Lost River
01-01-2018, 01:13 PM
Friends,
It has finally slowed down a bit so I can post some pics and report back on adventures and misadventures.
This elk season was a very strange one, as the weather was incredibly warm. Normally I am hunting in sub zero temps. While those temperatures may not be all that comfortable for most folks, they bring the elk down from the highest of the high country, and make things much easier when it comes to not only getting close enough for a shot, but much more importantly, when the elk are lower it is substantially easier to recover them. There are times when shooting them is not the issue. The fact is that even if you shoot one, recovering it is not a reasonable option.
This has been especially true this year since my dad who will turn 76, needs a total knee replacement. Getting up a mountainside is not too tough, but the descent can be simply BRUTAL. Add hundreds of pounds of meat, and it is out of the question. Multiple times this season, there have been opportunities to shoot elk (we had cow tags) but it would have meant doing so at last light, or being in the dark by the time we reached them. In the country we hunt, and at the elevation many of the elk had been hanging out at during the day, it simply was not a reasonable option.
The other thing I had to contend with was very inconsistent winds. This is very windy country. That is the norm, and it is not a big deal (except for a sometimes brutal wind chill factor). Most shooters think of wind as a horizontal issue (as in blowing left or right). However in the mountains, you deal with updrafts and downdrafts. This is to be expected.
Normally in the mornings you have updrafts, and in the evenings you have downdrafts. This season the warm conditions seemed to throw the standard playbook right out the window. I got busted on stalk after stalk. The winds would switch right in the middle of a stalk and I would watch a couple of the satellite cows put their heads up, turn and look right in my direction and then the whole herd would take off. This was often after I had spent an hour or more using the terrain to make my approach, and climbing some pretty significant elevation. It got pretty frustrating. Plenty of times that was the only opportunity of the day. Once they took off, they were headed above the treeline into country that was totally out of the question, recovery wise.
A couple days before Christmas I had been making a stalk on some cows that were out feeding on a south facing slope mid morning. That is usually a sign of a weather change, as they are normally bedded down by this time. I saw the storm coming, but figured I could get to the elk and get a chance at a shot. It had been cool, but not cold, mid teens temp wise. Long story short, the winds switched, the cows winded me from WAY out, and they slipped into the treeline and it was all over.
Then the storm hit. This is why you wear good gear. The temps probably dropped 30+ degrees in 30 minutes, and the winds were an easy 30-40 MPH (which for this country really is not even a "hard" blow).
https://i.imgur.com/Uatso0Z.jpg?2
With the sudden massive temperature drop, and hard wind blowing I headed into stand of thick timber to get out of the weather. The problem was though that unless you were constantly moving, you got really cold, especially now that the temps were sub-zero. My feet were really, really cold!
Then I started hearing branches cracking in the wind. The storm was blowing hard enough that the tree limbs (fortunately mostly just branches and not the whole trees) were not bending, some were breaking. However, having played this game numerous times, I knew it was better to be safe than sorry, and decided to get away from the trees completely. So I ended up huddled down behind a big boulder, waiting for the nasty storm to run its course.
I ended up pulling out my little stove, gathering up some rocks to shield things and making a brew (green tea). It may not have warmed me up much, but it helps pass the time, and psychologically few things are better than a hot cup of tea or coffee when it is nasty out. Still, my feet were pretty freaking numb. The joys of hunting high in the Rockies! :)
My little camera was not working very well in the cold. In fact it kept dying on me. Later I told my bride that I took a couple of "selfies", so when someone found my body, they would know what happened, that I did not get lost, I simply got caught in a typical bad storm, too high up. I tried to get pics of the storm, but it would not pick up much of the fog, or the snow. It ended up dumping a couple inches of fresh powder in about an hour.
https://i.imgur.com/To3WoJo.jpg?1
In a previous hunting thread I had talked about some surplus West German Gore-Tex bibs and shell I had. This is exactly the kind of weather that makes them worth their weight in gold.
Visibility had dropped down at one point to around 50 yards (at the worst). Normally you can see literally for hundreds of miles. I was chuckling to myself, thinking of the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" where he found the frozen body of Hatchet Jack, clutching a .50 Caliber Hawken rifle. Hopefully someone who found my body would appreciate a good Tikka. A Gen-U-Wine 300 Win Mag "Mountain Rifle"!
https://i.imgur.com/HFdteaF.jpg?1
More to follow!
It has finally slowed down a bit so I can post some pics and report back on adventures and misadventures.
This elk season was a very strange one, as the weather was incredibly warm. Normally I am hunting in sub zero temps. While those temperatures may not be all that comfortable for most folks, they bring the elk down from the highest of the high country, and make things much easier when it comes to not only getting close enough for a shot, but much more importantly, when the elk are lower it is substantially easier to recover them. There are times when shooting them is not the issue. The fact is that even if you shoot one, recovering it is not a reasonable option.
This has been especially true this year since my dad who will turn 76, needs a total knee replacement. Getting up a mountainside is not too tough, but the descent can be simply BRUTAL. Add hundreds of pounds of meat, and it is out of the question. Multiple times this season, there have been opportunities to shoot elk (we had cow tags) but it would have meant doing so at last light, or being in the dark by the time we reached them. In the country we hunt, and at the elevation many of the elk had been hanging out at during the day, it simply was not a reasonable option.
The other thing I had to contend with was very inconsistent winds. This is very windy country. That is the norm, and it is not a big deal (except for a sometimes brutal wind chill factor). Most shooters think of wind as a horizontal issue (as in blowing left or right). However in the mountains, you deal with updrafts and downdrafts. This is to be expected.
Normally in the mornings you have updrafts, and in the evenings you have downdrafts. This season the warm conditions seemed to throw the standard playbook right out the window. I got busted on stalk after stalk. The winds would switch right in the middle of a stalk and I would watch a couple of the satellite cows put their heads up, turn and look right in my direction and then the whole herd would take off. This was often after I had spent an hour or more using the terrain to make my approach, and climbing some pretty significant elevation. It got pretty frustrating. Plenty of times that was the only opportunity of the day. Once they took off, they were headed above the treeline into country that was totally out of the question, recovery wise.
A couple days before Christmas I had been making a stalk on some cows that were out feeding on a south facing slope mid morning. That is usually a sign of a weather change, as they are normally bedded down by this time. I saw the storm coming, but figured I could get to the elk and get a chance at a shot. It had been cool, but not cold, mid teens temp wise. Long story short, the winds switched, the cows winded me from WAY out, and they slipped into the treeline and it was all over.
Then the storm hit. This is why you wear good gear. The temps probably dropped 30+ degrees in 30 minutes, and the winds were an easy 30-40 MPH (which for this country really is not even a "hard" blow).
https://i.imgur.com/Uatso0Z.jpg?2
With the sudden massive temperature drop, and hard wind blowing I headed into stand of thick timber to get out of the weather. The problem was though that unless you were constantly moving, you got really cold, especially now that the temps were sub-zero. My feet were really, really cold!
Then I started hearing branches cracking in the wind. The storm was blowing hard enough that the tree limbs (fortunately mostly just branches and not the whole trees) were not bending, some were breaking. However, having played this game numerous times, I knew it was better to be safe than sorry, and decided to get away from the trees completely. So I ended up huddled down behind a big boulder, waiting for the nasty storm to run its course.
I ended up pulling out my little stove, gathering up some rocks to shield things and making a brew (green tea). It may not have warmed me up much, but it helps pass the time, and psychologically few things are better than a hot cup of tea or coffee when it is nasty out. Still, my feet were pretty freaking numb. The joys of hunting high in the Rockies! :)
My little camera was not working very well in the cold. In fact it kept dying on me. Later I told my bride that I took a couple of "selfies", so when someone found my body, they would know what happened, that I did not get lost, I simply got caught in a typical bad storm, too high up. I tried to get pics of the storm, but it would not pick up much of the fog, or the snow. It ended up dumping a couple inches of fresh powder in about an hour.
https://i.imgur.com/To3WoJo.jpg?1
In a previous hunting thread I had talked about some surplus West German Gore-Tex bibs and shell I had. This is exactly the kind of weather that makes them worth their weight in gold.
Visibility had dropped down at one point to around 50 yards (at the worst). Normally you can see literally for hundreds of miles. I was chuckling to myself, thinking of the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" where he found the frozen body of Hatchet Jack, clutching a .50 Caliber Hawken rifle. Hopefully someone who found my body would appreciate a good Tikka. A Gen-U-Wine 300 Win Mag "Mountain Rifle"!
https://i.imgur.com/HFdteaF.jpg?1
More to follow!