Rough Night in the Elk Woods?

[WapitiTalk1]

It seems like I've had more than my fair share for some reason.  I remember one time/hunt in the late 70s/perhaps very early 80s (NW Montana/third week in September) where a buddy and I grabbed our bows and headed into a high place with our quality gear in our packs (a cheapo two person pack tent, thin down sleep bags, enough doughnuts, candy bars, chips, and maybe a couple of bottles of soda to get us by for two nights) and headed out on a Friday night after work.  We hiked the trail in till it ends (probably about 3 miles), found our spot, set up our tent, and excitedly walked over to "the edge" of the canyon to do some locate bugling.  I did not have to deploy my super awesome PVC bugle tube to solicit an answer as the canyon/basin below was literally screaming with elk.  OK, by now it's well past dark so we hit the tent for a restless night's sleep with the sounds of the elk echoing off in the distance.  At some point in the middle of the night, the snow came and it came large!  The tent completely collapsed under the weight of the wet snow, started leaking through, and eventually soaked through our flimsy down bags.  No problem!  Up at the crack of dawn we roughly re-set up the tent and off down, down, down the side of the canyon we went to the singing bulls that were luring us.  Wasn't too bad going down as we slid most of the way in the foot plus of snow.  After we chased a few bugles around that morning with no shots we started thinking about getting back up that steep, snowy hillside to camp and perhaps, getting a fire going to dry our soaked clothes and bodies (it snowed all that day).  It literally took us hours to get back up the hillside (using vine maple and huckleberry brush as helping handles to grab and ascend up and not slide back down).  That was an adventure in itself; I was really worried we could not get up that hillside.  Once at camp, there wasn't a dry match in the mix so we eventually just crawled into our wet bags, with our wet clothes, and tried to get warm and sleep.  Neither happened and we both shivered all night and, the tent collapsed yet again.  We discussed getting "outa there" at some point that night but I'm pretty sure our old D powered flashlights were about spent after a few nights of using them and pretty sure we couldn't find the trail in the dark/snow.  At the crack of dawn, we stuffed everything we had into our old packs and "ran" down the snowy trail to the truck.  That was not a fun night in the elk woods. 

Please, share one of those "rough nights" you've had in the elk woods.   

[Karl Blanchard]

2017 I pulled a LE bull tag in idaho.  I knew the area and was certain of an easy bull.  Drove through the night from yakima and arrived at the trail head at 0200.  Crash in the cab of the truck with my buddy Mike.  Get up at 0400 and take off.  Goal was first 6pt I could find so we could move areas and get on the mule deer.  This needed to be a one day hunt so no overnight gear and a days worth of food. 

For 7 miles we worked up the mountain.  No damn elk anywhere.  Towards evening we sit to glass and make a fire.  Just as the fire got rolling I spot a bull.  A 6pt.  I tell Mike "we can have a bullet in that bull inside an hour.  I know right where to go!" So we bomb around the rim of this drainage and ease into position.  Sure enough he is right where he should be.  Out of the blue another bull appears and they start cracking skulls! Like flat out getting after it!  As they break I seize the opportunity.  It's a crazy steep downhill and I put it right between his shoulder blades and he pancakes! Down the hill he goes sliding on the freshly falling snow! I was wrong, it took an hour and 5 min

Anyways, we get down to him right at dark.  Snap a few pics and get to work.  By the time we get him all boned out it is dumping snow!  Like inches an hour type snow!. We assess the situation and decide straight down this drainage to the valley floor and the road.  Some eye balling of the map and it looks to be about 4 miles

We gotta kill some deer so we decide its gotta be a one tripper.  So we load our packs with half a bull each and we start off (I'm a meat hunter first so yes we took everything including rib meat and neck).  When we reached the bottom of the drainage (midnight) we made a fire and ate the last of our food.  No sleep and a long day made for tired folks.  The going was miserable.  We got too low and kept cliffing out.  If we got high we hit deadfalls in a burn.  The snow was falling so hard that the light from your headlamp was reflecting off of it and blinding us.  At about 0200 I made the call.  One of us is gonna get hurt bad if we continue.  I was already bracing up a torn meniscus That season so pushing it was not helping.

We gathered a huge pile of wood, scratched out some beds and settled in for a miserable sleep.  We slept in shifts so we could keep the fire hot.  Youd dry out your puffy, put it on so you could dry your shirts, just to do it all over again.  I did have a space blanket and man I'm glad I did! As morning came, we were doing ok. 

If you remember earlier in the story where I figured we were about 4 miles from the road, well I was wrong.  We'd already walked 4.5 and the next leg was the worst part.  Canyon after canyon we had to traverse.  Chest high buck brush and rock slides in every one of them. 

We finally hit the road at 3:30 that afternoon.  Did some more calculated calculations and realized that on the road we had 6 more winding miles to go to the truck.  I damn near cried.  Just then I heard the most beautiful sound.  A Cummins rattling down the road.  Was a whole family of good cowboy folks out for a Sunday drive.  They offered a ride and a cold Coors original.  Happiest I've ever been in my whole life! All in all we packed that bull 9.35 foot miles and almost 36 hours from when we had left the truck.

[Karl Blanchard]

Funny thing about this is, the year before we ended up on an exploratory death hike and ended up getting picked up buy another guy and his kid.  He gave us beers too God bless idaho!

[ghosthunter]

My worst night in the elk woods was warm nd dry. Modern rifle elk.

It was the 1985 I think. I was a young man in my 30s recently married for the 2nd time. We were at the Nile Feed station camped in travel trailers.
15 of us including my best friend my half brother and new father in law several other friends.

It snowed 2ft. . We drove up hill in three trucks and spread out, planning to meet back at lunch.
Once we all got back except my best friend, we waited looking across the canyon. . We had 4 cow tags in our group. Someone spotted cows across the canyon and four shooters went to work hitting two cows.

One blood trail going up canyon one going down canyon. We broke into three groups , one blood trailing up, one blood trailing down, one group with the trucks. Still missing my best friend.

I went with the up group my brother with the down group. My group caught up to the wounded elk in late afternoon. We processed it and hung it to pack out next am.
My brothers group had gave up except for my brother who unknown to the rest of  us was still dogging a wounded elk down canyon.

No word from my best friend yet.

When we were almost back to the road we got a call over the CB radio. My best friend had been shot and they were packing him out of the canyon to a flat bed truck they had flagged down.
I asked where he was shot and the CB crackled in the foot. Some short lived relief settled in as I figured he must have shot himself.

More reports came in that he was being transported to the Wood Shed store at Eagle Rock to meet a ambulance.

By the time we got back to camp late that night, the story emerged.

My brother had dogged the blood trail and came across my best friend in the canyon. They made a plan where my friend would dog the trail of the elk and my brother would seek higher ground for a better view of the bottom.

Some time later my brother sees the cow in a small pine thicket 100 yards down  and finishes her with one shot form his 30.06.
At that moment a truck passed above on the road and my brother turned to see if was our party.

In that moment my friend walked into the thicket wearing a dark wool shirt and brown wool pants, Sorrel boots with felt liners. And was kicking the elk to see if it was dead.

My brother turns around and sees movement at the elk ,thinking it was still alive , fired another shot.

His 30.06 180 grain exploding bronz point bullet went through the top of my friends sorrel boot.
When they got his boot off his foot was gone except for his toes ,soul, and heal.

I spent that night in a travel trailer listening to a grown man weep over the mistake he had made shooting another hunter. This was a man who was a perfectionist in everything he did, who talked safety at every turn, a man who had taught my best friend and I to hunt from twelve years old.
The last person on earth you would think would make this mistake. He wept the entire night silently trembling in his bunk with remorse for what he had done.

Three days into the hunt we were packed up for home my friend in the Yakima hospital.

In the end my friend lost all of his foot ahead of the ankle, he spent months in the hospital. It would take me 4 years to get him to go hunting again and he showed up in camp orange from head to toe. But his days of climbing the steep and deep with me were over.

My brother was fined, lost his hunting for 5 years , but for him the mistake was so devastating that he never hunted again.  His home owners payed my friend 107,000.00 for the foot.

My brother died last year.
My friend had a series of mental issues, is restricted from gun ownership and lives not far from me. We talk everyday but he hasn't worked in years and gets by on SSA disability payments and residuals from the foot settlement.

Both my friend and my brother gave me their guns some years ago. They sit in my safe as a reminder of gun safety and to be careful out here.

In 1995 I became a Hunter Ed Instructor and taught classes until I gave it up this January 1,2019.

To this day as I lay in my wall tent in the elk woods late at night , I remember back to the  worst night in elk camp and hope I never experience anything like it again.

[boneaddict]

I'm speechless.   Sorry man
Thank you for sharing that

[Fl0und3rz]

Yes, thank you.

[HntnFsh]

Very sad deal. Bout made me want to cry. Devastating!

[Jonathan_S]

Thanks for sharing @ghosthunter

[DOUBLELUNG]

Wow.  Speechless.  Thanks for sharing.

[pianoman9701]

Quit the story, Ghost. Thanks for sharing it. Sorry about your brother.

[bracer40]

I can't even imagine!
Thank you for sharing.

[banishd]

Wow, that was quite more serious than I was expecting from this thread. Reminds us all how serious consequences can be in real life, no matter how careful you are. I'll try and lighten this up a bit with a story from my dad hunting modern elk about 20+ yrs ago in the colockum....

Dad, Grandpa and his good buddy hunted the colockum for decades. One night up there, they were all asleep in the camper when they wake up to a knock on the door around 2:30 in the morning. My dad gets up and opens the door. There's a guy there and he asks if my dad knows where so and so's camp is at. He's clearly not sober. My dad has no idea what camp he is talking about so he asks the guy whats going on. This guy says he was at the bar with his buddies but they left him at the bar. He had met some lady and thought he was going to get lucky and have her drop him back off at camp. Well that didnt happen, so poor guy walked his frozen butt up the mountain trying to find his buddies camp. Dad says it was damn cold that night, so he told the guy he could grab a tarp and sleep under that. In the morning, they woke up and had breakfast. Went outside and the dude was shivering his a** off under the tarp and they could see where he had tried to start a fire during the night. They gave the guy some hot coffee and leftover breakfast before telling him to leave. Gramps and his buddy are gone now, we stay the hell away from the colockum, but dad still tells this story for a good laugh to this day.

[Timberstalker]

I'm speechless.   Sorry man
Thank you for sharing that

This.

[Dan-o]

Thank you for sharing that, Ghost hunter.

My brother found a guy in Utah that was shot dead off his quad in tall sage about 25 years ago.
He just started hunting again this year......   Only ducks.

[Karl Blanchard]

Thank you for sharing ghost.  Really puts others "rough nights" into perspective.