Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting One COLD Elk Hunt

I'm not sure what the date was, but prolly in the late-80s. Karen and I linked up with an outfitter friend of ours and we hunted cows down in Hell's Canyon.

It was the four of us, Karen, me, the outfitter and his wife. We bought the food and the outfitter supplied the stock and camp. Friends hunting together.

About the time we got to Joseph, the thermometer simply plummeted.

We hauled the horses and mules to a point past Imnaha and took the old College Trail up and over Freezeout Pass, climbed to Granny Springs and ran along the top, by Memaloose (7,200 feet) and one to Warnock Corral. To be honest, we were walking, leading our horses most of the way. We were literally freezing out of the saddle.

You guys been there, I know you have.

I will not state what the temp was on a Certified Thermometer at Warnock ... you'd call me a liar. Lets just say that it was the coldest I've ever seen in Montana, Sask, Alberta, Alaska and the Yukon. So cold that you simply cannot get away from it.

So cold that it should be worth a medal for bravery to take a leak. And you had to break off the icicle before you could get Ol' Hoss back in again

And we had to get off the top. It was midnight and we would freeze to death up there.

So we dived off into Temperance Creek and it was a balmy -38� in camp at 4,000 feet. We took care of the horses and mules, busted a hole in the gorged-up creek and collapsed in our sleeping bags.

We'd started out from Joseph at 5AM and arrived in camp, on Temperance Creek, at 6AM ... 25 hours on the trail. We were ehxhausted.

We got up around noon. Fed and watered the horses (the creek was obviously froze up again).

Then, Karen and I wandered out and whacked two cows in about a half hour. I remember cutting a hole in the hide of a cow, ripping off my mittens and thrusting my hands into the HOT guts of my cow. Heaven, my Lord that was HEAVEN.

Anyway, I got the cows gutted, skinned, quartered and hung ... five hours, kind of a record in the snow.

Meanwhile our friends whacked their two on the other side of the creek and one fell right into our sometimes water hole. Hell of a mess.

They returned to camp, bloody and grinning, just as we got the pot of coffee boiling and the tongues of our cows in the bay-leaf can.

We stayed the next day and headed out the day after than.

Here are some photos of our pack out.





Here is our little Gypsy camp at the mouth of Saddle Creek. We'd been on the trail all day from Temperance Creek. We hung our frozed-to-the-bone elk quarters in hackberry trees and collapsed in our little tent.

Temperature -38�F






On the trail, up Saddle Creek. Oh my goodness, it was soooo cold. We stopped about halfway up and set a snag afire and it happened to be a pitchlog ... we were roasting elk tongue in the flames and freezing on the backside. Prolly -40� or colder.




Going over the top of Freezeout Saddle. It was fully forty below zero, likely colder. The horses and mules were cranky, the tack is creaky, our elk parts are literally froze to the bone and we are bordering hypothermic.

Like the title of that fabulous book ... A Tough Time In Paradise or maybe Osborne Russel's Journal of a Trapper - 1834-1843.

Hope you enjoyed this little trip with us.

God Bless,

Steve