Every trail leads somewhere, every turn afords a new view, new possibilities, and new challenges.
Through vast benches of quaking aspens, parks awash with wild flowers, through dark timber full of chattering squirrels busily stashing away pine cones, across creek after creek. We spent the next several days walking,crawling or climbing through it. We spike camped several miles in from base camp in a patch of dark timber as our search for elk continued. Opening day had came and went, yet we still had yet to find anything to reward our efforts.
As I've often told my son, nothing good comes easy, and we obviously were going to have to put our work in on this one. The first week temps were very warm. A late spring and a wet summer resulted in a lot of lush green grass high up the mountains. The elk were scattered, with abundant food and water. Coupled wsith the pressure of the sheep in the area, this was gonna be tough. We headed into an area of beaer ponds one day, and with over a dozen ponds in this area, not a single track of elk.
Beaver sure are some ingenious creatures. We were able to see several ponds in varying stages of construction. Simply amazing little rodents they are. Ambitious too, we found a couple trees probably 20-24" diameter gnawed down and dropped. Really makes ya wonder what the beaver was thinking he was gonna do with it once he dropped it. Mule deer tracks were about all we found. It was getting hot, and we followed the creek feedingthe ponds into an area shaded with pines. We found an old campsite along the creek.
Several quakies were carved with dates someone had previously killed elk here. We ate lunch, refilled our water bladders, and washed up in the cold creek water.
This was a really cool place, one Im sure should hold elk, yet they were absent. Nearby benches told us the story-sheep had been in here recently and cleaned house. we slipped through bench after bench of quakies that had the ndergrowth completely grazed out and trampled. finally after a few days of this, it was time to make a move. But to where?
we snapped these pics as we entered into the Ragged Wilderness. we hung our longbows on the signpost. After reading the sign, Alex commented- "ha-nothing with wheels Dad. We're good to go. "
We got a good chuckle out of that.
We met some super nice folks along the way. non hunting locals hiking the forest service trails, there were many who commented to us, when seeing our traditional bows, how impressed they were that we were hunting the hard way. One fella told me we were hard core- I laughed,as I had my Hard Core Traditional T-shirt back at base camp.
While we continued in our search, we were blessed to experience this wilderness up close and personal. One thing that really bothered me about along the forest service trail is the amount of trees carved up by selfish morons who seem to think anyone else would care if they were there or not. Grafiti with a knife. But on the flip side of that, we found, like our base camp location- there were many old sheepherder or cowboy camp sites. The oldest we found carved into the tree was 1903. At our base camp, a sheepherders campsite, the oldest was 1942. We found old horseshoes nailed to a tree, and Alex found and old boot spur. An area rich with the heritage of the early west. far better to be up to your knees in it, than to read about it in some book in a classroom. Living in these same mountains, one can get a true sense of the hardships faced by our ancestors as they settled into the western states.
Topic: Colorado with my son......what a ride. (Read 1004 times)
