2008 elk hunting trip

Well, I just returned last week from my annual archery hunt for elk with my dad and Kathleen's dad (Gary), and as always, it proved to be an extremely memorable experience. These trips are always special, and are something I've been doing with my dad since I was 6 years old (OK, we weren't packing into the wilderness at that point, but I did get to tag along in the forest near our house occasionally). Gary joined us in 2005, when we began using rented pack llamas for the first time to aid in getting camp in and meat out. The past two years we've hunted in Idaho's Hells Canyon Wilderness area, which is one of the most rugged places I've ever experienced first hand. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of hard work...dad lost 10 pounds during our week-long hunt this year. In any case, this trip had its ups and downs. The biggest up was the 4-point bull dad harvested on the 4th day of the hunt. The biggest down was that the Forest Service did no maintenance of the trail we use to access this portion of the wilderness. As a result, there were places along the trail that were nearly impassable for a llama due to the large number of blow-downs, and getting dad's bull from where he shot it (7 miles in) to the trailhead required some serious cross-country detours. I've attempted below to post some of the better pictures from our trip, along with some explanations that I hope are interesting...


These first 4 pictures are just general scenery pictures of the area we hunt. It's extremely beautiful, extrememly rugged country. One result of that second part, however, is that few people are willing to hunt it. In fact, the past two years we've had the whole area entirely to ourselves, which is both rare and really nice.


This is us at the trailhead shortly after we finished packing our llamas and backpacks for the hike in. The llamas can carry about 65 pounds, which usually means that on the way in they end up carrying everything but our hunting equipment (food, clothes, camping gear, etc.). When one of us shoots an elk, then it take 2 trips to get both the meat and all of our gear out.


This is our main camp, about 3 miles into the wilderness area. We start from here every morning and typically hunt anywhere from 0.5 to 6 or 7 miles from camp.


Once we get camp set up, the llamas pretty much just hang out in this nice lush meadow and eat until we need them to pack meat out. Our camp is about 50 yards back into the trees from this meadow, which sits on the edge of a really pretty lake.



On the third day of the hunt I made a solo trip to a high-altitude, unnamed lake quite a ways from camp. As it turned out, it was a little too high for elk, but when I got there I did run into two male mountain goats. What a cool experience! The picture above was taken from about 150 yards away, after I spooked them. When I first saw them, however, they were only about 40 yards away. Unfortunately my camera got bumped at some point and changed to some weird setting, so the picture I took at that distance didn't turn out, and they bolted before I could correct the problem. Oh well. It was still really cool to be that close to a couple of mountain goats. They really are amazing animals.


This is dad's bull. Not a monster, but certainly a trophy in all of our books. The amount of time, money, and sweat that goes into making a trip like this successful pretty much makes every elk a trophy. Not to mention the fact that this elk will provide enough lean, healthy meat to feed us until about this time next year.


This is dad right after he returned to camp (at dark) the day he shot his bull. He hunted solo that day, and as you can see from the look on his face, it turned out to be a very, very long day for him.


Dad shot his bull about seven trail miles in, but about a half-mile from the trail. Unfortunately that half mile was through such thick nasty country that we couldn't get the llamas through it. As a result, we ended up having to pack the meat a little ways ourselves before the llamas could take over. You might think, "hey, a half-mile is nothing," but I tell you what, a half-mile in that jungle with 60 pounds on your back is a whole lot more work than I thought it would be!


Although dad's bull was only about 4 miles from our main camp, for reasons I mentioned earlier (i.e., major cross-country detours necessitated by huge fields of blow-downs) we knew we wouldn't be able to get the meat back to camp in one day. So, we took bivy sacks with us and set up a spike camp near where dad shot the bull. We got all of the meat to our spike camp that evening, and then the next day we packed it all back to our main camp.


This is just one example of a log we had to deal with while we were packing meat out. You'd think it would be a simple thing to just go around it, but, although the picture doesn't show it, there were nothing but blow-downs as far as the eye could see on both sides of the trail. Fortunately, this particular log was just (and I mean "just") high enough off the ground that we were able to get the llamas to go under it. To make that work, though, we had to take all of the meat and saddles off of every llama. Pretty laborious...


This is a blue grouse I shot late in the hunt. Dad also shot a grouse several days earlier. There's just no denying that after several days of oatmeal, top ramen, and freeze-dried dinners, a fresh grouse cooked in foil over coals tastes awfully good!


These last two pictures show us packing the meat and antlers back to the truck on the second-to-last day of the trip, and all three of us back at the trailhead on the last day. Like I said earlier, it was truly an amazing experience, and these trips just seem to get better every year. Hope you enoyed the pics!