elk down....followed by so many funny mistakes.

[ctdad]

My hunting group this fall included myself, Jason and Bob. Neither of them post here but I just have to share their story as it was relayed to me many times.

It was mid week and the elk were getting harder to come by so by late afternoon I'd already decided to go North 3 miles and check out a new drainage by daylight the next day. As I was walking out in the dark that night, I heard a bugle up a drainage so I told my hunting partners where he was and to go after him in the am. I realize I should have stuck around, but by the end of the story you'll see why I'm glad I didn't.

Bob and Jason headed up after him and he was bugling at the top (about 1.5 miles) so they took off at first light the next morning from fish creek. It is steep and rough but the last 1/4 mile is wide open and then dark timber on the top. They didn't want to go out in the open heading into the dark timber so they went all the way around the mountain (or so they thought) to come back onto the elk that were on their side of the mountain. This took well over an hour and the bull was nice enough to occasionally bugle so they kept track of him easily. None of us had been all the way to the very top of this particular drainage. When they finally got into the dark timber he was in, they worked around the side that faced fish creek and set up to work him. A few cow calls and here came the herd. Bob had a great shot and killed a big mature cow. Jason got busted by the bull but it was a near miss. Great day!

I got up on a bluff about 10am and got a text saying elk down. I texted back and said I'll head that way to help. They said don't bother. We'll have her back in camp before you get here. Awesome, see you at dark (this new drainage is all burned up, so I'll be back tonight).

So Jason and Bob bone out the cow, split up the meat and take off down the hill toward fish creek (1.5 miles down, then 3 miles flat to camp...easy walk). They get down to the creek and they are both very confused. Fish creek is running the wrong direction???? (left to right, but suppose to be right to left!). It was cloudy and neither of them pulled out their $500 garmin touch screen has every feature possible gps and these two just hiked down the wrong side of the mountain 1.5 miles in the wrong direction with 100 lbs on their back! When Bob finally checked his GPS he is quoted as saying "well this can't be right?" Jason took his pick hauling his elk and looking at this gps. We plan to have that poster made for bob with that quote on it. It gets better.

After consulting their gps and kicking themselves for being too excited about the kill, they realized the only way out was up. They take off and are having a very rough hike up with their heavy loads. They see the top, make their way to it and when they get there, they realize it is only a shelf and they are only about half way. Jason immediately drops his pack and is exhausted, mad at himself and Bob and the mountain and life and simply needs a break. I'm pretty sure there was some cussing going on about now. Bob walks a few steps past Jason assuring him they'll be fine after a snack and some rest and unbuckles his chest strap on his pack, then loosens his waist belt. The 100 lbs on his back starts pulling his pack down and the waist belt twists and in an unlikely sequence of events, his bear spray goes off directly into Bob's face! They are as physically tired and emotionally spent as you can imagine and Bob just took a direct shot to the face with his own bear spray from 2 feet away. Bob can't talk b/c he has pepper spray in his lungs, he can't see, he's coughing and everything is burning. Jason quickly checks the bottle which warns about vision loss if sprayed into eyes. Well, Bob's going to be blind (he's fine btw). This set back slowed them down considerably and they did make it back but not until dark! They were both so tired they were shaking. As they told me the story, I laughed so hard my face and abdomen hurt. If you've ever killed an elk and packed that kind of load, you can just imagine the emotional highs and lows of that day!

Took em both a couple days to recover.

[WapitiTalk1]

Holy cow..... What an adventure. Glad they made it back to camp with four eyeballs intact.

[Indian Summer]

"This can't be right" I remember a long long time ago before anyone really heard of a GPS Magellan was the first and only company that made one. It was giant and heavy and really slow. My wife bought me one to make sure she'd see me again some day as I was young and dumb. lol We doubted the thing all the time but of course it was always right. Popped out on a road in Idaho with my brother. Both on our last leg ready to drop. He makes a right and starts walking. He is VERY good at direction and very seldom if ever wrong. I'm like waaaait a minute. We cannot afford a single step in the wrong direction I'm pulling out the gadget. It took like 20 minutes to get a fix. The whole time he's saying screw that piece of &%#* I'm going this way. All the sudden I stood up and started walking left... the other way. He's like "no way!" and starts walking his way. I knew better. He went about 100 yards and seeing that I was confident and not even considering his way came running back down the road all mad saying "you better be right or you're carrying all my gear and I'm gonna blah blah blah"

Had a buddy guiding in wilderness in Montana. Two hunters. The one is a self proclaimed genius. Knows everything, always right. At the end of the day they are walking a razorback ridge and my buddy Paul starts bailing off the one side. The guy yells woah woah what the hell do you think you're doing, it's late we can't be heading down there!" Paul says the truck is this way. The guys says "sorry to inform you but you are dead wrong" Paul is an easy going dude and says no sir, I've lived here all my life, the truck is this way. So the guy looks at his buddy and says "let's go!" His partner says I don't think so. I'm gonna have to go with Paul on this one. Well since both guys doubted him he was furious, but not giving in. He starts heading off the wrong side... to never never land. Before he gets out of earshot Pauls says... when you get to the bottom and realize you are wrong do NOT follow the creek down. It keeps going away from civilization. You'll need to come right back uphill in the dark the way you came and drop of this side. I guess the guy didn't like the sound of that so he stomped back up and followed them back to the truck in disgust. Of course when they got to the truck 2 of the 3 were smiling ear to ear and Einstein didn't mumble a word.

But to pack elk downhill the wrong way. Uuuuuugh!!!

[Indian Summer]

As far as elk down then dummy me: I think I told this one somewhere... a buddy killed a fair sized cow and came and got me to help pack it. It was easily accessible. We hiked to it, a very gradual uphill which meant an easy downhill on the way back. So I quartered it up for him and said "I think I'm just gonna tough it out and pack both of mine in one trip. They were unboned and hide on so pretty heavy but the route was an easy one. He wasn't up for it and says no man why don't you just come back up with me for a 2nd trip. I'm like nah, I see no reason so I lash one onto my pack and he helps toss the other over my shoulder. By the time I got to the truck, just behind him I was regretting my decision. Literally in pain I flopped the one quarter on the tailgate, turned around and dropped my pack there too. So I'm standing there ready to die looking at the quarters and I realize... I just packed out to hind quarters instead of a front and rear. No wonder!!!! I think he set me up because he didn't really laugh as much as you would expect. Just smiled and said oh wow that sucks, and went back... for his other FRONT!

[ctdad]

IMG_20130925_123520_071(1) - Copy.jpg (59.53 KiB) Viewed 2909 times

"This can't be right?!"

[pointysticks]

ouch!!

i've been "maced" once by a policeman's spray. brutally painful!!

and no, i wasnt up to NO-GOOD..my sister got into my dad's service belt, and hit me in the face "to see what would happen".. i was maybe 6 yrs old when it happend (the first time), i remember i had herculean strength, writhing in pain. my dad could barely hold me down to rinse me off.

the second time was a two years later..my sister took a fist full of thai chilis, ground them up, mixed in some light oil, and water..and threw the mix into my face. i hit the ground screaming.

at my sister's wedding...my wedding toast included a sentence.."and to my new brother in law, i wish you a warm welcome into our family. i also wish you the best marriage to my sister, but i must warn you..you are marrying the woman that invented bear spray..good luck bro"

my sister was mortified. so what.

CTdad..your story is funnier..

[jmez]

Hi, my name is Jason and I remember this day. It was actually a little worse than ctdad gives up credit for.

When we looped around the mountain and set up on the elk, we didn't realize how big the mountain was. We only went halfway around, got into timber and thought we were where we needed to be. He shot the elk right at the top and she only got maybe 500 foot down and died. It was steep and nasty, really steep. We got her loaded and we both got out our fancy GPS machines and discussed do we go back to camp or got straight to the truck. We were halfway in between and we were going out that day to join ctdad at another spot. We both just looked at the waypoints to see how far each was, not where they were. We knew where we were, not realizing we hadn't come all the way around the top. Camp 1.8 miles and downhill from here. Truck 1.8 miles and straight back up this nasty mountain for 500 foot and then walking across the tops and downhill the whole way. We decided to go back to camp, then decide to pick up camp and take everything out at once or make two trips. Either way we had to go back to camp so figure why go straight up for 500 ft when camp is all downhill. We just started down, straight down, for almost 2000 feet.

Dressing the elk I recall thinking, why haven't I seen that logging road on the opposite face before. It is clear as day and I've been running around in here for 5 days now. Clue number one.

Get about 1500 foot down with our elk and we hit running water. We get excited as we've just found, a hidden stream that we've walked past for 4 days now. Clue number two. Did I mention it was steep? In a few places we had to sit and scoot down. Sitting was easy as our butts were only about 5 inches from the ground.

Get about 10 steps down our hidden gem and I said, we are going the wrong way. Bob said, no this has to run right down into fish creek. I said it may but we need to be going the other way. Said no, if its a feeder stream it can run this way. Good point. Clue number three.

We go for quite a ways down this feeder stream and aren't getting to fish creek. We are going the wrong way. No this thing has to dump into fish creek right around this corner. It doesn't, it just keeps going. This is the point Bob decides to get out his GPS. I'm soaked as its raining and already pretty tired. We've been walking for an hour. This is where the "well this can't be right " comment comes in. Worst part is, we were between the truck and camp, and in our confusion we walked straight away from both of them. Where we stopped to figure this out it was impassable back up to the top, a lot of rock and sheer walls. Neither of us wanted anything to do with backtracking from here so we opted to continue the wrong way for another mile and a half where we could actually see space between contour lines to climb out of this mess. The only good decision we made.

Mile and a half later up we went, straight up for about 1500 foot. Steep enough you didn't have to bend over to touch the ground, just reach out in front of you. Miserable.

When we hit that bench, as ctdad said, I was pissed. Then I hear this really loud whooshing sound, see a cloud and Bob is rolling around on the ground hollering. Bear spray is really loud and there is definitely a cloud associated with its deployment!!! If you look at the picture ctdad posted you can see the bear spray in Bob's cargo pocket. It turned the whole side of his head red!!!

When all was said and done we ended up 500 foot above where he shot the elk, exactly where we would have been had we just gone up. We walked 6.8 miles and it took us a little over 6 hours. Carrying 100+ pounds each. By the time we got back to the truck, my legs were literally not working correctly. Every time I took a step and put weight on my legs they would just kind of wobble back and forth, it was weird. By this point we were on a road so it wasn't a big deal.

The only good part of the day other than killing an elk. We are laying on the ground at the truck and we still have a two mile hike to get our camp. Here comes a local riding out at the trail head leading a mule. We talk to him, really nice guy. Told him our story, he laughed. So then I said, what would you charge us to go get our camp? He said, that little backpack camp right back there? I said yeah, he said oh nothing you guys have worked enough today i'll be back shortly. Turns his horse around and rides off. Of course wouldn't take anything, just a nice man.

It was quite a day.

[ctdad]

I figured you could add some great insight to that story.

He's not kidding about steep. I ended up hiking into that area in November on a rifle hunt. The creek drainage that these two accidentally hiked into with an elk on their backs is easily the steepest, nastiest part of the entire area we hunted last year. I hated it with 15 lbs and trekking poles.

[Indian Summer]

I can hear Fred Sanford clear as day "You big dummies!"

That is HILARIOUS... since it wasn't me. Funny how we look back at all the clues and think how could I have been so Fn STUPID???

If you started a thread and said "who hasn't been lost or turned around?" you'd probably hear crickets chirping with little or no replies. But with elk on you back boys.... that's brutal!

[easeup]

great story....especially the parts;
clue number 1; clue number 2 ...bwah haha

I guess it was the just being overwhelmed with the thrill of victory.

and thanks for sharing too.