Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Roughest and Easiest Elk Country

This is either the Bruneau or Jarbidge Canyon....can't remember which but they're pretty much identical canyons. That area is a nearly impossible elk draw, but a fair number of elk live in the flats up top and in the canyon itself.




Here's the Bitterroots that I cut my elk teeth in. Holy hell do I like it when I hunt easier areas these days...It isn't all this bad but once the pressure starts, the elk can and do go into those cliffs, right alongside the mountain goats.

Here's a shot of the Bruneau Canyon. It was getting dark and when I brightened it a bit, it got kind of fuzzy. There's a lot of water across the desert but it's all in the bottoms of those canyons. There are quite a few of them out there equally as steep as this one but not as deep. This is about 800' deep at this point. It's about 150 miles long and only a couple places to cross it.

Cow tags out there are pretty easy to get. Some hunts don't even fill. There's a lot of country to cover out there, though.

It’s all rough for a flatlander. 😊

I'm in Idaho bit I'd imagine Colorado has to be tough in some places with all those mountains and high elevation.

I'd nominate the wet side of Oregon and Washington elk jungles as tough going and the North Cascades are tough as well.

Seen some elk in the Crazies in Montana down low but also some up on top where the goats are.

I'm very family with the Selway Bitteroot. It's tough but I have the ability to do well there at times.

That’s some neat looking country.

Yes it is. That pic was a bit cherry picked though, I must admit...there are certainty easier areas of the Bitterroot Range but it is overall the most rugged I have elk hunted. That pic and the below are from the drainage behind my mom's house. I used to be able to ride my horse into it directly from our corrals but these days due to subdivided ranches I need to trailer them 2 miles to get to the trailhead. Love that country.

Incredible elk country and not a place to get yourself hurt.

Whole different deal than the country I was talking about.

Hells Canyon for the win.

Deepest gorge in N America. I hunt there. It’s not pleasant. Lack of water in a lot of places only complicates matters.

My son and I just extracted two bulls over 3,000 vertical feet on our backs. I’m sitting in chair icing my knees as I type this.

Dave

Dave,
I'll 2nd that - it's been a lot of years since I hunted Hell and I only ever hunted it for deer but not anymore. At 59 I wish I was still tough enough but hunting solo in that country just isn't doable:)

Hells Canyon. My god.

I've never hunted elk there but have fished Brownlee and chukar hunted it. It is as bad as it sounds. Add rattlers to the mix and I see why it was so named. I've seen some incredible bighorns there.

My days of hunting it are running short as well friend. At 49 I’m feeling every mile we just put on.

It was an amazing season and I’m grateful for the success,…..but man I’m a hurting unit.

Dave

Nice brother Dave, it is a steep/deep bastard for sure

Hunted it twice when I was young and stupid but in great shape and it still hurt for a week afterwards. The scenery is amazing looking across at the Seven Devils wilderness and down into the Snake river canyon, but I wouldn't dream of packing an elk out of there anymore... even with help...

The road up from Imnaha is insane and not one I enjoy. Made the mistake of taking my family up there one day on vacation just to show them the view. My wife is scared to death of driving narrow roads with a drop off on the side and that road is one of the worst I've ever driven... this is no exaggeration- when I got to the top and back down after there were footprints on my headliner from my wife screaming at me and hunkering down in her seat so she couldn't see the shear drop off on the road up... the view on top was almost worth it as it was in the spring and all the wild flowers just happened to be in bloom that day as far as you could see on the meadows on top .....

There are also spots in the Blue Mountains along the Grand Rhonde river that are pretty rough ... especially in the area around Troy...

Bob

Right on Judman western Wa. is wet steep slippery and thick.

I have been following a group who hunt there every year on America's Most Wanted. It looks brutal and probably would not have hunted it in my prime! I got spoiled over the years with the availability of a myriad of horses to use and forgiving terrain to use them in!

Roughest I have personally hunted elk is where TInman was hunting. Gave me a way to personalize the phrase, "Steeper than a cows face".

The motorcycle helps, but causes me a different type of anxiety. Used an ATV once in that country and about lost it off the trail. Luckily could winch it back on the trail. It was headed for a rolling stop to a place that would likely have resulted in it still being there.

Congrats.

The easiest deal was leadore Idaho.

We drove a half mile from cabin. Walked a third of a mile to a pit in the middle of a hay field. The feeding elk bedded by the pit in the hay. The muzzle loader shot cow ( 90 yard shot) jumped up ran with the herd ( about 75 head) and collapsed on the pivot service road. We took the gooseneck stock trailer and winched her in. I think the tire of the truck ran over one small alfalfa plant.

One of the toughest deal was near seely lake Montana. I got sucked into a blowdown area of timber. Even though it was slightly down hill it took it seemed an hour to get 100 yards. Even broke my bow sight in the snarly stuff.

Some years ago, a strong young friend hiked in to a high mountain lake in so. Idaho. It was a hellacious climb. He got a nice bull and spent 2 or 3 days packing it out 7 miles on his back. A few days later he got a call from the Fish and Game dept. They'd been watching that herd for a while with a helicopter and they'd seen him packing it out. They had a warden go to the trailhead parking lot and get his license number. They congratulated him on his bull and said he was the only hunter they'd seen that season with the gonads to go up there after them.

Mine can only be described as easy as regards a lot of elk country. Four bulls and a cow were all taken in generally rough country, but we’re shot on mostly flat ground or mild slopes in timber, brush, and even a big meadow, where we could ride to with horses.

A bunch more also — no deep canyons or mostly vertical slopes thankfully.

Probably the toughest for me was a Colorado bull taken across a canyon on a Boulder-strewn ridge where horses couldn’t go. We cut him up there and had to carry the meat (the packs were in the truck a couple miles away) in bags and over our shoulders most of a mile to a two tract where an ATV could gain access. But it was all downhill. Still a hind quarter balanced over the shoulder was a load.