The first elk was a lone cow feeding in a bare spot on a nearby hillside, oblivious to our presence. Further down the canyon a large herd of elk was spotted feeding our way, but they were a long ways off and it was difficult for me to see them. There were other smaller groups of elk to our south near the mouth of the canyon as well, and I also had difficulty seeing them. As we worked our way along our planned route we bumped that cow & as it turned out she was with a 5x5 bull. This 5x5 was one that I recognized from the muzzleloader hunt this past November because of a distinctive feature… his left antler was broken off. We saw this bull a couple of times over the four days that we hunted and came to know him simply as “The Broken 5.” I watched him make his way across the canyon, skirt within yards of a moose that we had also been watching, then make his way through the brush heading north and out of sight.
While watching The Broken 5, we began picking apart two other nearby south facing hillsides. Within short order a cow & calf moose were spotted near the top, and just below them stood a spike elk. This spike turned into a statue and stood perfectly still and broadside for a really long time. I was able to snap these pictures of him (one through my binoculars & another with a high zoom camera lens).
We also spotted a group of bull elk on the south facing slope of “The Boobs.” These were bigger bulls, as they walked through the brush grazing I could see their antlers bobbing along against the brush. I wished like heck that I had brought my spotting scope by this point. One bull provided me with a decent view and I was able to clearly distinguish 6 points on each antler but couldn’t determine much else in terms of making a judgment on his size.
After this twenty minute or so glassing hiatus, we began to work our way down to the creek bottom. Just a couple hundred yards before the creek bottom the terrain leveled out into a nice little shelf. We crisscrossed this shelf in search of shed antlers but were unable to turn anything up in spite of Doug’s “Spidey senses tingling.” The last hundred yards or so down to the creek bottom were very steep and I debated long & hard about actually going down there because of what it would take to get myself back up out of there on the way out. But, I found a nice spot where the snow was deep and slid on my butt to the bottom… it was actually quite fun. I negotiated the stream crossing and began to pull myself up the hillside in front of me. This was a southwest facing slope and was completely void of any snow, but the fine gravel that littered the slope turned my progress quickly into a “two steps forward, slide one step back” type scenario. After covering a couple hundred yards, this side of the canyon also flattened out and became much more negotiable. Doug and I had gotten separated as we scoured the shelf for sheds and we ultimately met back up about halfway up this hillside. I searched every little clump of cedars, and followed every set of moose tracks for several hundred yards but to no avail… shed hunting was seeming to be more of a search for a needle in a haystack or at minimum a witch hunt.I found Doug holed up in one of these cedar clumps and we stopped for a quick sandwich. As I neared his position I noticed an unusual object strapped to his pack. He’d picked up a beautiful mule deer shed, a very fresh one at that… the blood on the pedicle was still bright red and wet. We hadn’t seen any deer that morning but we knew that the shed was jettisoned by its owner not long before Doug came across it. If my novice estimate of antler measurement is remotely close I would estimate this to be a 160-170” buck… a fantastic specimen on a general unit regardless of score for sure.
I was extremely grateful for the ski poles that I had thrown in my truck almost as a secong thought that morning. All of my previous hiking had been without assistance of trekking type poles and it is safe to say that these poles will an inclusion to the gear list for all future adventures!
We continued to work up the hill after lunch and shortly we had worked our way to a spot where we could clearly see a new area that we desired to explore that we have begun to call “The Claw.” From this vantage point we spotted four moose on the most southeastern part of The Claw. Again, we regretted not having the spotting scopes. The moose were just far enough away that we couldn’t tell through the binoculars if they were bulls that had already dropped their antlers or very large cows… an assumption was made that at least two of the four were bulls due to their comparative body sizes. While admiring these moose, I was able to locate two additional moose in a little spot I call “Short Ridges” and both of those moose were also comparatively large. Doug went so far as to describe them as robust… which was the genesis for the new names of these two moose as we began to call them “The Robbie’s.” I then spotted another group of elk way over on The Boobs that were bedded near the top under some cedars. All were young bulls, 5x5s and smaller. It’s not a great picture at all but the elk were bedded in the cluster of trees to the right of the peak in this picture.
Another couple moose were spotted and we watched them for a good while before deciding it was time to start making our way back towards the ATV. Doug & I again split up and I made my way back to the creek bottom nearly retracing my steps from the climb up.
I again reached the creek and negotiated the crossing, but the snow had warmed just enough that the firm snowbank that I had used to cross part of the stream gave way underneath me and my right foot plunged into the icy water. The first words through my head and actually verbally expressed out loud would have likely made a trucker blush… I’d have to make it all the way back up to the top of the mountain in snow that reached knee deep with a pantleg that was soaked to just below the knee and a boot full of ice cold water. My only choice was to just keep moving. I didn’t want to negotiate the steep slope that I had slid down on my descent earlier that day so I went a couple hundred yards to the south and found a set of moose tracks that seemed to make their way up to the shelf where the terrain flattened out a bit.From there I tried to stay just slightly on the southern aspect of the ridge climbing back up to the ATV because there was much less snow and the sun would at least help to keep my body warm. I checked every little clump of cedars and again followed random tracks for a while but didn’t come across any sheds lying on the ground. I made it to the top and waited for Doug. In my haste (ok… really it was more like desperation) to get to the top I was moving pretty quickly, so I ended up being about 30 minutes ahead of him. He had decided to take a similar route staying on the southern aspect but walk up the ridge just to the north of me. He ended up coming across a moose shed in his path, so he added that to the lashings on his pack.
We made it back to the ATV, then to the truck, and headed down the canyon. Even though we didn’t see a single deer while out hiking we saw several hundred deer coming down the canyon. It was a fun hike & just nice to get out and hike around seeing some new country.
At the end of the day my GPS read just north of 6 miles of hiking, while my FitBit had registered 23,000+ steps! The GPS was more accurate on the distance compared to the FitBit, which had logged 11+ miles… there was a considerable amount of stumbling and shuffling around in the knee deep snow that day! I was extremely grateful for the ski poles that I had thrown in my truck almost as a secong thought that morning. All of my previous hiking had been without assistance of trekking type poles and it is safe to say that these poles will an inclusion to the gear list for all future adventures!
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