Hire a guide! My first DIY hunt was in Colorado in 1992 over Halloween in a National Forest outside of Carbondale. I'm from the east coast and relied on a friend from work who has a friend who lived in Littleton to scout, pick the spot and supply the camping gear.
Long story short, the Littleton resident got lost in the NF the day before opening day and couldn't locate the campsite/hunting area he had scouted and picked so we dumped into an unknown area because we had to set up camp.
His camping gear was in worse shape than Wal-Marts, the Coleman stoves didn't work even though "he used them last weekend". Then it started raining, everything got wet, I tried to sleep in the Suburban but everybody else was in there.
Woke up to 15" of snow and a white out. We hunted for an hour and a half, took a vote to leave and go into town to wait the storm out. As we were leaving, the Littleton resident claimed the U-Haul trailer was pushing him down hill and he might lose control so three of us walked out behind the Suburban 6 miles and the driver drove out with the door open in case he had to bail. We ended up getting 4 feet of snow.
We got down to a parking area and he dumped the Suburban and trailer into a ditch, no trucks could get us out. Two young kids came buy with 4 wheelers and pulled us out.
We stayed in the hotel forr 5 days, it never stopped snowing or the wind just blew it around. $450 for a non-resident elk and deer license to hunt an hour and a half. I did drink a large amount of beer and spent a lot of hours in the hot tub.
I believe 5 hunters got killed statewide. Thirty years later I'm still hunting elk (killed 16). One thing I can say, don't rely on someone else to do your scouting and come prepared. We almost got stuck in a very bad situation.
Last edited by Sako76; 05/25/22. Reason: Typo
