I could see for a ways up the slope. I sucked down a GU gel, swished one sip of water and studied. The last bit of ground I could range was a tick over 400 yards up. I now understood why the elk came out in daylight on a bare ridge.... There was no way to see them at all. And it was steeeep... there was no way that anyone walking by would think to go up. At least there was no snow. Jolly good.....
There was a slight depression going straight up the center with a small tree about 300 yards up. Looking up it made a slight "V" with the right and left sides rolling over into bare slope. To the right it rolled into a slope for about 3-400 yards bordered on the far right with that line of trees going up. The elk should be between the "V" and the tree line.... Hopefully.
Looking at it I figured that if I kept zig-zagging from right to left through the slight depression I could make it.
Understand at this point I had been going for over an hour at an all out pace starting at almost 10,000 feet with a 60 pound pack. No real food, other than a Twix since the night before....
I was running out of time and pushed as hard as I possibly could. The whole way up I was in that weird state between blacking out and throwing up. On top of that I had to be careful not to dislodge any rocks and make too much noise. I finally reached the small tree and still couldn't see over the lip. Saw a big pile of boulders the size of a couple of cars to the left and another hundred yards up and made my way to them. Still no elk. Once there I saw that I would have to move back to the right and it looked like a bit higher to break over the lip. There was a tall narrow weird shaped rock about where I needed to be. In five minutes I had hurried the 150 yards to the rock and right as I got to it I could see the tree line in the back and ranged it at 400 +/- yards. I forced a power breath in, stood on my tippy toes and peeked over.....
puck me there they were!
I could see what I think was the decent 5x5 and a 2x2 or tiny 3x3, both did have brow tines. I ranged the 5x at 374 yards facing me, and ducked behind the rock. The only way to see them to shoot was to climb on top of that 6 or 7 foot tall rock. It was only about three feet in diameter at the top with a little jagged spine coming off the right side. I knew it would be a very awkward position, and would be hard to stay on it. I pulled the pack and my vest off, rolled them up and eased up on the back side of the rock with my hands reaching up and setting the pack and jacket as a rest on top. Popped back down, dialed the turret, took half a second and felt the absolute slightest, less than 1mph wind coming from right to left, judged it to be a non issue and forced two deep breaths and up I climbed.....
The 5x had just walked up out of a slight depression, just on this side of the tree line and was broadside...
