Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting I Got My Premium Elk Tag

One other idea - call the NF and get a list of outfitters/packers - I have one for Routt. That's where I ran into Sombrero.

Bob:

He has already volunteered to help with info. I'll see him soon. Thanks for the suggestion.

KC

Congrats!

Congratulations on your elk tag.

that's fantastic. good on you for being patient and drawing a really unique tag in such a high demand unit. much as I'd love to help scout...... Texas is a bad place to launch for weekend trips!

Good luck and Godspeed, sir.

I'll be interested to hear how the forest has come back after the burn a few years ago. Those burned areas might be pretty nice by now. I think that was called the West Fork Complex fire and vaguely recall it burned 110K acres. That forest wasn't healthy and probably will be a good improvement.

The outfitter I talked to down there was one of the established ones and said he only operates the early seasons due to the early winters there. I'd have to dig up the name of the outfit but his name is Sam or Sammy and he is a heck of a lot of fun to talk to. It seemed to me that an outfitter would be most useful if you wanted to go up one of those long canyons that extend south of the Rio Grande toward the Weiminuche. Passing through The Spanish Window in there is something I have yet to cross off my lifetime bucket list.

One year we were lucky enough to have some weather come in during a hunt there. I was studying the map by the dim light in the camper looking for where those elk would move down if they moved. The paths weren't hard to figure out. Next morning I got dropped off on the highway in the dark, picked my way quietly in the dark about 1/3 mile, at first light I could make out 2 hunters maybe 1/4 mile below me. I bugged out about 90 degrees different direction to put a ridgeline between me and them hoping not to mess up their hunt any more than I already had. I was not even hunting then, just hiking and covering ground and making a ton of racket. I cleared a stand of old growth pine and got that feeling I was being watched. A heavy 6x6 was standing 50 yards to my right. He had thick beams and a big dark brown mane. Maybe would have scored 325. I had a cow tag. We stared at each other a while and he waited for me to dig my camera out of my pack. When the low battery alarm sounded on my camera that was the end of that. No picture.

I hunted the early rifle season in 76 last year. I did not use an outfitter but ended up with my camp about a mile from Greg Pearson's main camp. I talked to him at the trailhead and in his camp. He was very willing to share information so as to avoid bumping into each other. He was not possessive of the area at all. He is a great guy and I ended up hiring him to pack my bull out rather than making a second long round trip with my llamas. I think his area would be a great one to have a drop camp in, and I never saw another hunter there. His guys were cheerful and a pleasure to be around. Can't say anything about their guiding skills but their horsepacking skills were top notch.

I ran into another outfitter at the Squaw Creek trailhead a couple days before the season opened, as I hadn't decided where to go yet. I don't know this guy's name but he was unfriendly, and downright unpleasant when I told him where I was thinking of going (Chief Mountain area). He told me he already had a camp in there and there weren't any elk there anyway, all had moved out, damn shame as he was bringing hunters in the next day etc etc.

Congrats on the tag KC. I'm hoping to do a smokepole elk hunt in CO one of these days.

Still planning on doing a float/hunt trip on the south side of the Brooks Range here in AK?

Congratulations, my friend. I'm glad you finally get to use those points in an area that should provide both a great adventure and a quality hunt.

KC----Not sure which part of 76 you are looking at but the San Juan National Forest is going to be closed on Tuesday. Fire danger is extreme. Not sure about the Rio Grande. Check the Durango herald's website for the story. Bob

Very nice! My sister and BIL have hunted there a fair amount. he gets a cow tag and keeps putting in for a bull.

KC
Congrats on a great tag

Looking forward to your trip report!

get them lungs & legs conditioned if you haven't already !

KC
Congratulations on your tag. Three of us drew unit 76 archery this year. We are going to hunt the last 10 days of the season. Have to get away from the roads. We burned a lot of preference points but have wanted to hunt it again. Saw lots of elk last time, just couldn,t arrow the big bull.
John

KC, I’d go for a walk in the woods with you, been meaning to go prowl 76 a bit.

MuskegMan:

Probably not this year. I'll be concentrating on this elk license. My grandson will be fifteen next year and that seems like a good age for an Alaska adventure.

KC

Alamosa:

I got your phone number via PM. I'll give you a call as soon as I can get some maps together. I'll buy you a beer.

In May I spent a couple of days up at Ruby Lakes. It was still looking pretty bleak then. Things may greening up now though.

I gave Greg Pearson a deposit for horse packing services. He seems like a good guy. He wanted to sell me a drop camp but I don't want to be tied down to a place where some forest service beaurocrat tells him where he has to place his camps.

What's the Spanish Window?

KC

Bob:

We camped at a campground in the San Juan NF on Monday night. They locked the campground gate as we left yesterday morning. Fortunately unit 76 is in the Rio Grande NF, not closed. There's a hurricane forming off the tip of Baja, and it's forecasted to move right over Arizona into Colorado.

KC

BeanMan:

I sent you a PM.

KC

KC -
I had heard of you as a mountain climber long before I heard of you as an elk hunter.
I'm guessing that at some time you probably used the Durango-Silverton narrow gauge to access some of those 13K and 14K peaks in the San Juans that are difficult to reach any other way. From most of those peaks (I forget exactly which ones) you can look east toward the Rio Grande Pyramid and notice a notch missing from the solid rock ridge - almost a perfectly square void. On modern maps that notch is labeled as The Window but old timers still know it as the Spanish Window. It is a remarkable landmark and one that few people ever see, let alone pass through, because it is remote and committing. The ridge separates Ute Creek from Weminuche Creek is not easy to cross other than through the Spanish Window. One of the cool things about passing through it is that by default you will descend via a different drainage (Ute or Weiminuche) than you entered and both are epic. Many years ago I stood at the Window, found 2 fully in tact elk skeletons there, but I have yet to pass through it.