Just as dad stepped out of the cabin into the glow of the headlights of Bub’s waiting truck, Sissy caught sight of the first few snowflakes falling. While it is far from out of the ordinary to see snow in late October at over 9000 feet of elevation, the crew had been at the cabin for several days and there hadn’t been any snow yet, so naturally it was just their luck that in the pre-dawn hours of opening day of 2nd Rifle Elk it would start snowing. They had been fortunate to draw cow tags for this year, opting for those over bull tags as they were the same price and cows would offer a greater chance at a harvest. Dennis and Farnham had also drawn cow tags and were making their way out to their respective hunting spots as well. Bowe didn’t draw a tag this year, but came along for the week anyway, happy to help out in whatever capacity necessary. Graham and his youngest boy volunteered their services as camp cooks for the week, never wanting miss an opportunity to spend a week in the mountains. All-in-all it was Sissy, her brother and father, and a bunch of her dad’s long-time friends who had come to be like uncles to the siblings. As Bub drove pulled away from the cabin and out onto the dirt road the snowfall intensified. They rumbled over the washboarded road as the snow quickly began accumulating, thankful that their journey on this morning would be short. Just a couple miles from cabin to hunting spot, an area dad and Bub had scouted with Bowe and found a small herd of cows back in the spring.
The falling snow only added to Sissy’s anxiety, because despite the excitement of opening morning, she was extremely nervous. Although it was her first time elk hunting she had deer hunted with her dad and brother for years, only unlike both of them, she had never successfully harvested an animal. The closest she had come was hitting a doe that they ultimately had pulled off the blood trail for the night and returned the following morning only to discover that the coyotes had gotten to it first. Despite her lack of success in the deer woods, she was determined to get herself an elk. The snow presented a new and unexpected challenge for her though; unlike when she was deer hunting with her dad, she wouldn’t be able to wimp out due to the weather. There would be no going back to the car to warm up mid-morning, no opting to sleep in rather than hit the woods because she was tired or her legs hurt. No, despite the elements she would have to suck it up and endure for the sake of the hunt.
Bub pulled the truck off the road at the edge of a small aspen grove, and that was all the further they’d be traveling by vehicle for the morning. Bundling against the now driving snow and wind, they uncased their rifles and shouldered their packs. Dad and Bub led the way south from the road with Sissy right behind them, while Bowe headed north to scout and watch the timber on the other side of the road. The former trio made their way across the open field, headed for the pinion-covered slope that overlooked another meadow on the other side. The three settled in under the safety of the pine branches with a good vantage point over the meadow and eagerly awaited sunrise.
By the time shooting hours began there was already a few inches of snow covering the landscape. Within a couple of hours the snow let up and the clouds gave way to a bright, crisp morning. The scene laid out in front of them looked as if it belonged on a post card, a sight all too common in the Colorado Rockies, particularly to a bunch of flat landers from Missouri. Despite the picturesque view the freshly fallen snow remained untouched as there was nary a sign of life all morning. Their hopes dashed by lack of animal activity by midday, they packed up and trudged back toward the truck to meet Bowe, who also reported bupkis in the way of activity for the morning, opting to return to the cabin for lunch and a new plan of attack for the evening hunt. Sissy couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed albeit understanding that harvesting an elk wasn’t going to be as easy as going out and getting it done on the first morning. In fact, out of everybody on the trip, her dad was the only one in all their years of coming out to Colorado that had successfully harvested an elk. She tried to shake that idea off, determined not to go home empty-handed, even if it took a whole week of hunting to get it done.
As quickly as the snow had moved in that morning, the midday sun essentially melted it all away in a matter of hours. Over lunch they decided to heed the advice that a local had offered a couple days earlier. He gave them valuable intel on where the elk herd tended to move through every evening, down through a ravine to the north of where the cabin sat in an area known as Dry Lakes. Getting there wasn’t as simple as driving north from the cabin, though. They had to wind their way around to the west over to the Black Dumps, turn north on the county road, then follow an old logging road back east until they reached the Dry Lakes area. Presumably named for the previous existence of water bodies that no longer were, the Dry Lakes instead consisted of a series of mostly open meadows dotted with cedars and small pines separated by wooded ridges, feeding into a small handful of corridors that led out into the open plains of Central Colorado’s South Park rangeland. These corridors were perfect avenues for funneling the elk herd from the deep dark timber of their daytime bedding areas with the open grazing grounds of the range.
The road wound its way through the meadows, eventually coming to an end at a fence row at the east side of the Dry Lakes, so the hunters opted to turn back and seek out a spot on one of the meadows, pulling the truck just off the road in a washout tucked in the timber and out of sight. From there they walked down the road to the meadow they had selected and eased along the south edge, setting up shop just inside the trees where they could watch to the north-northwest. Sissy took the right side, dad the left, and Bub in the middle, all spread about ten yards apart. Growing concern about her vantage point, Sissy fussed that her only viable shot would be straight north, and she wasn’t confident that she could comfortably shoot the distance that would likely be required for her side of the formation, along with the possibility of having to shoot across the road that snaked across the middle of the meadow. Dad agreed to trade spots with her, so they switched across Bub, putting Sissy on the left and dad on the right.
Right at five o’clock, their fears of traffic on the road were confirmed when a UTV came putting along in front of them. A pair of road hunters they had observed on their way back to the cabin from the morning hunt, who had likely been running around the area all day in search of elk. An infuriating yet all too common inconvenience of public land hunting, having other hunters driving vehicles around right at prime hunting time was sure to disrupt and in all likelihood prematurely end the evening hunt. Knowing that the road hunters were headed straight for the same fence row they had turned around at, everyone agreed that when the UTV came back through going the other way that they would go ahead and call it a day.
As they waited for the road hunters to come back and put the finish touch on killing their evening hunt, Sissy began frantically shaking her gloved hand. Bub saw this motion out of the corner of his eye, but dismissed it as her simply shaking pine needles or dirt or something off her glove.
“Elk!” Sissy whispered enthusiastically.
“What? Where?” Both dad and Bub muttered back in unison as their hearts skipped and their eyes widened.
“Right in front of us!” Sissy replied as she mounted her rifle on her shooting stick.
The boys’ view blocked by a single row of pines, they couldn’t see what she was seeing from her angle, which was the entire herd moving out of the far timber and across the meadow, heading straight for their hideout. She couldn’t believe it, all those years of close chances and missed opportunities in the deer woods with nothing to show for it and on the first day of her first elk hunt she was staring at a whole herd of elk. She gripped the stock of her rifle and peered through the scope, fully focused now on lining up a shot. She didn’t even notice that the lead bull had trotted to within about fifteen yards of her, blissfully unware of her existence and headed straight for the trees in which her and her brother and father stood. The boys had seen him though, and they were frozen in place not wanting to risk spooking him by raising their guns up. She watched and waited as the herd of cows, mixed with a couple of spikes, followed the lead bull. Bringing up the rear was the big herd bull, pushing the herd forward as if to cover the open meadow and get back into the safety of the timber line as quickly as possible.
All of her attention now solely on the scene displayed in her scope, Sissy never heard the boys muttering for her to take a shot if she had it. Not knowing what they could or couldn’t see, she picked out a big cow and waited for a clear shot. With the herd packed tightly together it was next to impossible to find an opportunity to get a shot off without chancing another elk stepping in front or behind unexpectedly. Then, suddenly, the cow she was on took a step out from the others and like an old pro she instinctively put the cross hairs on the cow’s chest and squeezed the trigger.
BOOOOOOM!
Her 30-.06 erupted into the evening air, creating a moment of utter chaos as the herd of elk spun around and retreated to the far tree line and back to safety. Dad and Bub leapt into action, swinging their rifles up and charging forward to try their chances at following up with shots of their own, but it was too late. The herd was dissolving back into the cover of darkness across the meadow and they never got a shot. Sissy didn’t know if she hit one or not, the kick having knocked her off her sight picture. Her heart was pounding like it was about to jump out of her chest. Just the chance to take a shot was so remarkably exciting she couldn’t hardly stand it. She turned to the boys, unsure of what to do next, when Bub raised his arm and pointed toward a small lone pine in the middle of the meadow.
“She’s down!” he exclaimed, utter disbelief in his eyes.
“Down!?!” Are you sure!?!” Sissy was equally unbelieving in what she was hearing.
Sissy’s shot had connected at right around 100 yards, and the cow had turned behind the pine shrubby pine tree out of sight. Bub caught the movement out of the corner of his eye while watching the business end of the rest of the herd disappear into the trees and watched as she reemerged around the other side of the tree and dropped. She gave one or two more kicks as the trio watched from their hiding spot, and then she was done. Dad and Bub turned and looked at Sissy, smiles growing on their faces.
“I JUST SHOT A FREAKING ELK!”
Sissy pumped her arms in the air and made her way toward Bub, where she met dad coming from the other side and the proudest father in the world embraced his daughter in celebration. Bub also congratulated her with a hug, and the three of them stood there recounting the entire scene from their own perspectives, hearts still pounding and hands still shaking. It was hard to tell who was more excited about the event, Sissy, who had finally harvested an animal, dad, who was beyond proud of his daughter, or Bub, who was just happy to be a part of the action.
After a few minutes and they were sure the elk was down for good, they began to pack up their gear and head out across the meadow. Sissy hung back gun at the ready while Bub checked to make sure the cow had fully expired. After snapping a couple of pictures the real work was set to begin; quartering out the massive animal. Dad was excited to try out a gutless quartering method he had spent months watching YouTube videos on, and he began laying out his knives and tools as Bub went to retrieve the truck. Luckily, she went down not but about fifty yards off the road, so they wouldn’t have to pack the meat out very far. They decided to send Bub back to the cabin to rally the troops as snow began to fall. When he left them, the roads and the fields were effectively devoid of snow. By the time he got back to the cabin the roads were covered, and by the time everyone got back to dad and Sissy, the snow was piling up by the inch, a good four or five inches having accumulated by the time they finished quartering and headed back down the road toward the cabin.
After countless days in the deer woods coming up empty-handed, Sissy was coming down the mountain with a truck load of elk meat after just one day of hunting. Despite their best efforts the rest of the week, she ended up being the only one to harvest an animal, giving her ultimate bragging rights for the trip. But that is a result that her dad, brother, and uncles were more than happy to live with.
The Hunting Lodge 