Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk Hunting in the Snow

Here’s a more-specific set of questions:

As Plan-A-Stage-1, we may sit above this pond where there always has been a lot of elk activity in past years, based on the density of tracks there in newly-fallen snow during the 1st and 2nd rifle seasons:





This is an aerial map. You can see that same pond in the upper-center:



Assume there are no other hunters around, which, so far, has been the case. We would be camping 2-3 miles downhill on the road that runs SW/NW that goes below and to the east of the pond. Assume some snow, but not so much that I can’t get my 4x4 up that road.

The road below the pond is about 700 yds from the pond at its closest and never in view of the area in the bowl around the pond.

Pre-dawn, would you spend the hour or so, slugging your way up hill on foot through the snow to get to your target positions? Or would you drive up fairly-quietly and have the head-start that would provide? I’m not sure whether or not the elk, if any, up in the bowl would be able to hear that fairly-quiet Jeep Gladiator.

Getting up and around that bowl is quite a steep set of climbing above tree-line, which we would have to do in any event.

If you have any insight, would the elk be more spooked by people approaching on a long march for several miles along that road, or by a giant machine creeping up the same path?

The other completely-different option is to camp a couple of miles north of the view of the bowl and approach that way, which would be easier to avoid spooking anything in that bowl and valley, but sometimes that is not an option due to access road not being passible due to deep snow, as it is on the north slope, and it also comes with additional challenges for getting out an elk if we are fortunate.

Any comments would be most appreciated.