Finished up last night and drove home, getting here too late to post anything. My wife says I look like I fell asleep on a hot plate. My face is rather raw and red. Days on end of screaming winds will do that for you.
The weatherman who called for the blizzard needs to be fired and they should promote the guy who gave the wind warning. Never snowed a bit, just some drizzle; enough to make it even less comfortable. The wind roared again as predicted, finally relenting some just before dark.
Saw two does yesterday; no bucks. Climbed our butts off to find a perch that would allow us to look down on the heavily-tracked benches that had slight openings in the thick canopy. Not sure I could get the camera guys to volunteer for another trek up those steep slippery rock slides. Not sure I could convince myself to do it again without certainty of a big buck showing up under our nose.
I know there are some whopper bucks in that country. I got to glass one of those big guys on Day Three. Unfortunately for me, the buck is not in the back of my truck. Fortunately for some other hunter who might have the last few days to hunt, he is still up there and the rut is surely in full swing.
It was a remarkable hunt, even with the brutal wind. It is a place I will return to someday. I will pick my dates, rather than have a filming schedule dictate my dates for me. I will hunt it almost like you hunt whitetails in the north woods, getting on a buck track and following it as far as daylight and my legs will allow.
The images and scenics are off the charts. The struggles against the landscape and it ruggedness are a challenge, and further complicated by weather elements common to these front range areas.
I am thankful that in five days, I was able to cover so much new country, yet hardly even scratched the surface of the many great possibilities just in that drainage. A person could hunt an entire lifetime in that big country and still not cover half of it.
My legs are aching, my face is wind, lips are chapped, and eyes are dry. Nothing like a few days of turkey and pumpkin pie to get me refueled and ready for Arizona elk.
The country is as wild as wild gets in the Lower 48. It is truly roadless country, were horse and foot are the only means of transport. Where you not only earn you animal, but earn every foot of elevation it took to get there. It is hard to hunt that country without being impressed by the toughness animals must possess to live there and prosper. Makes you feel rather humble and insignificant.
Mostly, it makes you glad you live in a place where for nothing more than the gas to get there and some determination, such experiences are available to anyone, where he is the owner of the oil patch or like me, a young kid from Big Falls whose childhood dreams were filled with the fantasy to someday hunt there. Dream fulfilled and wanting for more.
