Idaho Elk Hunt Journal: Day 3

As I mentioned in the last page, we decided to sleep in and let stuff dry out a bit today.




The morning dawned bright with bluebird skies and warm temps. I woke up to find Steve on the nearby ridge.


Today is Sunday and I will miss church so I am going to spend some extra time in prayer. Being at 7500 feet in elevation gets me closer to God by default though, right? It truly is God's country up here.

After eating some breakfast, I laid out my wet gear and boots to dry in the bright sun. Steve had done the same. I then took a little hike to the same ridge Steve was on earlier. It is a beautiful view.


The morning passed quickly and soon it was time to meet Jeremiah and head up to the top. We planned to stay high and glass for elk tonight. I could tell quickly after meeting Jeremiah that we were going to get a long just fine.


A mention here about great women that sacrifice a lot to let us go on these trips. Betweeen myself, Steve, and Jeremiah, there were 11 children and 3 wives left at home while we hunted. The oldest child is 13 and the youngest 4 months. My wife had 4 swimming practices, 2 soccer practices, and 2 soccer games along with all the laundry, food preparation, and household duties plus a 40 hour work week. She even cut the grass a couple times. Thanks babe! I return every time a better man so I think it is worth it. But she sure looked tired when she picked me up from the airport on Sunday.

We headed up the trail that climbed to the top and over into the adjacent valley. It was relatively easy but the 40 pound pack quickly wore me out. Slow and easy is my motto. No sense killing yourself. My knee was definitely feeling it but we made it to a beautiful pass that would eventually take us down to the fertile hunting grounds.




Tonight though, we were on top to glass and see what there was to see.

After getting our bearings and setting camp, we headed to a spot that Jeremiah knew overlooked his favorite areas. We could glass several side canyons and benches as well as the creek bottom meadows. We were a little over 9000 feet and the creek bottom was around 7500.


Steve headed out a little farther to see if he could find a vantage point to the other side of the finger of peaks we were on. That left Jeremiah and I to get a little better acquainted. It wasn't long until I spotted 3 muley does on a bench about 500 feet and 1/2 mile below us.


Steve had the only deer tag so we went off to find him to see if he wanted to give it a go. A quick discussion and he decided it was worth a try. There was about 1 hour of light left. Jeremiah went down a ways with him to show him the way as I continued to watch the deer. Soon however, they disappeared around a group of trees.


I watched the little meadow for a while and soon spotted more movement at the far end.


As I watched the movement turned into an elk and a bull at that. It looked like a smallish 4 point but still plenty big. I had no way to warn Steve of the new game so decided to just let it play out. Jeremiah returned to the glassing spot soon after. The bull dissappeared behind some trees but was clearly working towards the place Steve was going to come down. They were definitely on a collision course! As we watched, Jeremiah spotted the bull run off and we wondered if it was with an arrow in it's chest.  A couple minutes later, Steve showed up in the meadow, not tracking so we figured he spooked the bull. The deer were gone too. Steve worked down towards where the bull ran and we heard some cow mews and a warning bark from the bull not long after.

It was getting wicked cold so we got into a clump of trees to wait his return. Around dark he showed up and we got the full story. As he worked toward the bench, he spotted the bull at about 70 yards but not before the bull spotted him. A short staring contest ended in the bull running off. His attempt to follow was met by the calling we heard. He also got the wits startled out of him during the followup by a grouse .

We half sprinted back to camp and on the way stopped to take a picture in the twilight. As I was allowing my camera to take a nice slow exposure shot, an owl swooped into the frame not 10 feet away. I barely missed catching his blurry apparition in the pic. He lighted in a nearby tree allowing some close up viewing and poor attempts at pics.



We returned to camp and bemoaned the high winds and cold temps a bit. Soon after though, the wind settled and the crisp night gave us a star show that defied anything you would ever see anywhere else. The path of the Milky Way was clearly discrenible and it was easy to see why the stars held such a prominent place in the life of ancient peoples. It was astonishing! Phots could never do it justice. I slep t soundly and hard and woke with renewed vigor for the morning glassing session adn then the hike into the valley.

Idaho Elk Hunt - Day Four

Today dawned beautiful and bright.


Our plan was to do some early morning glassin gof the areas we were to hunt through the week and then move down into the valley for the rest of the week. We all were going to take different routes and hunt our way down with the intention of braodening the scope of our recon.

We went right back to the spot we were the night before.

As we approached the spot, Steve noticed a muley doe just below the spot we saw the elk and deer from the night before. He thought she was stalkable so wanted to give it a go. I was going to head down on the other side of the finger and Jeremiah was going to go all the way out to the end of the finger. I would drop almost exactly on the spot we planned to rendezvous later in the day. Jeremiah advised Steve to go up to another higher spot where he often saw bucks and then go after the doe. He was convinced she would bed in the area. We spent a good amount of time glassing and Jeremiah found 10 elk way up high at the head of what he called "Wallow Canyon". They were about 9500 feet and out in an almost unstalkable position. In the pic, toward the left side is wallow canyon. The meadows up top is wherre the elk were. It doesn't look that far but it is a heck of a hike from where we were glassing. Down 1500 feet, about 2 miles and up 1500 more. We made that hike from the bottom a few times throughout the week.

We noted this and split up for the descent. Steve worked high at first and Jeremiah and I hunted our way down into the canyon. My route took me through the series of bench meadows where we saw the bull the night before. It was fairly easy at first but the last 500 feet or so was fairly steep. Blowdowns were heavy in places. My knee was hurting since going downhill hurt a lot more than going uphill. Still, the scenery was beautiful. I didn't see much fresh sign. As I got down into the valley, I noticed some pretty large beaver ponds.

Here's where I dumped the pack after coming down. I couldn't carry it any more for a while so I left it and hiked the 1/2 mile to the rendezvous without it. I got it a little later.


Seems the creek had been dammed a little further downstream. Jeremiah had told me this was a possibility but said we should be able to find a crossing spot upstream near the rendezvous. We also had an outfitter's camp nearby but it wasn't occupied at the time. I found a place to cross and met found I was the first one down. I took about an hour to recover and then went to make camp. Afterwards, I found that Jeremiah had placed his pack in the trail upstream and must have gone hunting. I put one of my blunt arrows in his pack pointing to my camp and did the same. I worked up to some of the benches just above camp and found a few fresh piles. I hoped that the elk were bedded up high and would work down to the meadows in the creek bottom. About an hour before dark, I hear Steve and Jeremiah in camp a half mile away and based on the scant sign, decide that a little socializing might be in order. I head down to find their camps set and them discussing the day's events.

Steve never got into any bucks up high and couldn't find the muley doe again. Jeremiah had to do a lot of backtracking to finally get down to the valley floor and spent part of the evening getting reacquainted with his family hunting ground. Spirits were high for the morning since he promised to take us up "Wallow Canyon" and show us how it got its name. Here's one reason.


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