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.
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.
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