I wrote this partially as a journal entry for myself and partially to share with y'all. I know it is outrageously long. If you aren't a glutton for dry non-fiction, skip to "Day 4".
My First Elk
Backstory Part 1
My best friend named Michael convinced me to start applying for Arizona elk draw hunts 4 years ago. I won a late-season archery bull tag the first year. Michael ( who had hunted and killed a cow elk before) had planned on going with me and showing me the ropes. Unfortunately, a few months before the hunt he learned that he was going to be deployed to Iraq and would not be able to go with me.
I convinced another friend named Tyler to come with me for the experience, even though he had no experience hunting out west. Tyler and I drove to Arizona immediately after I got off work (teaching) for Thanksgiving break. We realized we had absolutely no idea what we were doing and had decided we would consider it a successful trip if we even saw a bull elk.
Well…. We saw a lot more than we anticipated. We ran across groups of bulls five different times, including three individuals that were mature 6x6s or greater.
We had cows within 50 yards routinely, but I just couldn't make it happen with the bulls. The closest I got without busting them was 70 yards. Plenty close for a myriad of weapon choices, but too far for my comfort level with a bow. I did end up getting 55 yards from a spike calf, but between a combination of doubt about the legality and pushing my limits of accuracy, I chose not to shoot.
Despite not bagging a bull, we were both pretty happy with the results of our trip. We had a good experience and felt like we learned a lot.
Backstory Part 2
Tyler and I decided to make things a little easier on ourselves, we would apply for cow tags next time.
Two years later we both won late-season archery cow tags for a unit adjacent to the one we had hunted before. We felt pretty confident at least one of us would be able to arrow one before our four days of hunting came to an end. We hiked all over, we road bombed everywhere my 2wd truck would take us, we sat ponds, and glassed valleys, but we basically did not see any cows, only a couple of bulls.
On the last morning, we ran across a herd of cows on the road at dawn. We ran a couple of hundred yards in front of them, split up, and waited to ambush them. They ended up going Tyler's direction. He put a short stalk on one and stuck an arrow in one right behind the shoulder. The arrow did not exit. We waited an hour and began to follow the blood trail.
At first, the blood trail was very promising, big bright red bubbly pools of blood. The bushes and tree trunks looked like someone had hit them with a large paintbrush of blood, but only on one side of the tracks that we were following. Eventually, the blood trail tapered to the point we were finding pinhead sized specks every 30-50 yards, and then nothing. We grid-searched and walked in concentric circles for hours and nothing. Tyler was heartbroken.
On the long drive home we listened to "Simple Man" and sang along, but we changed the lyrics to, " Mama told me when I was young - You ever go huntin', bring a gun!". Next time we were applying for gun tags.
Michael got a gun tag for the week after we were there in our original unit. I sent him all of my OnX waypoints, and he shot a 5x6 bull on his first morning hunting the area we were in almost exactly where we had seen bulls before.
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Primary Story
I figured it would take me years to get drawn for a gun tag, so this past spring I was surprised to find out I was drawn with only 1 preference point for a late-season bull gun tag in the original unit I had hunted in and seen all the bulls.
The biggest problem with the gun hunts is that they aren't during Thanksgiving break. I had to ask off 5 days in a row, which is pretty highly frowned upon at my school. I was anxious about being denied my request, but they ended up giving it to me.
I now had time to hunt the entire length of the permit, seven days. I felt pretty confident knowing that if I had a gun tag in this same unit years earlier, I could have certainly tagged out. Michael was going to be in the area to celebrate Thanksgiving with his wife's family. He planned on joining me for the first three days of my hunt, which gave me additional confidence.
Day 1
On my past two trips combined, Tyler and I had run into only one other hunter and felt like we had the units to ourselves. On the first, morning I was surprised to find trucks parked every mile along the road and several groups of people road bombing in UTVs.
Michael and I spotted a group of cows after making it only about 20 yards for the truck. They were about 150 yards away. We glassed the group looking for antlers and saw only cows and calves. The wind shifted as we got closer and the group trotted away into a ravine.
Around 9 am Michael spotted a large herd of cows grazing their way along a timber covered ridgeline about 400 yards away. We watched them for about 30 minutes before we finally identified some young bulls bringing up the back of the group.
We moved closer and got to 230 yards to get a better look. They were all young, small bodied 4x4s. A combination of factors including it being the first day, it being a difficult shot to make, them being skylined, and them all being younger smaller bulls led me to make the tough decision to pass.
Those were the last elk we saw that day. Seeing the young bulls got us excited, but seeing the immense amount of hunting pressure this area was receiving steered us toward making the decision to go to a different location the next day. We chose to go to a more remote area of the unit in the juniper scrubland where Michael had glassed-up some mature bulls a couple of years ago.
Michael ate something that did not agree with him and he blew up from both ends all night between that and missing spending quality time with his wife and 1 year old son, he decided he would only hunt with me one more day instead of two.
Day 2
We arrived at our glassing point at dawn. We looked for hours and did not see anything other than other hunters. We walked a couple of miles into the canyons and did not see anything. We decided to try another glassing spot on the map, but when we got about three miles away we could see three trucks already parked on top. We found a decent look glassing spot off the road and gave it a shot for a couple of hours, but saw nothing.
Before I took Michael back home, I wanted to go look at an area closer to our original hunt location with the hope of possibly hunting there in the morning. We were checking it out when about 30 minutes before dark we saw a herd of cows off one of the forest service roads.
We pulled around the corner, got out, and got in a position where we could look at them with binoculars. There were no antlers we could see, but some of the elk were on the other side of some vegetation. I snuck into some cover on the other side of the road to make my approach and get a better look, while Michael stayed standing by my truck.
I was about 10 yards from the road when I pulled up my binoculars to have a look. Immediately an SUV came rolling in and screeched to a halt about 15 yards from me between me and the elk. A teenager got out and stormed into the woods directly at the elk with his rifle mounted to his cheek and looking through his scope, like he was clearing a room in Call of Duty video game.
Of course, all the elk ran off. The kid got back into the car without acknowledging me despite me standing in the middle of the road behind their vehicle wearing blaze orange. Oh well, I guess that's what I get for trying to hunt the road.
Day 3
Now on my own, I decided to go hike into the area where we had seen the young bulls. I hiked about 10 miles without seeing anything, but other hunters. I did not sleep hardly at all the night before and headed back to camp to get some rest.
When I got back to camp I started to become pretty discouraged. Despite it only being the 3rd day of my hunt I was seriously regretting my decision to not shoot one of those bulls on my first day.
This was my 3rd elk hunting trip, and I was becoming pretty anxious that I would be returning home empty-handed again. I was spending thousands of dollars on each trip, missing Thanksgiving with family, and taking precious time off work. I have been on several solo backcountry trips before and normally love it, but for some reason, the thought of being by myself for five more days and coming home with nothing was really grating on me. I had a little bit of an emotional breakdown similar to an "Alone" contestant on approximately day 10.
Day 4.
I think my breakdown the day before might have just been a result of exhaustion. I woke up feeling fine and even borderline optimistic. I got in my truck at dawn and drove to my launch point. On the way there I see some cow elk running through an open timber cut about 300 yards away. I take a look at them with my binoculars and look for a spike that might be blending in with any of them, which I'd be glad to take at this point. Nope, nothing.
I park my truck and a group of four guys roll up in a side-by-side and tell me they just shot one out of that group and thought maybe they had messed up my hunting plans. I told them it was fine, I had planned on hiking a couple of miles in. I headed off slightly disappointed that I probably missed rolling up on the elk they shot by a minute, but mostly optimistic that not ALL of the bull elk had been pushed out of the area yet.
I made it to the top of the ridge where we had seen elk the first day. It also happened to be the same spot Michael had shot his bull 2 years prior AND the same location I had gotten 70 yards from the largest bull we saw on our trip 3 years prior. Seems like a pretty major hot spot to me, but I didn't see anything when I got there.
I know partially from experience and partially from reading the internet and listening to podcasts that in the late season the mature bulls like to rest near canyons and deep ravines, especially in burned areas. The hot spot I mentioned above is a location like that, but I was certain that the immense hunting pressure had pushed out all of the bulls from that ridge.
I looked on my map and identified a steep canyon in a burned area that was further away from most of the hunter activity. The area I was in has ATV roads everywhere. It's practically impossible to find an area in this unit more than 2 miles from the road and in this end of the unit it's difficult to find a place further than 1/2 a mile from an atv road. I did what I thought was the next best thing and walked down an atv road that was all but abandoned and looked like it rarely had anyone go down it.
I stop to eat an early lunch around 10 am. I consulted my map to decide if I should continue walking this road. It is taking me even further away from my truck and is a dead-end. Oh well, I decided that I was going to explore it all and hunt hard all day.
I had walked probably 100 yards from where I ate lunch when I looked up and saw a bull elk sitting in the open not 40 yards from me. I think my heart skipped a beat, and I froze. We both made eye contact with each other. He continued to chew his cud and look at me. I slowly took a knee to reduce my profile. I very slowly began to unsling my rifle from my shoulder. When I raised it to look through the scope, he startled and began to run. I yelled at him and he turned back to look at me giving me a broadside shot, except his body was covered up by small branches except for the front 3rd of his shoulder. It was now or never, so I shakily held the crosshairs on the front of his shoulder as close to the branches as I dared and touched one off. Bang!
He did not show any signs of being hit. He turned around and began to trot along the canyon rim, still broadside. I chambered another round and let one rip while he was trotting. He did not show an immediate reaction but began to walk instead of trot. He went out of view, but I could see an opening in the brush he'd have to walk into. I sprinted uphill about 10 feet to get a better vantage point. He came into the opening, and this time I held the crosshairs behind his shoulder and steadied myself with urgency. Bang!
This time he was certainly hit and hit hard. He stumbled and turned, but did not fall. With Newoldarmy's story about mule deer hunting freshly in my mind and a steep 300-foot canyon nearby, I thought better safe than sorry and fired the last bullet in my magazine. This time he dropped like a rock. Holy crap!
I shouted out a few "Thank You! Thank You JESUS"-es at the top of my lungs and then involuntarily sank to my knees followed by dry-heaving. I was able to gather myself, stand up, and catch my breath. I took a few videos to share my reaction with Michael, Tyler, family, and I guess… Texags.
Post-Kill
He ended up dropping about 50 yards away from me. It took me an hour to cut the quarters and steaks off one side of him, which seemed fairly reasonable. I then came to the realization there was no way in hell I was going to flip this thing without taking his guts out like I normally do with deer and pigs. I cut open his abdomen and his stomach was completely full and so large I couldn't move the organs at all. Here is a slightly gorey photo https://ibb.co/4SwRp9D. I had decided to take the intestines out separately and then the stomach which ended up working even though it was pretty messy.
I still couldn't flip the carcass. I took out the heart, lungs, and liver. Then with all my might, I was able to flip him. Part of the problem was that he was laying on a bit of a slope. I was using a .308 Winchester rifle with factory-loaded 178 gr ELD-X. I can't really comment on bullet performance. I found one bullet fragment. There were 3 exits, but I couldn't find any entrances (I didn't look very hard). One bullet went through the paunch just behind the liver, one bullet exited on the posterior side of the shoulder, and one bullet went through the spine. It blew out some backstrap, but I guess that that was a fair trade for not having him roll down the canyon.
I eventually got all of the quarters, steaks, and a reasonable amount of assorted meat pieces into game bags after 4 hours, but I could not manage to cut through the vertebrae with my knife. I ended up getting a hatchet from my truck which worked like a charm.
I put one front quarter in my lightweight 65L internal frame Gregory backpacking bag and huffed it 2 miles uphill to my truck. It took me over an hour and I thought no way in hell am I going to be able to do that with the whole thing. I was hoping I'd be able to take my truck down the atv road at least partially, but nope- not gonna happen. I don't think I could've even taken an atv down it.
I looked at the map and found a road that went within 700 yards of my elk, but it was on the other side of the canyon. I precariously drove my 2wd truck down it and crossed my fingers I'd be able to get back. I got where I needed to be and found a route down the canyon and up the other side. From there I was able to get to my elk pretty quickly. It took me 4 more trips, 5 in total. A couple of loads including the cape and head I'd guess weighed close to 100 lbs. Heavy enough that I could not pick up my backpack normally. I had to put it on sitting down and squat my way up. I'm 6'1" , 165lbs, and not extremely fit, so it kicked my ass.
As I carried quarters of bull elk up the canyon, I couldn't help but think of the legend of Milo of Croton. If I did that every day (albeit with a slightly different methodology), maybe I could become an Olympian too.
It took me a total of 8 hours from the time I shot the Elk to the time I had everything in the truck ready to leave. I hadn't eaten anything since before I shot it, but I did not care about dinner. I just wanted to crawl into my sleeping bag in my tent and get some rest. I pulled up to my campsite and my beloved tent that I have spent a hundred nights in decided that tonight was a good night to give way to the wind. A pole had snapped, and I had to sleep on the bench seat of my truck with hamstring cramps all night. I also had bronchitis and a sinus infection this whole time, and still currently have it so I'm physically beat to hell.
Epilogue
I could not be happier. I am still on cloud 9. I always hear about people being in the right place at the right time when they are hunting, and this was my turn. I have always envied people that could go out on public land and harvest a trophy big game animal. I began to doubt it was something I was even capable of, but I have been affirmed. I do not perceive myself as having much hunting knowledge or skill, but I have A LOT of hunting perseverance. I think that perseverance and a lot of prayers from my mom are what finally culminated in my success.
I need to remember what I like to tell my friends on difficult hunts. I tell them in my best JFK accent, "We CHOOSE to go hunting, not because it is EASY, but because it is HARD!"
My First Elk
Backstory Part 1
My best friend named Michael convinced me to start applying for Arizona elk draw hunts 4 years ago. I won a late-season archery bull tag the first year. Michael ( who had hunted and killed a cow elk before) had planned on going with me and showing me the ropes. Unfortunately, a few months before the hunt he learned that he was going to be deployed to Iraq and would not be able to go with me.
I convinced another friend named Tyler to come with me for the experience, even though he had no experience hunting out west. Tyler and I drove to Arizona immediately after I got off work (teaching) for Thanksgiving break. We realized we had absolutely no idea what we were doing and had decided we would consider it a successful trip if we even saw a bull elk.
Well…. We saw a lot more than we anticipated. We ran across groups of bulls five different times, including three individuals that were mature 6x6s or greater.
We had cows within 50 yards routinely, but I just couldn't make it happen with the bulls. The closest I got without busting them was 70 yards. Plenty close for a myriad of weapon choices, but too far for my comfort level with a bow. I did end up getting 55 yards from a spike calf, but between a combination of doubt about the legality and pushing my limits of accuracy, I chose not to shoot.
Despite not bagging a bull, we were both pretty happy with the results of our trip. We had a good experience and felt like we learned a lot.
Backstory Part 2
Tyler and I decided to make things a little easier on ourselves, we would apply for cow tags next time.
Two years later we both won late-season archery cow tags for a unit adjacent to the one we had hunted before. We felt pretty confident at least one of us would be able to arrow one before our four days of hunting came to an end. We hiked all over, we road bombed everywhere my 2wd truck would take us, we sat ponds, and glassed valleys, but we basically did not see any cows, only a couple of bulls.
On the last morning, we ran across a herd of cows on the road at dawn. We ran a couple of hundred yards in front of them, split up, and waited to ambush them. They ended up going Tyler's direction. He put a short stalk on one and stuck an arrow in one right behind the shoulder. The arrow did not exit. We waited an hour and began to follow the blood trail.
At first, the blood trail was very promising, big bright red bubbly pools of blood. The bushes and tree trunks looked like someone had hit them with a large paintbrush of blood, but only on one side of the tracks that we were following. Eventually, the blood trail tapered to the point we were finding pinhead sized specks every 30-50 yards, and then nothing. We grid-searched and walked in concentric circles for hours and nothing. Tyler was heartbroken.
On the long drive home we listened to "Simple Man" and sang along, but we changed the lyrics to, " Mama told me when I was young - You ever go huntin', bring a gun!". Next time we were applying for gun tags.
Michael got a gun tag for the week after we were there in our original unit. I sent him all of my OnX waypoints, and he shot a 5x6 bull on his first morning hunting the area we were in almost exactly where we had seen bulls before.
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Primary Story
I figured it would take me years to get drawn for a gun tag, so this past spring I was surprised to find out I was drawn with only 1 preference point for a late-season bull gun tag in the original unit I had hunted in and seen all the bulls.
The biggest problem with the gun hunts is that they aren't during Thanksgiving break. I had to ask off 5 days in a row, which is pretty highly frowned upon at my school. I was anxious about being denied my request, but they ended up giving it to me.
I now had time to hunt the entire length of the permit, seven days. I felt pretty confident knowing that if I had a gun tag in this same unit years earlier, I could have certainly tagged out. Michael was going to be in the area to celebrate Thanksgiving with his wife's family. He planned on joining me for the first three days of my hunt, which gave me additional confidence.
Day 1
On my past two trips combined, Tyler and I had run into only one other hunter and felt like we had the units to ourselves. On the first, morning I was surprised to find trucks parked every mile along the road and several groups of people road bombing in UTVs.
Michael and I spotted a group of cows after making it only about 20 yards for the truck. They were about 150 yards away. We glassed the group looking for antlers and saw only cows and calves. The wind shifted as we got closer and the group trotted away into a ravine.
Around 9 am Michael spotted a large herd of cows grazing their way along a timber covered ridgeline about 400 yards away. We watched them for about 30 minutes before we finally identified some young bulls bringing up the back of the group.
We moved closer and got to 230 yards to get a better look. They were all young, small bodied 4x4s. A combination of factors including it being the first day, it being a difficult shot to make, them being skylined, and them all being younger smaller bulls led me to make the tough decision to pass.
Those were the last elk we saw that day. Seeing the young bulls got us excited, but seeing the immense amount of hunting pressure this area was receiving steered us toward making the decision to go to a different location the next day. We chose to go to a more remote area of the unit in the juniper scrubland where Michael had glassed-up some mature bulls a couple of years ago.
Michael ate something that did not agree with him and he blew up from both ends all night between that and missing spending quality time with his wife and 1 year old son, he decided he would only hunt with me one more day instead of two.
Day 2
We arrived at our glassing point at dawn. We looked for hours and did not see anything other than other hunters. We walked a couple of miles into the canyons and did not see anything. We decided to try another glassing spot on the map, but when we got about three miles away we could see three trucks already parked on top. We found a decent look glassing spot off the road and gave it a shot for a couple of hours, but saw nothing.
Before I took Michael back home, I wanted to go look at an area closer to our original hunt location with the hope of possibly hunting there in the morning. We were checking it out when about 30 minutes before dark we saw a herd of cows off one of the forest service roads.
We pulled around the corner, got out, and got in a position where we could look at them with binoculars. There were no antlers we could see, but some of the elk were on the other side of some vegetation. I snuck into some cover on the other side of the road to make my approach and get a better look, while Michael stayed standing by my truck.
I was about 10 yards from the road when I pulled up my binoculars to have a look. Immediately an SUV came rolling in and screeched to a halt about 15 yards from me between me and the elk. A teenager got out and stormed into the woods directly at the elk with his rifle mounted to his cheek and looking through his scope, like he was clearing a room in Call of Duty video game.
Of course, all the elk ran off. The kid got back into the car without acknowledging me despite me standing in the middle of the road behind their vehicle wearing blaze orange. Oh well, I guess that's what I get for trying to hunt the road.
Day 3
Now on my own, I decided to go hike into the area where we had seen the young bulls. I hiked about 10 miles without seeing anything, but other hunters. I did not sleep hardly at all the night before and headed back to camp to get some rest.
When I got back to camp I started to become pretty discouraged. Despite it only being the 3rd day of my hunt I was seriously regretting my decision to not shoot one of those bulls on my first day.
This was my 3rd elk hunting trip, and I was becoming pretty anxious that I would be returning home empty-handed again. I was spending thousands of dollars on each trip, missing Thanksgiving with family, and taking precious time off work. I have been on several solo backcountry trips before and normally love it, but for some reason, the thought of being by myself for five more days and coming home with nothing was really grating on me. I had a little bit of an emotional breakdown similar to an "Alone" contestant on approximately day 10.
Day 4.
I think my breakdown the day before might have just been a result of exhaustion. I woke up feeling fine and even borderline optimistic. I got in my truck at dawn and drove to my launch point. On the way there I see some cow elk running through an open timber cut about 300 yards away. I take a look at them with my binoculars and look for a spike that might be blending in with any of them, which I'd be glad to take at this point. Nope, nothing.
I park my truck and a group of four guys roll up in a side-by-side and tell me they just shot one out of that group and thought maybe they had messed up my hunting plans. I told them it was fine, I had planned on hiking a couple of miles in. I headed off slightly disappointed that I probably missed rolling up on the elk they shot by a minute, but mostly optimistic that not ALL of the bull elk had been pushed out of the area yet.
I made it to the top of the ridge where we had seen elk the first day. It also happened to be the same spot Michael had shot his bull 2 years prior AND the same location I had gotten 70 yards from the largest bull we saw on our trip 3 years prior. Seems like a pretty major hot spot to me, but I didn't see anything when I got there.
I know partially from experience and partially from reading the internet and listening to podcasts that in the late season the mature bulls like to rest near canyons and deep ravines, especially in burned areas. The hot spot I mentioned above is a location like that, but I was certain that the immense hunting pressure had pushed out all of the bulls from that ridge.
I looked on my map and identified a steep canyon in a burned area that was further away from most of the hunter activity. The area I was in has ATV roads everywhere. It's practically impossible to find an area in this unit more than 2 miles from the road and in this end of the unit it's difficult to find a place further than 1/2 a mile from an atv road. I did what I thought was the next best thing and walked down an atv road that was all but abandoned and looked like it rarely had anyone go down it.
I stop to eat an early lunch around 10 am. I consulted my map to decide if I should continue walking this road. It is taking me even further away from my truck and is a dead-end. Oh well, I decided that I was going to explore it all and hunt hard all day.
I had walked probably 100 yards from where I ate lunch when I looked up and saw a bull elk sitting in the open not 40 yards from me. I think my heart skipped a beat, and I froze. We both made eye contact with each other. He continued to chew his cud and look at me. I slowly took a knee to reduce my profile. I very slowly began to unsling my rifle from my shoulder. When I raised it to look through the scope, he startled and began to run. I yelled at him and he turned back to look at me giving me a broadside shot, except his body was covered up by small branches except for the front 3rd of his shoulder. It was now or never, so I shakily held the crosshairs on the front of his shoulder as close to the branches as I dared and touched one off. Bang!
He did not show any signs of being hit. He turned around and began to trot along the canyon rim, still broadside. I chambered another round and let one rip while he was trotting. He did not show an immediate reaction but began to walk instead of trot. He went out of view, but I could see an opening in the brush he'd have to walk into. I sprinted uphill about 10 feet to get a better vantage point. He came into the opening, and this time I held the crosshairs behind his shoulder and steadied myself with urgency. Bang!
This time he was certainly hit and hit hard. He stumbled and turned, but did not fall. With Newoldarmy's story about mule deer hunting freshly in my mind and a steep 300-foot canyon nearby, I thought better safe than sorry and fired the last bullet in my magazine. This time he dropped like a rock. Holy crap!
I shouted out a few "Thank You! Thank You JESUS"-es at the top of my lungs and then involuntarily sank to my knees followed by dry-heaving. I was able to gather myself, stand up, and catch my breath. I took a few videos to share my reaction with Michael, Tyler, family, and I guess… Texags.
Post-Kill
He ended up dropping about 50 yards away from me. It took me an hour to cut the quarters and steaks off one side of him, which seemed fairly reasonable. I then came to the realization there was no way in hell I was going to flip this thing without taking his guts out like I normally do with deer and pigs. I cut open his abdomen and his stomach was completely full and so large I couldn't move the organs at all. Here is a slightly gorey photo https://ibb.co/4SwRp9D. I had decided to take the intestines out separately and then the stomach which ended up working even though it was pretty messy.
I still couldn't flip the carcass. I took out the heart, lungs, and liver. Then with all my might, I was able to flip him. Part of the problem was that he was laying on a bit of a slope. I was using a .308 Winchester rifle with factory-loaded 178 gr ELD-X. I can't really comment on bullet performance. I found one bullet fragment. There were 3 exits, but I couldn't find any entrances (I didn't look very hard). One bullet went through the paunch just behind the liver, one bullet exited on the posterior side of the shoulder, and one bullet went through the spine. It blew out some backstrap, but I guess that that was a fair trade for not having him roll down the canyon.
I eventually got all of the quarters, steaks, and a reasonable amount of assorted meat pieces into game bags after 4 hours, but I could not manage to cut through the vertebrae with my knife. I ended up getting a hatchet from my truck which worked like a charm.
I put one front quarter in my lightweight 65L internal frame Gregory backpacking bag and huffed it 2 miles uphill to my truck. It took me over an hour and I thought no way in hell am I going to be able to do that with the whole thing. I was hoping I'd be able to take my truck down the atv road at least partially, but nope- not gonna happen. I don't think I could've even taken an atv down it.
I looked at the map and found a road that went within 700 yards of my elk, but it was on the other side of the canyon. I precariously drove my 2wd truck down it and crossed my fingers I'd be able to get back. I got where I needed to be and found a route down the canyon and up the other side. From there I was able to get to my elk pretty quickly. It took me 4 more trips, 5 in total. A couple of loads including the cape and head I'd guess weighed close to 100 lbs. Heavy enough that I could not pick up my backpack normally. I had to put it on sitting down and squat my way up. I'm 6'1" , 165lbs, and not extremely fit, so it kicked my ass.
As I carried quarters of bull elk up the canyon, I couldn't help but think of the legend of Milo of Croton. If I did that every day (albeit with a slightly different methodology), maybe I could become an Olympian too.
It took me a total of 8 hours from the time I shot the Elk to the time I had everything in the truck ready to leave. I hadn't eaten anything since before I shot it, but I did not care about dinner. I just wanted to crawl into my sleeping bag in my tent and get some rest. I pulled up to my campsite and my beloved tent that I have spent a hundred nights in decided that tonight was a good night to give way to the wind. A pole had snapped, and I had to sleep on the bench seat of my truck with hamstring cramps all night. I also had bronchitis and a sinus infection this whole time, and still currently have it so I'm physically beat to hell.
Epilogue
I could not be happier. I am still on cloud 9. I always hear about people being in the right place at the right time when they are hunting, and this was my turn. I have always envied people that could go out on public land and harvest a trophy big game animal. I began to doubt it was something I was even capable of, but I have been affirmed. I do not perceive myself as having much hunting knowledge or skill, but I have A LOT of hunting perseverance. I think that perseverance and a lot of prayers from my mom are what finally culminated in my success.
I need to remember what I like to tell my friends on difficult hunts. I tell them in my best JFK accent, "We CHOOSE to go hunting, not because it is EASY, but because it is HARD!"