Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
The other morning, October 9th to be exact, in the gray light of predawn, I found myself parked in a wide spot along the Loop Road above town. I’ve parked there countless times over the five decades I’ve been an elk hunter.
On the uphill side of the Loop Road, an abandoned two-track snakes its way up to the top of an open sagebrush ridge, where it continues along the ridge and then eventually drops down to connect with another two-track currently used by a multitude of ATV and four-wheel drive users. On either end of this now overgrown pathway, the U.S. Forest Service informs potential users that motor vehicle use is forbidden with a flimsy little post saying as much.
After double-checking that my hunting backpack contained everything I needed for the morning, I loaded my rifle and began inching up the road, being as quiet as I could, helped by the recent rain and snow that cut down on the snap, crackle, and pop from a too-dry summer. In other years, I’ve blown opportunities to fill my tag by bumping into elk not far from my truck because I was rushing to be at the top of the ridge by daylight.
In front of me, I followed the fresh tracks of one elk. Fresh, I determined, because each time a hoof came down, the elk kicked up a little dirt in front of the track, and the displaced dirt was still moist. The fresh tracks heightened my need to pay attention and go slow, if not slower.
As I continued up the hill, the sun, still behind the horizon but coming, brightened the sky above me and allowed recognizable forms to take shape in front of me. Not far into my trek, motion above and in front of me drew my attention to a huge, silent flying shape coming toward me, swaying, it seemed, down the road. The big bird landed on a branch of a dead Lodgepole above me, where there was just enough light to recognize it as a great grey owl.
I stopped to examine the owl for a few moments, but the bird seemed more curious in me than I was in him (or her), and I was pretty curious. One doesn’t see these huge owls often, and I consider any such occasion a treat. The owl looked at me, then shifted its gaze somewhere else, then back at me. The pattern continued for a short time, as if the owl was struggling to make a decision, until I decided I needed to continue my hunt, which I did.
But the owl refused to terminate the encounter. Reversing its earlier direction, it began following me up the hill, silently flying from dead branch to dead branch as I slowly made my way upward. Finally, the owl must have become satisfied with his examination because he flew up and out of sight, and I never saw it again.
A few seconds after its departure, I stepped over a deadfall and an unseen blue grouse erupted about ten feet in front of me, causing, I’m sure, my heart rate to spike a little. But I thought, Another lost opportunity for a deadly nighttime avian predator.
This memory will be added to a multitude of others I’ve enjoyed over more than fifty years of using this area, for which I am extremely grateful. The use of our vast public lands is a privilege that citizens of few countries are allowed to enjoy, and we must not allow that privilege to be taken away from us by individuals and organizations of nefarious intentions.
In the fall of 1975, I was seventeen, and the Forest Service had not yet closed this road. One Sunday afternoon in mid October, my then brother-in-law drove my younger brother Tim, who was too young to legally hunt, and I up the road to the huge open park, where we parked to begin our evening hunt. My brother-in-law went one way, and Tim and I went another. A few minutes after exiting our old 1967 Ford Bronco, I killed my first bull elk, only a spike, but only then did I consider myself an elk hunter, and I have ever since.
In October of 1986, I talked my wife into accompanying me to the south side of the Sweetwater River a few miles past South Pass for a mule deer hunt along some rough country near the river. Not seeing any deer that Saturday morning, I suggested hunting elk in the afternoon.
In the late afternoon, I attached chains to the front tires of my truck, but we could still only drive partway up the road, as the snow proved to be too deep. We hoofed it to the top of the ridge, where we sat overlooking a smaller open park, not far from where I had killed the spike eleven years before.
We sat there for a long while, until the shadows lengthened, and until we were both uncomfortable, when Gayla suggested it might be worthwhile to head back to town, as the likelihood of seeing any elk probably was not high. We hadn’t seen many tracks, and those we did encounter were old, so I agreed. We stood up and had taken about ten steps toward the truck when, running toward us, came a line of seven or eight elk.
I knelt down, waiting for antlers. Seeing my motion, the lead cow turned broadside, and the others followed, revealing the last elk in line to be a spike bull, a twin of the previously mentioned bull.
After finishing field dressing the young bull not long before dark, I made the decision to leave the carcass overnight to cool and come back in the morning to cut the elk into four pieces and drag them back to where I could drive my truck.
We left the tagged spike cooling in the snow and walked two hundred yards back to where we had intersected the road, then began following it toward the truck. Presently, we heard another vehicle coming our way, and in a few seconds, a Chevy pickup with all four wheels chained up, loaded with three locals, including Dick Hudson, Bill Heninger, and one other I don’t remember, pulled up to us. Dick rolled down the driver’s side window to visit, and after noticing the fresh blood on my jeans, offered his congratulations.
In true Wyoming fashion, they offered to help drag the elk to Dick’s truck and then drive us down to my truck and slide it from his truck bed into mine, which is what we did.
Four days later, on October 9th, my wife gave birth to our older daughter, Erin. To paraphrase, when her doctor learned of our elk adventure a few days before, as you might imagine, he said, “Yeah, don’t do that again.”
So this year, on October 9th, Erin’s 39th birthday, I spent the morning elk hunting. Using the old road to access my hunting area, the day held a special meaning for me that only parents can understand. I wanted to be successful, of course, but more than anything, I just wanted to enjoy the day and recall the memories of many of the other days spent there, some of which were successful; but much more often than not, I came home to a wife and two daughters with no fresh blood on my pants.
Also, I just wanted to soak in the good fortune of having two wonderful children who are two of the nicest and thoughtful human beings I know, and a wife who is my closest friend, one who understands and supports this elk hunter.
That evening, as my wife and I were visiting with her, one cell phone to another, from her home in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, Erin expressed her appreciation over the small, but meaningful gifts Gayla sent in the mail a few days previous: among them the homemade cookies, the main ingredient being love from her mother’s mixing bowl, and a few sprigs of sagebrush placed in a ziplock bag to remind her of Wyoming.
Over the distance, her happiness came through, and my heart sang.