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Departure Day:

This year I rented a car for the drive out. I started out Thursday Sept 18 at about 6:30 pm. The drive is around 1500 miles each way, and takes 22-23 hrs. I rented a Ford Fusion with unlimited mileage for what I thought was a very reasonable price. I said goodbyes, checked the gear list 100 times (obsessively), and headed out. I drove until 11:30 or so and slept in the car at a rest stop somewhere in Illinois.

Day 1:

The alarm woke me at 4, 4:30, 5, 5:30. I finally got up - exhausted. Guzzle some coffee and drive. Ford Fusions are nice, but not for a 6' 3" guy trying to sleep. Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, then SW Colorado. I arrived at my destination around 1 am.

Day 2:

Breakfast, some talk, gear packing. Around noon Kevin and I head to the trailhead. I'm going to the area I hunted and explored two years ago. The plan is for me to hunt and for Kevin to scout for rifle season and to give his pack goats a good workout.




The trail gains around 2000 ft in 2 miles or so. The gain is hard on me, always. Even after I acclimate a bit gain is hard and slow.

It's hard on the goats too.....I don't feel so bad. I'm carrying more weight, and they live at 7500.

Three old goats

A Dual Talon

We were close to the end of our elevation gain and Kevin was ranging ahead of the goats and I who were winded. I rounded a switchback to find Kevin squatting in the trail mouthing "ELK" and holding his arms above his head indicating BULL.

I dropped my pack, tried to catch my breath, and grabbed a mouth call and my bugle, then eased ahead about 30 yards. I could see the bull through the timber about 75-80 yards away. I gave him a couple soft cow mews and he bugled at me, so I hit him back with some excited mews. He started coming.

He's a really good bull, obviously mature and either a really big five or a nice six. He gets to about 55 yards and hangs up. He knows he should be seeing elk from this location and he doesn't.

I know my only real chance to pull him in to trigger him. I introduce a threat, turning behind me and chuckling, then giving some more excited mews. This tells the bull that there is another bull behind the cow playing tug-of-war, trying to pull her back to him.

He's very interested. He bugles. I intensify the threat, throwing out chuckles, short screams, huffs, distressed cow sounds. It's too much for this bull in this mood. He backs off and disappears into the timber. I hear him give demanding bugles with chuckles, growling at the end. He's rounding up his herd, and doing it with language that means COME HERE NOW!!!

I sneak after him, following a bench, then up and over two small ridges and depressions. A satellite bull comes into my cow calling up to 50 yards but he's behind some trees and I have no shot.

The bull finally turns and I'm offered a shot for a split second at 55 yards, but he's hard quartered away and moving. I pass. I should have given him a nervous grunt to see if he would've stopped broadside.

The satellite moves off after the main herd which is now gaining elevation at a rate much faster than I can. It's getting late and we still have over a mile and a half to go, so I head back and meet up with Kevin.

In elk this early! The week looks to be stellar.

We arrive at our destination and make camp.

Day Three:

The next morning I awake to rain. I get up, throw on the raingear, make coffee, and am thankful for goretex socks and waterproof backpacks. I climb up the ridge behind camp to a creek crossing I found two years before and arrowed a bull from. There is very little fresh sign this high. It's a terrific ambush point, but they aren't using it.



Daypack mode

I mosey back to camp and meet up with Kevin and the goats. Paradox Packs make great pillows....ask Kevin.



THE GREAT GOAT ESCAPE

So goats have minds of their own. I decided to make a large loop down to the bench where we bumped into elk the day before, then up to the trail and back to camp after dark. Kevin wanted to take the goats across the creek and up to a couple vantage points to scout some new territory. We parted ways and he started down the trail to the crossing with Koko and Pelli.

Pelli is a good goat. Koko is a little headstrong. Pelli crossed the creek fine, but Koko said no way. The trail and crossing are steep, rocky, and a bit sketchy so it's not a place you want a rodeo. Kevin decided that since he and the one goat were on the other side of the creek that Koko would follow if they started to walk away.

It didn't work. Koko ran back toward camp. He was bleating loudly, obviously in a panic. Figuring to find him at camp or grazing in the meadow in a couple hours, we went about our way.

I stillhunted the bench toward where elk were spotted without seeing anything but some fresh sign. Kevin scouted around and then made his way back to camp to meet up with Koko. Only there was no Koko. He texted me, so I started back to camp on the trail a bit early to look for him.

We didn't find him. I know horses and mules can backtrack, so I thought maybe Koko was back at the trailhead. I was almost right. Koko was in jail.

Alpine goats have a tremendous ability to follow trails. If they've been on a trail before they can follow it whether raining, under snow, etc. They've been tested and found that a goat could travel a trail one time, then follow the same trail unassisted as long as three years later.

Koko went back to the trailhead, finding nobody at the truck, he started home. Along the way he stopped for a snack in a lady's yard. She didn't appreciate the 200 lb animal wearing a dog collar eating her landscaping and called the police. The police were obviously outgunned by Koko and so called a local woman who owns goats. Koko was in the slammer.

Wondering where Koko was, Kevin packed up and headed back to the trailhead. Talons are incredibly versatile, even compressing goat packs. (O the irony! )



Facebook rescued Koko the next day. Social media is useful for many things, including finding runaway crime spree pack goats. Koko went home and had some sweet feed.

Good story and some nice pics. Hope there is more to follow.

I finished the day in intermittent rain watching the meadow near camp.





Forgot to mention the nice muley above camp.

Day Four: (Monday)

I awoke to rain. Put on the raingear, put on the goretex socks, thankful for waterproof pack....repeat. Rain gets old after a while.

I stillhunted through the meadow at the first gray streaks of light, moving silently but for the pitters and pops of rain hitting my gear. I eased past the resident mule deer buck "Spikey", who is dumber than a box of rocks. I should've taken a picture of him.

Still hunting for me is more like a series of stands. I move silently and very, very slowly from one good spot to another. I eased up to the side of a big pine and stood there for 2-3 minutes looking and listening. Nothing. I take a half step forward and a cow explodes from the other side of the tree. She'd been watching me for several minutes, trying to decide what I was. She figured it out before I detected her. I would've been packing her out that day if it'd gone down differently.





I bombed further down the bench to get the wind in my favor and then dropped 200 ft elevation to still hunt back toward camp through the thickest of the elk sign I'd seen so far.

Along the way not a 1/4 mile from where we'd seen elk on the way in I found the reason they could stay in this area. Water where there isn't supposed to be water.

It's been a wet summer.



Normally there isn't water on these benches. Because there is elk seem to be much less concentrated. Cow sign is scattered from the dark timber down into the deadfall aspen meadows. Sign from the herd is drying up. They've moved, and I'm hunting a small very scattered population of cows. It's warm, and they aren't bugling.

I decide to check out the other side of the ridge I'm on. I gain 800 ft and drop down on the other side to glass.



More rain.