000 elk that spend their whole lives below timberline, and there are thousands of square miles of Colorado elk winter range that is below 8,000'.

I don't doubt that there are some areas in Colorado where some elk spend some time above timberline in the summer. I've driven the Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park and seen elk above timberline there.

I live in Montana now, but I was born and spent most of my first 30 years in Colorado. I lived a good portion of 8 years in Steamboat Springs which is about 6,600 feet in elevation. While I lived there, I killed 7 elk within 50 miles of town, and all were killed below 8,000'. That included one bull that I killed on opening morning of bow season, August 14th, 1973, that I shot behind Howelsen Hill ski area at an elevation of less than 7,000', and close enough to town that I heard the noon whistle shortly after I shot him.

For a couple of months in the summer of 1972, I flew as a spotter in the Forest Service Fire patrol plane out of Steamboat. We would fly the whole Routt National Forest almost every morning and about half of the forest every afternoon, looking for fires. In all of that flying, I saw thousands of elk, and exactly zero of those elk were above timberline.

My mom lives at 6,000' elevation a few miles south of Red Rocks near Denver. I visit her for about a week each month in the winter. It's not uncommon to see elk near her house in the winter, including several very large 6 and 7 point bulls.

Muley Hunter, I have no reason to doubt that you are an experienced hunter. Maybe you have been hunting longer than I have, and maybe you have killed more elk than I have. If you have, congratulations, that's great. And evidently where you live in Colorado the elk winter at 8,000' and in the summer they will range up to timberline at 11,000-11500'. And you're right again, that isn't Montana, but that isn't all of Colorado either which is how I understood your original statement. That's why I said Hmmmm.