Back in 1996 my dad and I started what has become an annual tradition of Pronghorn hunting in Wyoming. This is season 18 and we have made all but perhaps 2 or three of them (missed 2007 and 2012 due to our Africa trips and I think one other one due to work conflicts I had…)
Anyway, we went the first weekend in October this year and had another great hunt.
October is "anything can happen weather month" in Wyoming. We have hunted in 80 degree sun, 50 mph winds, rain, snow and even a -15 degree deep freeze. This year was no exception to odd weather as we got caught in a blizzard.
My buddy and I left for Wyoming Thursday 10/3 around 2pm from Seattle bound for Gillette WY. The trip is 1080 miles and I always drive it straight through. We picked up snow in Butte MT, and got the joy of driving on snow ice and slush all the way to our final destination.
Around 3AM about 2 miles north of the WY/MT boarder, we were stopped on I-90 by tribal police. 4 jackknifed semis on the hill about 2 miles ahead of us. They advised us to go ahead and "try to pick our way through the mess" We jumped on that and upon reaching the scene, we were totally blocked by 8 semi's, several dual trailers, a huge tow truck and a snow plow. We sat there for about an hour before they cleared enough that we could pick our way through the mess and get on our way. We were the only ones able to get through it.
We drove for about 60 more miles and made it through Sheridan. About 18 miles from Buffalo (84 miles from Gillette), the road was once again blocked. We sat for 1:30 min before it began to move and we were on our way again. Made it to Buffalo and they closed I-90 from Buffalo to Gillette as well as the only other back road in to Gillette due to about a foot of snow, 30+ mph winds snow drifts and white out conditions. I am clearly getting old. 28 hours with no sleep combined with about 1,000 miles of continuous driving ~600 miles of which was on compact snow and slush, 5 mountain passes and 18ish hours of driving really wore me out. We ended up having to stay the night in Buffalo due to the fact that I-90 was closed for all of Wyoming, part of Montana and a good deal of South Dakota. I-25 was also closed for most of the state. We then got hit with a power outage. The whole town lost power – every business, house, gas station, etc.
The next day they still had not opened I-90 but we were determined to hunt. We picked our way through farm roads and back country and got the last 80 miles done in about 3 hours of driving. I heard that some areas got over 3 feet of snow in that 24 hour period.
We started our hunt on the ranch around noon and evidently the pronghorns bugged out of the ranch due to the weather change. We normally see 300 plus animals but this year we only saw about 50. The good news is we all got our animals before sundown!
Had a rough start, but once more we got some nice animals and had a good time with friends and family.
