Hirshey's Hunting Season 2016

[haugenna]

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[Kit Carson]

Awesome write up. Thanks for sharing 
Tagging along

[Gringo31]

Always shared with excellence 

[TommyH]

As always, very good write up.

[hirshey]

I'll add some more this evening... Seeing as that was only day 1 of the trip! We set a pretty high mark for day 1's in the future!

[GoPlayOutside]

Great work Hirsh!!

[hirshey]

While the last light faded from the skies, our headlamps formed halos of light on the steep hillside. We were each loaded to our maximum capacities on the compacted slopes as we waddled and grunted our way towards the creek bottom. With the entire haul of meat, head, AND full cape we discovered a mile into the hike that Jeff’s share was simply too much; he fell in the streambed and the antlers augured him in: Derrick’s full body and pack weight pulling him upright simply wasn’t enough, so the decision was made to tie the head in a tree and return for it in the morning. All other traversing was completed without a hitch, and we were greeted back at spike camp by Storm with a roaring fire and crab and “beef” cakes… (the “beef” cakes were actually venison, but they were specially made for Derrick due to his aversion to crab, so I decided to call them beef cakes… for my beefcake. )  Storm was feeling much better, and we all had excitement to share on the day; the bull elk was one highlight, and a buck Storm had photographed was the other.

[hirshey]

While Storm was recovering from his debilitating migraine, he had a visitor practically IN our spike camp; a really cool non-typical buck with 5 or 6 points on each side by most estimations. Storm had debated shooting it, but seeing as it was the first day of hunting, he simply couldn’t talk himself into it… he wanted to make it out of spike camp, after all! We marveled over his photos and steel resolve, shared the elk story, enjoyed some whiskey or red wine around the campfire and looked forward to another day of wandering and adventure in the morning.

[hirshey]

The following morning, Derrick The Builder wanted to make some improvements to spike camp, a meat hanging area to keep the meat cool near the creek, and a few benches to enjoy campfire life a little more thoroughly. Jeff set out to fetch his elk head and then assist, my mother was looking to have a rest day after some fairly rigorous work the past two days, and Storm and I were going to take a peek into another one of our favorite basins to see who was shouldering up to the does. We struck out at first light and soon worked up a sweat, gaining more elevation than distance from spike camp. As the first rays of the morning reached the head of our basin, we were working our way up the western ridgeline and spotting small groups of does feeding across the slopes and through the narrow drainages. We spotted three bucks escaping the sunlight in a sheltered draw just as they were bedding down, but none of them piqued our curiosity enough to make the trek to get closer. We continued to conquer the relentless slope towards the head of the draw, with no bucks of notable size. We spotted some elk bedded on the eastern ridgeline, but all else was quiet.

[hirshey]

We were almost to the head of the basin with the intent of surveying the scene until dusk when we saw movement: my mother was traversing the basin to the east above us and starting down our ridgeline. Storm turned to me with an incredulous smile. “That’s quite a gal...” he chuckled. I smiled and nodded… as if I didn’t know! Her rest day was a 7 mile, 7000 foot net elevation gain/loss kind of day. We all met up and discussed the plan: my mom was going to continue to work back down our ridgeline, Storm was going to stick with the original plan of watching the head of the basin until sunset, and I would hike one ridgeline to the west and watch the adjacent basin. All efforts ended with little success, but we came back to camp with stories of close encounters with elk, fresh wolf tracks, deer and elk sheds, and piles of does not yet attended by any bucks.

[hirshey]

Visitors

[hirshey]

Elk made it back to spike camp!

[hirshey]

Meat waiting for meat hut to be complete

[hirshey]

Meat hut!

[hirshey]

And I am sorry to keep doing this, but it is my 1 year anniversary with the fella, so it is date night. 

Day 3 of 12 complete isn't so terrible.