Man what a year for hunting. It started out crazier than ever this season.
Went to set up camp a week before the season started, only to have my youngest fall into the camp stove, and severly burn her wrist. This ended that trip promptly with a nascar like trip back into town the same night it all started. Fast forward to opening day. My unlce Ray and Cousin Mike were able to get camp established the weekend prior, so all I had to do was show up. Hunted super hard opening morning with nothing seen. Sat in the top of a park with a bull answering cow calls only to have loco mtn. outfiitters and their client set up directly in between us and the bull.I guess that is hunting but not my stlye. They started bugling and the bull flat shut down. Went back into that same park at daylight the next morning to do a little more calling, having two bulls answering the calls me and my cousin took off on foot to find the elk in the black timber. My uncle Ray stayed in the park and had a small spike about 16" walk out after 30 minutes of us walking in. After hiking all morning down one side trough the black timber seeing some good sign. We started to cross the drainage and back up the other side of the black timber. We were trying to time it to where we walked back into the park just before dark, and stopped to take a nap. After sleeping for two hours and eating lunch in the thick timber we saw a bull just above us in the timber with no shot. We were not really being quitte at all either. After spraying some elk piss in the air and hitting the mouth calls we thought it was over. 2 minutes later a cow walking the game trail just below us made a be-line to where we had been sleeping. By the time she relized what was going on she had no way out of the 348 grain bullet and 130 grains of powder I squezzed of in her direction. I shot her no more than 10ft. from where we were sitting. She damn near came in on top of us. I was stoked my first elk, and a crazy adventure. Took me and my cousin 2 days of rigerous hiking to pack out all the meat. Tight and steep is not easy with a quarter. I estimated the hind quarters to way somewhere in the #125 range, and the fronts somehere in the neighborhood of #100. I don't really ahve anything to compare it two but my cousin who has shot dozens of elk over the years said she was a big ass cow. I know what people mean when they say the work starts once you kill one!

My little ones wrist after the stove burned the shit out of her

All bandaged up getting into my gear as I prep for the hunt

The park we left from. Hiked all the way down the right side, and back up the left. My elk was shot down in the bottom of the left hand side

The cow I harvested to feed my family and friends

My first elk hell yeah!

My cousin taking a break with the 2nd and 3rd quarters one hind, one front. He is approx. #250 for size comparison

My little #135 ass humping the last hind quarter out on day two. What a chore it was.

My trusty jeep that billy goated all over the damn place!