Thanks KC, saddlesore, bwinters, and everyone else for the information and tips. My time in the West Elk Creek Gorge was unfortunately short but the Elk were right where you said they would be. It made for an interesting time.

1st weekend of 3rd rifle I was by myself and took KC's advice and hiked over to Buck Hollow. I ran into some people on hourse back that were camped at the rainbow lake trail at the bottom of the gorge and hunting the hollow. I made my way up onto the ridge and started hunting down the N side in the steep timber. Just before dusk I spooked 2 Cows out of their beds. Scared the crap out of me. I camped in Buck Hollow and due to time contraint I hiked out the next day.

The 2nd weekend of 3rd rifle I had my brother with me who flew up from Texas to help out. I changed the plan because I was pretty sure that he would't be able to handle the hike to and from Buck Hollow so we camped on the E side of South Baldy around 11,600 along a creek on Thur night. The plan was to move around S Baldy in a counter clockwise fasion staying between 11,000 and 10,000 ft. As we got into the steep stuff on the W side of baldy my brother slipped in the fresh snow and slid about 50 yds down the mountain twisting his knee. Fortunately it was not a serious injury but, after doing some real honset looking at the situation he admited that he would be hard pressed to make it out just caring the gear we brought it. We had to call it quits. As we were making our way back we droped down a little lower to some less steep terain and came across a lot of elk tracks. Fresh sign everywhere. Just crushed me and him to have to quit when we had a fresh trail to follow.

On the way home we almost ran over an Elk standing in the middle of Hwy 50. He'd been shot in the belly, you could see the blood around the wound and his tounge hanging out of his mouth but there wasn't much we could do except report it. I did consider how long it would take to get him in the truck if I shot him right there but he made up my mind for me and took off like a drunk after the bar closed.

Already looking forward to next year and if my brother gets hurt this time I'm going to leave him for the cyotes.

Last edited by wshep820; 11/19/12.