October 13, 2025 at 3:39 p.m.
Outdoors - Elk hunting (continued)
Our campsite was in a beautiful location nestled in a valley surrounded by towering snow-capped mountains. We were as far from civilization as a person can get in the continental United States. We enjoyed the camping experience as much as the hunting.
Because of location, the sun rose late and set early. Jose and I tried to extend our hunting hours by leaving camp before daylight and traveling to our hunting spots before the sun rose. One morning, eating breakfast around the campfire before dawn, we heard something crashing through the timber just across the stream from the camp. We could not see what it was and could only tell by the sound that it was something big. I assumed it was an elk and that was a good sign. My wife assumed it was a bear, which was not good at all. She decided to go hunting with me that day.
My sister decided to stay behind and guard the camp with her long barreled .45 Colt revolver. If a bear wandered into camp looking for leftovers, it would not have gone well for the bear. We would have had bear steaks for dinner that evening.
My wife and I set out on the trek up to an area of dark timber I had spotted the day before. We would hike for a while and stop to enjoy the scenery as well as catch our breath. Being flatlanders, the elevation took its toll on our endurance. The higher we walked, the more frequent the breaks to enjoy the scenery became. It was mid-morning when we found a small mountain lake surrounded by tall pines and lots of elk tracks. I decided this would be a fine location to spend the day, waiting to ambush an elk. We enjoyed the day, basking in the warm mountain sunshine and watching the pine squirrels run up and down the nearby trees. The lake was clear and clean surrounded by lush green grass. The only sounds we heard were from nature. At times, is was difficult to stay awake and alert as we were getting pretty mellow and no elk were passing by.
By mid-afternoon, we decided to call it a day and head back toward camp. Being mostly downhill, I knew it would not take us as long going back as it did hiking up to our hunting spot but I still wanted to be in camp before dark. We had a nice walk down the mountain chatting and enjoying the sites around us. We had been walking for a couple of hours when I started to wonder how far we were from camp. According to my compass and the direction of the sun, we should be there by now. Things looked the same in every direction, so it was impossible to tell if we had passed this way in the morning. The sun had dropped over the edge of the mountain to our west when I asked my wife how she felt about spending the night out there. She was not too impressed with the idea. We had everything we would need to make camp from food, water, a space blanket for warmth and a bow for protection. I decided we would continue in what should be the right direction for another half hour or so. We would stop and make camp before total darkness had set in if we were still lost. There was no sense in walking around in the dark getting more lost than we already were. We were minutes away from calling it a day when we spotted truck tracks going across a meadow. It had to be ours as nobody else in this world would have a truck this far back into the wilderness. It was totally dark when we got back to camp after following the truck tracks for a mile or so. After that experience, my wife decided to spend the days in camp and take her chances with bears rather than trust me as a wilderness guide.
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