My first western hunt, 2015 public land Colorado 2nd Rifle. We waltzed in thinking we were gonna be dodging elk in the national forest like we had in the Chama Valley. Unit 77 was ours…little did we know it was pretty much everyone else’s, too.
The hike in wasn’t bad. 5 miles didn’t seem like a lot, even with the thin air and clouds on the horizon. And the pack guide we had paid to take the bulk of our Victorian safari-esque pack list got us a spot a good distance from the nearest hunters…at least 150 yards!! But my boot did get a little wet, which at this point didn’t matter because tomorrow morning I’d be tagged out. I wouldn’t have time to get a blister…
The first morning was promising and the wind was in my face as I sat watching a wide, grassy burn atop a high, flat ridge. My back was to a sheer cliff and in the valley below was our tent. A spec in the distance.
Elk sign was everywhere. The first animal to walk by was a coyote at first light. I let him pass because I was sure I could hear a herd of elk behind him. Unfortunately it was 8 hunter orange clad members of the same family. One was a rather hefty mother and father, which didn’t make sense because I had sincerely tested my fit 31 year old body getting to my spot before sunup. Locals. Acclimation, I thought.
They had parked 400 yards from where I was sitting. I hiked 2 miles and 1,400’ to get there. “Next year just park at the gate.” Don’t worry! I was invited to camp with them and 46 other individuals who were hunting this same ridge (and in the same family!) next year.
After walking a mile down the ridge to my buddy and exchanging stories regarding the various branches of the same family tree we had interacted with that morning, we decided to lunch at the tent and hike further down that evening since distance from civilization was our friend. We read about that and it had to be true.
I could handle this disappointing deviation from expectations given how utterly beautiful our trip had been to that point. I was going to persevere, despite the unwanted camaraderie.
Then it started to rain. And rain. And rain. 5 straight days of steady, wet rain. My boots and blisters were fully soaked. Our clothes were not drying. Visibility was less than 200 yards, like it even mattered. There were no animals. We made a 1,200 yard stalk on a bull elk the next to last afternoon to finally get within range to identify a mule tied to a tree. There weren’t even chipmunks to steal our food. Simply me, Russell, and hundreds of other hunters.
The last night, knowing we had been thoroughly defeated, we agreed to get in bed and hike out the next morning. That felt like a shallow victory though we knew it was really a sad defeat. We would walk out with our packs empty and our heads held high, looking failure in its face and daring it to call us what we really knew we were down deep in our hearts. We were pansies. Defeated, overmatched losers. We were failures. But at least we knew it!
We turned into the tent, and as we did we saw stars for the first time in 6 nights. Odd we thought. We drifted off to sleep as a cool, still night settled darkly over our camp beside the swollen creek feeding the Piedra River. We slept soundly, safely under the overwatch of pine trees that had stood for decades if not longer. Tomorrow will be a good day.
About an hour in to a deep, albeit damp and shivering sleep, the sound of a freight train awoke me. It was quite deafening, but at the same time I couldn’t tell if it was very loud or very quiet. I just couldn’t hear. I turned on the lamp and could see Russell’s mouth moving, but no sound was coming out. He was obviously yelling but he couldn’t compete with the racket outside. All of a sudden I could hear the steadfast pine trees coming down all around us. The rain fly on the tent was trying to come through the tent. I didn’t know if the neighbors had finally gone mad and were tormenting us or if we were being attacked by a den of bears. I had read there were bears here.
I’m from Oklahoma. Bad weather doesn’t frighten me. I was effing terrified.
For about 30 minutes, or maybe three, this went on. Finally the crashing stopped and the tent quit quivering. The noise abated and the hoarse words coming out of Russel’s mouth started making sense. Water was coming through hundreds of new holes in our rain fly. We slowly opened our tent door to 12” of hail. Everything in the valley was white, but not from snow. 1/4” hail was everywhere. Hail was up over 2’ high on the side of our tent. I stepped out to just below my knee in pea sized hail. It was breathtaking.
The next morning we left a note on a thoroughly soaked piece of paper for our horse guide to grab our stuff and call us when he got in. We didn’t much care to ever go back so we didn’t figure needing any of our gear except our rifles and binocs. Most of our gear was completely waterlogged so we couldn’t take all we came in with on our backs and the horses would have to pick up the slack. We hiked out in record time and straight to Pagosa Brewing. We each ordered hamburgers, wings, and a ton of beer. Two days later our crap was at the outfitters and we piled it into my truck.
Took me 5 years to go back. Now I can’t get enough of it.
