The next morning we struck out for our new area. We climbed from the trailhead up towards Beckwith Pass, about an 1100' ascent over roughly 1.5 miles. We stopped just short ofthe pass to set a spike camp, then after lunch we finished the rest of the climb up tothe pass. From here the view was again spectacular, and dropping over the other side puts you in the West elk Wilderness. Here we stood between 2 wilderness areas, with the views all around to go with it. We climbed a little higher to a grassy bench that afforded us a good view of the many alpine meadows that intermied with stands of dark timber. we settled in to glass the remaining hours.
After we returned to our little spike camp, plans were made to slowly slip in and out of cover along and through the checkboard of parks and meadows, hunting our way down to an area of quakies to a knob where we were told elk had been hanging out. Wwe awoke before light to the sound of rain hammering on the tent. Not what we wanted. We slept for another hour, and headed out into a light drizzle. The clouds hung low on the peak of Beckwith, and the sky told me it was likely to be an all day rain. Oh well.
We worked our way down the mtn. towards the benches of aspens, as the rain picked up, died down, and picked up again. It was gonna be a wet day,even with rain gear. I dont like to wear rain pants unless I have to as theyre too noisy to stalk quietly in the silent drizzly rain.
We reached our area, soon enough Alex spotted a mule deer doe feeding about 60 yds from us. I told him to put a stalk on her for practice( while I stayed out of the rain and munched a little trail mix and watched. He did pretty good, butshe dropped over a rise and disappeared. Im guessing he got within 35 yds.
We continued working through the area, stopping in coverwhen the rain picked up, settting up and doing a little soft cow calling here and there and enjoying the cool damp conditions. I love hunting when its like that.
We reached the area Rich told us to find, but by now it was really starting to come down. Our boots were squishing water out with each step, and it was gedtting to the point shooting anything would be irresponsible as the rain would quickly destroy and bloodtrail. We waited it out for a while, but to no avail. Looking at the map, we were actually closer to the truck than our spike camp so we decided to slip down there and get some dry clothes to take back to spike camp. It was gonna be a long day climbing back upthere. As we started acrss and down towards the truck, it got steep, and we were slipping and sliding trying to keep our feet under us.
Somewhere along the way, I looked ahead and slammed on the brakes. Right below me about 18 yds and maybe 25 down below was an ELK! A cow and calf were working along a trail beneath us.
Now typically, when you see an anumal in bow range, you see everything but the chest. This was exactly the opposite. She was behind brush everywhere but here chest, and I had a nice sized hole to slip an arrow through. Problem was, she was looking right at me. We all stood still, as I s-l-o-w-l-y reached for an arrow. I didnt think I was gonna get a shot off, and unfortunately I was right. Just as I started to pull a shaft out of my GFA quiver, they bolted. At this point it wasnt raining much, so I figured if I can get a shot at that range, I'lltake it. My sons eyes were as big as dinner plates. " Holy crap- those things are huge Dad"!
As elk tend to do, she ran down and across a patch of cover, then going up the next hill 150 yds across, she paused to look back over her shoulder and stare at us fora few minutes before departing.
After almost 2 weeks, we finally found some elk. We let them drift off for a bit, then continued towards the truck. I looked at the time, and it was 3pm, we were looking at well over an hour down to the truck. when we hit the FS trail, it was pure grease. Not good. it was painfully slow going down. By the time we reached the truck we were drenched, and exhausted. There was no way we could make the ascent back up to spike camp before dark. Trying to run that in the dark was asking to get hurt. So....we changed clothes and decided we'd have to sleep in the truck. Base camp was across the road and 1.5 miles up the other side. We were kinda stuck.
Knowing our base camp was now in a terrible location, we decided to run it to town, wash/dry our muddy clothes, grab a shower at the hostel next door ( $5.00, a bargain!)and then retun to the trailhead till morning.
In the morning, we decided to move our basecamp down to the trailhead. the knob we were working could be hunted from below inthe early morning with the thermals still coming down, which usually help till around 9:30-10:00am, or we could hunt down to thenm from spike camp a little later in the am, or anytime in the afternoon. So if we put BC at the trailhead, we could approach from either camp,and hunt a couple days fromeither one.
Topic: Colorado with my son......what a ride. (Read 1007 times)
