Elk Trip 2018 - day 8

Thursday September 13th was the last day of our trip. We had decided the night before that we would pack it in and head home in the morning. We had hiked all over the Rito Alto trail, seeing signs of elk everywhere but no elk. We did see many beautiful sights and the trip was by no means a disappointment. We had backcountry camped for the first time and had a great time.
The night had been cold and I woke up several time. By 5 am I was wide awake for the day. I had two thoughts in my head. Calling home, and walking in the house and seeing the kids for the first time in a week.
I was out of the tent by 6 am and taking care of my normal business. Toes taped, boots on, bathroom, water filtered, coffee boiled. It was time to start packing.
Zink was still in his tent. He was starting to roust a little bit and I could clearly hear his farts from within his paper thin tent. When he unzipped and pulled back the flap the smell hit me from five feet away. We laughed our asses off.
As we broke down camp our discussions turned to what food we would have first. We were both thinking about ribeyes.

 I wasn't looking forward to hiking all those miles with this heavy pack but I wanted to see the family more.

By 8:10 am we were on the trail and heading toward the truck. It didn't take us long to get there. Zink was moving at a record pace and I was struggling to keep up. When you're heading downhill you slip a lot and the last thing I wanted was a twisted ankle on the way out. Not to mention walking downhill with a full pack puts a lot of pressure on blistered toes which I was still nursing.
Once we reached the trailhead we loaded up our gear in the truck, took a quick wipe bath, changed clothes, called home and hit the road. Before putting my Crocs on I inspected my toes. They were pretty gnarly, blistered and covered with duct tape adhesive.

The road between the highway and the trailhead was basically a rock trail. It was somewhat level but there were washouts and large basketball sized stones in the way often. The fastest you could drive was 5 mph and the road was about 5 miles long. It literally took us almost an hour to hit the highway. When we did Tyler took off down the road. We were going so fast I instinctively braced myself and looked over at the speedometer. We were only doing 50 mph. We couldn't believe it. It seemed like we were doing 90 mph. The week of slowly walking and creeping through the brush had affected us. It took quite a while before we were use to the speed of highway driving.
The first stop we made was a little country gas station. We got sodas and I also got an oatmeal creme pie. A couple hours later we hit a small town that had a Sonic. We stopped for burgers and tots. Damn it was good. Our final stop for supper was an Applebee's in Kansas. We wanted ribeyes so bad and all they had was sirloin. Reluctantly we ordered our food and toasted our hunt with the best drafts we'd ever tasted. From there on out it was gas stations and rotating driving shifts till we got home early the next morning.

Some final thoughts about the trip:

• We were way over packed. We didn't need half the food or gear that we brought. Next time we are going to have to focus on going ultra light. This will make it easier to get where we need to be and allow us to pick up camp and move when we need to without hesitation. Maybe even to a new trail completely.
• It was crazy how busy we stayed. When planning we thought we'd have all this down time but in fact we had very little. We were constantly on the move looking for elk or preparing to be on the move and look for elk. Which brings me to my next thought.
• Everything you do takes a lot of time, forethought and effort. The simplest of tasks like getting ready in the morning, or making coffee takes time, effort and planning.
• Missing the family was the hardest part of the trip. The physical exertion and ignoring all the aches and pains was difficult, but missing the family was definitely the hardest part. Next time we do this we'll have to have some way to at least check in occasionally.
• It was a great trip all in all. We were both disappointed that we didn't see any elk or hear any bugles, but we felt like we learned a lot and could come back another year and would be successful. We're talking about taking a point this next year then coming the following year with over the counter bow tags. I'll be 40 by then so I'd better get in shape for the 2020 hunt.

Elk Trip 2018 - Day 7

Day 7 of the hunt was Wednesday September 12th.
It was the coldest night yet. As I woke up shivering multiple times in the night it occured to me that I'd brought a 3 season tent. Winter was not one of those 3. It has been significantly colder at night since we moved to our third camp at higher elevation.
Tyler didn't want to get out in the cold so he tried to boil water for coffee in his vestibule. Of course it spilled so he ended up having to get out in the cold and go down to the creek to get more water. Luckily he didn't boil it in his tent or he would have really been in trouble.
I went down to the creek this morning and washed out my dirty socks and underwear the best I could. I felt like an early settler washing my clothes on rocks. I hung them in an aspen sapling to dry. I probably wouldn't need them but like I've said, you're always planning ahead out here. If nothing else, they won't stink up the tent so bad.
I had a small bout of diarrhea this morning. I'm going to have to watch that. If it continues I could be in real trouble.
We meandered around camp for a couple hours this morning getting all our gear in order and preparing for trekking out for the day. We were both exhausted from the trip in general and the lack of sleep in particular. Two hours ago I was in full winter gear and half numb from cold, now I was in breathable lightweight summer gear. The temperature swings are unbelievable. We finally left camp around 10:45 am. The plan was to head up to the big fields near the split and glass from there. This is where we've seen the most signs of elk and we didn't really want to overdo it since we wanted to be able to go hard the next day if we needed to.
It took us a little more than an hour to get to our destination. As soon as we got there Tyler tells me, "well, get ready for our third argument this morning." I don't remember what the first two were but now he wanted to climb up the steep south facing slope and get as high as we could so we could glass the north facing slope. I didn't really want to but he made a good point, "if you want to kill elk you have to be willing to do what most hunters don't want to do." With that, I reluctantly agreed and we were set off up the south slope.
We saw from our map that there appeared to be a grassy meadow a few hundred feet up the slope. This may be a good place to glass from so we set our sights on that meadow. This was by far the steepest and hardest climb we'd made yet. When we got to the meadow it had a lot more slope than we assessed from the map. It was basically a boulder field that was covered in grass. You had to be careful with every step for fear of your boot sinking down into a crevasse. When we got there we knew we couldn't sit there so we went a little higher, then higher still, till finally we came upon Kolkman basin which starts at about 11,500 ft. of elevation. You can google map it if you're curious. When we reached the basin we thought, "this is it. Elk have got to be in here." It seemed to be secure haven for elk that would have been pushed out of the valley by hunting pressure the week before. We took our time and slowly crept over every little hill, rock and tree. We didn't want to alert any elk to our presence as we encircled the basin looking for elk.
Shortly after we started we circled back to our packs in order to have a little lunch and put on some warmer clothing. It was significantly cooler in the basin and the wind was howling. While we ate we took a little time to glass the north slope from our high vantage point. It was amazing how far you could see from up here. With a little bit of trail mix and water in our bellies we went back to the job of scouting out the basin. We retraced our steps through the trees on the eastern side of the basin. We could see a little more of the basin with every hill that we crest. Eventually we worried that if we did spook any elk they would just run through the basin and we'd be to far away to take a shot. We agreed to split up. Tyler would creep down and scout along a small strip of trees that ran near the center of the basin while I continued in the high eastern tree line. If the elk went either way they would run into one of us. The wind was steadily in our favor and we continued working our way up the basin slowly.
By the time we made it to the top of the basin it was pretty evident that there were no elk in this basin. I could see Tyler from where I was and he wasn't giving any indications that he saw elk either. I did pass what looked to be a bear den, and then I saw a little black bear out in the meadow. It saw me as well and quickly scurried into its den under a large boulder.
I decided to make my way down to Tyler's position. We scouted the open field a little bit and quickly determined that the field hadn't been used by elk in some time. All the scat was old and rock hard. The grass was not matted as it would be in a fresh bed. We walked the western tree line and cow called for a while with no results. We walked back to our packs and along the way we found several wallows. It was clear that a bull had been using these wallows but how long ago, we had no idea. We were dejected but hadn't given up yet.
We walked back to our packs, giving a few cow calls along the way. We decided we'd sit at our high vantage point and glass the north slope in the hope of catching some movement that would clue us in on some possible elk. While sitting in the shade comfortably glassing I just happened to look down and see a small black piece of metal in the dirt. "That looks man made," I thought, "what's it doing here?" I picked it up and immediately realized it was my rear sight. "Fuck me," I exclaimed out loud! It must have hit the log that I rested my gun on and popped off. When Tyler and I sighted in the muzzleloaders we said that it would be a good idea to either mark the adjustment on the rifle or take a picture of it for just this occasion. We had done neither. I was officially out of the hunt, unless an elk was point blank in front of me. I can't even express how pissed I was.
We continued to glass for a while, then Tyler went back up into Kolkman basin, or Zink basin as I'm now calling it, and tried to glass from there. I circled around to his location and watched his six in case that bear decided to investigate us and in the hopes that it would come out and give us something interesting to watch. The bear never came out but a coyote did. While Tyler was cow calling from down in the basin a coyote poked out of the woods thinking it had found an easy meal. It saw us immediately and took off the other direction.
We managed to get a couple of text messages out to the wives from our high vantage point.

By 6:30 pm we had decided it was time to head back to camp. We knew we had a steep downhill descent to make it back to camp and it would be getting dark soon. We extended our trekking poles and started the dangerous downhill climb. While in the boulder field you had to watch for pitfalls with every step, and once you made it to the forest it was slippery and loose footing. We both slipped several times and Tyler actually went down once. In an instant I saw him slip, roll and go completely sideways. I thought it was the start of a wicked downhill tumble but he only rolled once then regained his stability. It could have been a real disaster but he walked away with a few pine needles stuck in his palm.
After a few detours we finally made it to the trail in the twilight. As we walked the trail in the dark we decided that there were no elk in this canyon. We openly discussed calling it and heading back to the truck. We talked about packing up in the morning and finding the closest place with a good ribeye.
We had walked almost 6 miles that day and climbed 90 flights. I enjoyed my beef stroganoff next to the campfire and thought about I'd soon see the family. I was sad & disappointed that we would pack up and leave without our tags punched, but I was missing the family something terrible. I settled in for another cold night.