1st Elk Trip

Saturday the 25th of August was opening day of archery season in Colorado so I just had to get out there.  Wisdom from other hunters indicated that saving vacation time for later in the season would be a good idea, but I just couldn't wait.  So i set out to camp in the medicine bow-Route national forest and to hike into the never summer wilderness area. to hunt.  I arrived earlier on Friday to witness a strange migration of people to the area.  The flat open spaces in the meadows gave rise to camper cities.  Often families with kids, ATVs, and all other motorized fun would spring up in hours.  I felt a bit weird about snapping pictures of other peoples outdoors entertainment transportation systems so sadly no pics of that.  My spot was as far up a rough 4x4 road that I dared go, and quite limited the motor homing crowd to a bit further away. 

My 1st Hunt Campsite

The view from my campsite facing south over a beaver pond filled valley.  I did try to cross this valley right across the middle.  While moose and animals seem to have no problem I was sure stuck in how to do it.  The dry ground just seems to disappear quite rapidly into mushy mud filled old beaver ponds.

Both morning that I went hunting were greated by I the same moose.  See if you can find the cow in the picture, this is about 50 yards from my tent.  I am always surprised at the size of these things.  This one was fairly non interested in me as I got up ate, changed clothes, and got all my hunting stuff together right in front of it. 

Moose Good Morning Committee

During the hunting time I was quite exhausted by trying to keep up with some elk.  I came upon them grazing a valley at around 6 am after a couple of mile hike.  they were headed up the densely wooded side of a mountain.  As a first time hunter I decided to follow them and 'Catch them at napping spot'.  Well these elk feed contentedly up the side of a mountain and I could not keep up.  When I finally did get one to notice me when they had slowed their assent, she took off like a rocket up the rest of the mountain. Still game I took about ten more steps and then slipped and fell.  I only rolled about three times my body length down the mountain but I had twisted my knee and got some nice scraps out of the deal.  So i decided to call it a day and take a break.

On Sunday I decided to hunt a different mountain then the first day.  Well I found Owl Mountain to be crisscorssed by ATV tracks and motercycle trails.  Twice I hiked from a labeled road to another side of a mountain to see what was there only to have ATVs go roaring around in meadows and on the edges of clearcuts on old logging roads.  Well needless to say that no elk were to be seen with the amount of motorized traffic on that mountain.  I was surprized by the stuff that I found while walking in the woods not on a trail or road.  An old wood log cabin and a rope bridge in disrepair.  You can really see the mud chinking on the wood cabin.  It is always weird to find evidence of people who came before us when there is no road nearby.  How did they get that stuff there in the first place?

The abandoned rope bridge

While I did not get anywhere near an elk, My best being about 100 yards, this was a very valuable weekend of hunting experience.   The major thing that I learned was to not hunt where people can use motorized toys.  They will use them and they scare elk off.  This means that every step into a wilderness area provides much improved hunting odds.  I also learned that a nice comfy air mattress is a great way to sleep even when it is 30 degrees outside.  

Hunting Preparations

So in the last few months I have set the goal to become a hunter.  This was a somewhat new idea and cause some personal challenges.  I have always wanted to be a reliant outdoors man like the men of old west novels.  OK I read to much Louis L'Amour when I was a teenager and that changed my thoughts on what it means to be a person engaged fully in life.  One thing that stands out in life is the disconnect between where our food comes from and how it is manufactured.

As a process engineer I have a small understanding of the amount of death and the inhumane manner in which America process much of its meat products.  While generally I am comfortable with industrial agriculture, it provides the most food in the safest possible manner to the most people it comes with a societal and individual cost.  The societal costs are pretty big ideas of national obesity, institutionalized cruelty, lack of basic nutritional knowledge, and reduction of variety of foods available.  Each individual is somewhat at the mercy of the system in which they live.  That means that all of our meat comes from one nearby factory and that you have no control over the place and process in which animals are raised and cared for.  These are of concern to many as seen by the rise of organic food grocery and farmers markets.  somehow these elements just kinda turned me off since there is no guarantee from the stores that they aren't just marking the price up on food that is the same as it has been.  My actionable ability to control a food source and gain some new skills was to go hunting. 

As an individual and the motivator for going hunting is the lack of outdoors man skills that were common a couple of hundred years ago.  I have been thinking about this stuff for months and the list of things an average hunter deals with in the course of a normal hunting season is quite long.  The things that I have been thinking about are listed below;

• Hunt method (Firearm or Bow) I went with the Bow.
• Where? Public land or pay to hunt on private.
• When? Seasons and time off from work.
• What Species? - Deer or Elk in Colorado are the most readily viable.
• How to do stuff?  This topic is a whole post in itself.
• Equipment?  The list of custom equipment that many hunters use is quite long and somewhat daughnting to an outsider.
• Safety - Had to have my Colorado hunters safety done.

The above list of topics is by no means exhaustive of topics that a new hunter is dealing with, but it is a start.  I have worked quite a bit in the last few months to just figure out what is essential and what is nice to know.  I am ready to go on my first hunting weekend this coming weekend of August 25th for elk hunting.  I am nervous and excited about the anticipation and the opportunity.

Wind River Valley Wyoming

Recent work involvement takes me to the interesting town of Thermopolis Wyoming.  Thermopolis is the town ~20 miles north of Boysen reservoir alongside the wind river valley.  Approaching the end of the reservoir from the south the typical Wyoming scrub was downright boring.  Then a couple of turns take you into a canyon that is quite spectacular.  The Boysen Damn on the north side of this large reservoir is the first thing one sees entering the Wind River Canyon.  Power lines from the damn hydroelectric generation station are evident as one approaches the canyon from the south.

The canyon is only a few miles long but contains outcroppings of rock from Paleozoic, Precambrian, and Cambrian rock formations. These formations are super old and some of the oldest ever.  It is such an interesting looking canyon that that the river has cut.  It really feels like you can watch the canyon crumbling in front of myself.  This causes such a sense of discontinuity as the rocks are so old the formations have stood for eons.

All this interesting geology makes for Thermopolis being a central area for geology nuts.  There are also dinosaur bones in the area so Wyoming has built and hosts a Dinosaur museum of specimens found in the area.  I hope that I can make a fun trip to Thermopolis in the future to see the active dinosaur digs and museum that is there currently.