Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Backpack Elk 2016

It's been a busy fall but I got a minute over lunch so I loaded up a few pictures.

Things took an interesting turn last spring when I broke my ankle playing basketball. I worked hard on rehab and still managed to get out and find some bears. I was tuning up physically on a hike in August when my other foot started giving me some pain after the first 1/4 mile. I kept trucking, and 3,000' of vertical later it was burning. I thought it was just a pulled muscle so I hammered my way back down.

It didn't go away after about 10 days so I went to the doc and it was an acute fracture of the 3rd (middle) metatarsal. 6 weeks of non weight bearing was the plan. I scrapped my mule deer hunt and hoped I might make it out for elk.

After 6 weeks of sitting around it was feeling decent so I backpacked in for a few days. The rest of me was soft after that long of doing nothing dynamic but no further injuries occurred. I passed on some small bulls and got outwitted by the only good one I saw. I was waffling over a small 6x6 the second afternoon but a shot spooked him so that made up my mind for me.

Little raghorn


Bigger raghorn



I'd been watching a herd with a little bull in it off and on, on a hillside that was (kind of) on the way out. I had an extra cow tag so I decided if I didn't find a good bull my last morning I would try to shoot a cow out of that bunch. I did get into more elk that morning, but a long run resulted in no good views of the antlered members of the group. I made may way down to a spot with a good vantage of where my herd had been coming out. They ended up pushing through and making things a little tricky but I was able to fill my cow tag.




I shot in late evening and the long down-up across the canyon took quite some time. I got her boned out and figured what the heck, might as well get a load out that night. I walked all night and got to the car about 7am with 112# of meat trophy and gear. While I think it was a significant overestimation, my phone told me I'd walked 21 miles in the last 24 hours.



A friend came along to help me get the rest of the meat and gear that afternoon. If I'd have known he was going to come I would have spaced out the loads a bit better, but so it goes.

I took a week off of hiking and got another x-ray. All was good after that foray so I hit it again, this time on a ridge where I've consistently found bulls. Great backpacking trip, but not a bull to be found. I saw a couple herds of cows, a couple of decent deer, and some rams.




TBC...