Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Best Elk hunting advice?

Speaking of being in the dark, and lost, this gives me a chance for a story. At the time I couldn’t think of a better thing to do but sit down, haul out a Babe Ruth and have a snack.

We were in the Flattops of northwester Co., and while my friend decided to stay in camp, I headed out for an evening hunt, hiking across a large meadow, through some timber, across another long winding meadow, and hunt a small canyon we had crossed a couple days earlier. It was probably two miles from camp.

As the sun was setting I watched a small herd filter up towards the top on the opposite side of the canyon, maybe at two hundred fifty yards or so. It was too dark for a shot but I watched in the dim light noting there were two legal bulls in the group. Finally it was too dark to see.

I had noted my compass as I left camp and figured I was some distance southwest of camp but as I turned my headlamp on and struck out on a northeasterly tract, everything looked strangely different and new. Irrationally, I started on a more easterly direction, thinking it had to be right but after an hour I was in timber so thick, my light penetrated no more than ten feet — it felt like I was in a small room. It was blacker than black that night.

Thankfully it was fairly warm with a heavy cloud cover and no wind. I was lost and thought if I built a small fire it wouldn’t be a terrible ordeal. Surely I would break out of the timber in the morning and hit that large meadow. That’s when the Babe Ruth came out and gave me some time to think. Our friend from Buena Vista ran dogs and so had given me and my hunting bud a radio and a dog collar which I had completely forgotten about as this was about the third or fourth day of our hunt. At least I could call him and let them know I was at a standstill.

When I got him on the radio and explained, he told me to fish the dog collar out of my pack and hit the switch. As we talked he told me to start moving straight ahead So he could get a fix on his analog receiver. After about fifty yards, he corrected my path to a more northwesterly one. By my compass this put me on about a 280* route. Then about every half hour, he’d call and correct or confirm my path. Still, it took an hour to break out of that timber with the deadfall’s and all. Then it was aspens and in another hour I came into the huge meadow we were camped in. Finally I saw the camp lights maybe a little short of a half mile away. It was about 9 pm. Supper was cold but very, very good.

Thinking about, and looking at a map afterwards, I had walked a path making very nearly an equilateral triangle with each leg being about two and a half miles or.

My advice is Believe your compass! This event was pre-GPS units. Believe your GPS. Carry a compass, GPS, and a map if you venture out on your own at all. It’s a good idea anyway.