Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Getting away from the orange. A hard truth.

Sometimes orange doesn't hike. 3 years ago I took a cow out of a herd of about 80 on an open hillside within a horizontal mile of the road and in plain sight of it...but 2000' higher. It took me 3 hrs to climb up there but I had a nice selection of cows to choose from. There was plenty of orange on the road with binocs but only me on the hill.

The catch? I had my llamas in camp to get it out the next day. My knees are too old to backpack an elk down a steep hill like that. I've played that game too many times in the past.

Here's the view from about 400 yds below the kill site. Behind me where the elk were it got seriously steep. I was able to roll her this far before she got hung up in brush.