The Pursuit

This will be the final post regarding the back country Idaho elk hunt.  Post I can be found here and Post II can be found here.  If you care not to read those before diving in here, welcome to the craziest day of my entire life.

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I couldn’t sleep.  From 1-3 am I lay in my bag going over what I had packed and all different plans of attack for the morning based on various wind directions and locations of the herd.  Senior’s bugles would occasionally punctuate the night’s stillness and send my heartbeat sky high.  It didn’t sound like he was moving.  I existed floating between that state of wakefulness and snippets of unconsciousness that make it difficult to distinguish how much I truly slept.  At 5 am the alarm on my watch finally permitted me to leave the sleeping bag.  I jumped into action as I had rehearsed this numerous times in my mind during the evening as I lay awake.  I dressed, did final prep on my bag and was out of the tent headed down to the food bag in record time.  

In my rush, I got sloppy with my food handling.  Some oatmeal was spilled on the ground.  Stupid way to start the morning.  In these situations, you want to minimize any scent associated with food near the tent and I had my cooking and eating space only twenty feet from my tent.  ‘You can’t be sloppy today’ I thought to myself.  Everything had to be crisp if I was going to have a chance at Senior.  As the water began to heat up to a boil I took a moment to focus on a few deep breaths and calm my mind.  This was exciting beyond anything I had ever encountered.  Senior had bugled and he was still on the ridgeline.  I was going to be pursuing him this morning.

I wolfed down the two oatmeal packets and two cups of coffee, properly burning my mouth in the process.  A painful reminder to once again slow down.  I ate quickly more out of excitement than actual hunger.  One surprise on this trip is that I felt an extreme lack of hunger, despite the intense hikes and noticeable drop in weight over these past few days.  I almost always ate because I knew I needed to replenish energy, not because I was hungry.  Over the course of the next 24 hours I was prepared to skip tonight’s meal and tomorrow morning’s to pursue this bull, so I knew breakfast was important to me today.  Since last night I also have been severely limiting myself in how much water I have drank.  I don’t know when my next encounter with a quality water source will come, so until then I’m on severe rations besides water needed for cooking.  Before my partner left he traded me his 3-liter camelback for one of my 1-liter nalgenes, which doubled my water carrying capacity from 2 liters to 4 liters.  This was a suggestion from him that wound up making a massive positive impact on my remaining days in the field.  

After re-hanging the food in the tree, I departed camp for Amphitheater Meadow (AM) at 6 am.  After losing the trail yesterday, I kept to a three step rule this morning as it was still dark.  Move three steps, stop, verify the trail up ahead, take three more steps and repeat.  I made it to AM without incident and as I crossed the meadow to the vantage point I could hear Senior bugling on the same hillside as I saw him yesterday.  I took a moment to scout the three meadows on the facing hill where Senior was bugling from, but there were no elk to see.  From the sounds of his bugles, Senior and his harem were up in the thick tree lines on the ridgetop.  

My bugles received replies from Senior, so I set my course around the two peaks that separated us and began off through the thicket.  Excitement was dulled by the constant pulling, tripping and tangling of the thick brush.  I was aiming for the meadow furthest from the creek valley, and kept the correct direction by aiming for a group of three trees that were adjacent to where I wanted to enter the meadow.  My plan was to enter as far back from the creek valley as possible, walk the meadow up to the ridgeline and then call or slowly make my way along the ridgeline to try to sneak up on Senior.

After lots of fighting I finally made it to the meadow edge.  I was about ten feet away from breaking out into the meadow and I stopped to collect my breath and listen.  I hadn’t heard Senior bugle in a while, but I easily convinced myself that I was probably muffled from his calls as I was fighting through the thicket on my way over to his hillside.  I prepared myself and pushed through the last of the thicket into the open meadow.

Black.  Like a magnet my eyes were instantly drawn to a night sky black outline at the top of the meadow.  There were eyes in there somewhere and mine locked with theirs.  You could tell it had been waiting for me.  It was staring with ears erect waiting to see what horribly loud and clumsy creature was about to emerge from the thicket into its meadow.  From a purely tactical standpoint, this creature had me beat.  He had the high ground, about 80 yards from where I stood towards the bottom portion of the meadow, he towered above me from his position up top.  

The size of his face made me at first think it was a bear.  Then I realized I was staring at the creature that I had heard and read so much about in this area.  The creature that scared enough hunters away that I was only the 20th person to buy a tag in this massive area out of a total of 420 available.  A wolf.  Novice and expert hunter stared at each other for just long enough for him to decide that he didn’t want to exist in the same meadow as me.  He turned and left.  He was absolutely jet black.  His head was so large and wide that it made his snout appear short in comparison.  He slipped without a sound into the very timbers I had aimed to enter to pursue Senior.  

That was it.  There was no way Senior and his harem were going to stick around the same mountainside as a wolf.  I turned and walked to the bottom of the meadow.  I could hear trickling water and quickly located a strongly flowing seep.  I dropped down and started unpacking my water supplies to rehydrate and refill.  ‘Wolves are pack animals’ ran through my head and suddenly made me realize it was probably not smart to have my back turned to where I had spotted the wolf.  I hopped over the seep and turned to face the meadow so I could keep an eye out, just in case.

I downed nearly 2.5 liters of water sitting there by the seep.  I was wet with sweat from my walk over and severely dehydrated.  I took about 15 minutes drinking, refilling, treating, drinking, and finally topping off all my water supplies.  I was significantly stuffed with water in my stomach and with a full 4 liters of fresh mountain streams in my possession.

The encounter with the wolf was amazing.  I never felt any fear or surge in adrenaline during or after the encounter, all I could really sense was a feeling of awe.  It was such a wild and powerful creature.  The way it had slipped so quietly away was eerie.  I kept wondering how many humans that wolf had ever encountered; was I its first?  In my mind, this experience made the trip at least a partial success, but it also made me realize my hunt for Senior was surely over.  Distant bugles beyond the ridgeline confirmed this.  It was something I had to accept.  Plus, I was too young and inexperienced to have the right to go after a lead bull of such magnitude as Senior.  It was an immense joy just to be able to watch him the night before and I was satisfied with our encounter together over the last 12 hours.  I decided to climb up to one of the peaks in between Senior’s meadows and AM to glass and try to cool off.  My hunt moving forward would be in pursuit of Junior, the satellite bull in the area.

I arrived at the top peak and found a nice sized boulder that allowed me to get above the undergrowth and see nearly all of AM and the surrounding area.  I stripped down my top layers and laid them out to dry.  It was still early, maybe 9:30 am.  I took the chance to have more water, eat a bar and took my journal out to capture the morning’s interaction with the wolf as my gear dried.  I was midsentence when I had to stop because I heard a bugle down near AM.  This was surely not real.  Junior was there in AM walking through and eating as he went.  Seeing as my clothes were spread out and the walk down would take well over ten minutes of crashing through thicket I decided to take the time to just watch and learn more, specifically what sorts of browse and vegetation the bull would munch on as he meandered through the meadow.

As I sat there and watch I couldn’t help but laugh.  Junior moved himself through the meadow past the exact two spots I had been sitting in yesterday within 20 yards.  He stood right under the same tree my partner and I had sheltered in away from the rain the morning before.  This hunt could frustrate you if you let it, but moments like these you just have to enjoy and laugh at the stupid amount of luck that’s involved.  Junior finally disappeared through some thicket that would be considered “stage right”.  Once he was gone, I got everything together and made my way down to AM.  I was not going to just bull rush in and chase him where I saw him disappear, but I was going to set myself up in AM to see if Junior would make another round through the meadow that evening.  One thing that I was learning about this satellite bull is that his best chance for finding a mate is to cover ground and hopefully catch a lone cow or escapees from another harem.

Once back in AM, I took the opportunity to scout the area once again, and I picked an ambush location that had multiple intersecting trails.  The spot would also give me the capability of disappearing behind a hillside to put a sneak on an animal that may be just out of range.  After lunch, the sun really beat down so I once again took off my clothing to air out.  I found a rock overlooking the creek valley and just sat there in thought.  It was crazy that it was already Tuesday and I felt that I hadn’t had anytime to just sit and think up to this point.

I realized how deeply focused I have been while in the woods.  There can’t be any distraction beyond the task that is at hand.  It felt reinvigorating.  Taking the time to disconnect added to this boost in energy and morale that I was feeling.  I also realized that two nagging issues leading up to this trip had fully disappeared in the last few days.  For the entire summer, I had been having issues with clogged sinuses, and as I sat on the rock and took in mountain fresh air through my nose I realized how my sinuses were entirely clear.  The other issue was with my lower back.  I have been having problems with a stiff back that would pop and crack all day long.  I noticed how loose and strong everything felt now.

Then I started laughing at how I had been talking to myself since my partner left.  I assumed that while I was alone that personal conversations would eventually happen, but I didn’t realize how quickly they would appear.  These weren’t conversations that would make me seem crazy by any stretch.  Instead, when I talked aloud to myself it was more so with the tone of reasoning.  I would think through a plan in my head for what I needed to do next and then I would speak those plans aloud.  It seemed to offer me a chance to hear the spoken words of the plan to make sure it wasn’t crazy or that I wasn’t missing anything.  Once the plans were spoken and agreed upon (alright so that part sounds crazy-ish) I would then set about executing the plans.

Sitting there through the afternoon made me want to stay out here longer.  I made plans on someday devoting the entire month of September to going after a large lead bull, such as Senior, with my bow.  Someday.

Around 3 pm I mentally got myself back into hunting mode.  I watched a lone cow walk through AM shortly after 4 pm and thought, Junior doesn’t know what he’s missing out on.  She browsed a bit, but quietly disappeared without realizing my presence.  At 5 pm I blew on my bugle call to try to get a response from Junior.  Nothing.  I sat quietly.  At 5:15 pm I heard something I had reasoned that I wouldn’t hear again.  Senior bugled from his hillside.

I raced myself to the vantage point where I could see his whole hillside with its three distinct meadows.  As soon as I got my binos on the hill I saw five cows come pouring out of the ridgeline timbers down the meadow all the way to the seep I had taken my water from this morning.  Senior screamed from the timbers after them and I wondered, were they escapees or just having fun with him?  It didn’t matter, I had him located and I had prepared for this.  

I hesitated momentarily at the vantage point.  Was I really about to do this?  I would be traversing the same hillside as this morning.  I needed to do it fast.  I thought of the thicket and the effort to get to him.  The sun was setting. ‘Go’ I told myself.

I took off across the mountain face.  I got on a game trail and traveled it faster than I have previously.  It came to an end, move down the hillside and catch another one I told myself.  It felt like I was surfing along the alders.  I would step on their branches that were bowing down to the ravine bottom and gracefully slide down them as they completed their bow to the mountainside.  I’d then step on the next one until I hit a trail.  Take that trail along the mountainside.  Repeat.  Aim for the spot the cows hit at the bottom of the meadow.  Step, surf, step, surf, catch a trail, traverse.  Finally, open space at the bottom of the meadow.  On my right, I bumped the five rogue cows who had come down from the ridgeline.  They went crashing away.  I didn’t bother with them; their king was still screaming on the ridgeline.  I finally had managed to move in these mountains with speed.  I stared up the middle meadow at what had appeared from the facing vantage point an obvious climb, but the sheer angle of the slope didn’t register until I was standing at the bottom.  My mind didn’t even give me a chance to hesitate, ‘go’, and up the meadow I began.

The meadow was loose sand.  Every step there was wasted energy going into sinking in the soft earth.  My legs screamed.  I had to start my own switchback up the meadow, I couldn’t take the slope head on.  Senior kept screaming.  He was moving along the ridgeline.  I had to disconnect my mind from my gut, or I was certain I would puke.  If I didn’t have my bow with me I would have leaned only slightly forward to allow my hands to assist me with the climb up the meadow.

Part way up the meadow I had to stop.  Heaving for breath I convinced myself that I had to stop and bugle, as I could tell Senior continued to move on the ridgeline.  In reality, my body had convinced my mind it needed to stop and this was just an excuse.  I was heaving harder than I ever have in my life so my bugle came out as paltry and unrealistic.  None the less, Senior screamed back.  He was in the next meadow.  ‘Move your ass’ my mind screamed, and we were off again.

The remaining climb up the meadow my mind overrode every request that my legs were sending to stop.  I thought about all those workouts that I have done throughout my entire life where I couldn’t really explain why I was working out.  This was it.  Any shred of physical or mental improvement throughout my life seemed to be required to pull me up the remainder of that meadow.  There’s no stopping.  I was too close.  He bugled again.  I suddenly realized in the next minutes that I would be required to take a shot.

I finally stopped near the top of the middle meadow.  He was one meadow away and I could tell from his bugles that the only thing separating us was a strip of thicket.  I quickly assessed my options for getting through the thicket.  There was a well-worn path that led to the meadow Senior was standing in and I saw it as my only option.  Heart racing, I nocked an arrow on my string, and prepared myself for a shot.  Novice predator started making final advancements to the salty old king of the mountain.

The path was clear nearly all the way to the next meadow.  He screamed.  There was no question about it, we were at the same level as each other on the mountainside.  He was pissed, but he wasn’t coming forward any further.  If anyone was about to challenge him for his harem they would have to be the ones to make the move.  He was smart and well-practiced.  

My trail to the next meadow ended abruptly with a spruce tree growing right in the middle of the path.  I would have to make noise getting out to the meadow.  He screamed again.  He was right on the other side of the tree from me.  I took a moment to think, what should I do?  Inexperience kicked in once again and I decided to break through the branches into the presumed open meadow and prepare myself to shoot immediately.  My bet was that Senior would spook initially, but he may turn to check out what had scared him which could offer me a shot.  I ducked my head and broke through the branches.

I came through and saw massive horns arcing wide from beyond another tree not fifteen yards away from where I now stood.  That smart bastard had known exactly where I had to come through and he had place two trees between us.  He was so close but all I could see was the right side of his body.  The mass of antlers swung around and retreated.  He ran backwards traversing the mountainside and then turned right around some more thicket to remain hidden from me.  I sent a bugle out towards him and he immediately responded.  He was confused and spooked but he was not running completely away.  

I cursed myself for the stupid decision to break through the trees but immediately dropped it and began sneaking towards the corner to the thicket that Senior had rounded.  I heard him run up further towards the ridgeline so I hustled and hit the corner.  Peering around I saw nothing and put out another bugle.  He responded.  I turned the corner in a squat-walk and kept moving forward.  There was commotion ahead.  I dropped down and watched the heads of his harem pop up to look at what was coming up the mountain for him.  It was amazing, in the time that Senior knew a challenger was coming up the mountain for him, he had herded his harem behind him to protect them from any attempts to be stolen away from him.  He had then perfectly positioned himself to face his challenger.  

I dropped by backpack and rushed forward again as the harem started breaking one by one for the thicket at the ridgeline.  All the cows were in a trot up the hill by the time Senior broke out from behind the thicket, the last one in the group to retreat.  He carried an absolutely massive set of antlers that seemed to slow him down as he ran.  He ran all the way to the thicket and stopped and stared straight at me, giving me a perfect broadside look at him.  I stopped my feet from chugging me forward and drew back on the bow, like I have thousands of times leading up to this moment.

Everything went still.  The heaving of my chest disappeared.  My heartbeat pounding in my ears stopped.  The mountain quieted as I set a pin on his massive vitals.  The sound that broke the silence didn’t seem to fit.  *Doink*.  I had fired my bow over a thousand times that summer but hearing it fire in the silence of the moment seemed comical.  Before the arrow had finished its flight, I knew it was a miss.  I watched as the arrow went low and left, just in front of his massive front quarters.  Senior was off into the timbers of the ridgeline.  I heard him crashing away as I suddenly found myself on my knees, staring at where he had been standing a moment ago.  He let out another bugle, confirming himself as king of these mountains.

I was in shock.  Hunting with a bow is a game of microscopic adjustments and as I knelt there, I could physically feel how the bow had laid just slightly off its proper resting position in my left hand and how my back muscles had failed to contract in the manner in which they do when I place a perfect shot.  Sitting here writing this today I can still feel those minute differences that caused me to miss.  I had the one small bit of satisfaction that I had missed him completely.  I did not put a bad shot on him that hit a non-vital area that would cause him either a prolonged death or just a painful few weeks until he healed up.

But I had missed.  I can’t say how long I stayed with my knees sunk in the sand in the meadow.  I thought about the addicting cruelty of this pursuit.  I had virtually scouted this area from over 1,300 miles away.  I had done everything right for those 1,300 miles up until the last 20 yards when I had decided to burst into the meadow and spooked Senior.  Viewing it now, I had succeeded for 99.9991% of the distance between me and Senior, but screwing up that last .000874% meant I had failed.  This cruel, beautiful game.

I finally started back towards where I had left my bag.  I was walking like a drunk in the sand.  I stopped to put my bag back down and my eyes shot over to the opposite side of the meadow to find something I never expected to see.  Junior was standing there in the wide open just watching me.  He was 100 yards away.  I reluctantly put another arrow on my bow and started walking straight towards him, not even trying to conceal myself.  If he was truly going to sacrifice himself in this manner, I didn’t need to hide.  Plus, at this point, my brain had entirely shut itself off.  He spooked once I got about 70 yards away, taking himself over the ridgeline to the other side of the mountain face.  His actions are incredible to think about.  He surely heard Senior and I bugling back and forth so he came in to investigate the commotion.  But he entered the meadow from the opposite end, putting himself right near Senior’s unprotected harem.  The life of the satellite bull seems one of taking advantage of any opportunity that may present itself.

I was happy to see Junior disappear.  At that point, I didn’t want him.  I went back to my bag and looked for the sun.  It was disappearing behind the mountains.  I wanted to get back to my tent.  My hunt for Senior was officially finished.  

I walked down the meadow and took the time to stop at the seep for a drink and refill.  I knew water would be important to me tonight and tomorrow morning.  I had already exhausted myself but I had the fight against the thicket to get back to AM.  If I could make it to AM by the time the light disappeared, I was comfortable making my way all the way back to Hope in the dark, but I didn’t want to be battling the thicket on my way to AM in the dark, so I had to hurry.

What followed was the most intense and wonderful experience in my life.  The reason I say it was wonderful was in looking back at what occurred.  As I fought the thicket, I was knocked down many times.  One of those times, my body gave up, decided it was best to lay where I was.  But then I was back on my feet through the will of my mind.  As I fought my way back to AM I realized, in looking back, that my mind had totally de-coupled itself from my body and was doing everything it had to in order to get itself back to AM.  It was surreal to feel the disconnection and the power of my mind getting me through the thicket.  

Near the vantage point of AM I found a large moose antler shed.  I grabbed it to bring back home with me.  In an odd way, I view this as a gift from these mountains.  To me, it was saying ‘you’re not ready to take an animal such as Senior, but you will be someday’.  The moose antler will forever hold a deep lesson for myself.  It re-energized me and got me safely to AM as the last of the light disappeared.  As I turned around and looked at the surrounding area from the vantage point, I suddenly found myself letting out a primal scream to hear the echoes of it bounce through the mountain valley.

I took the walk back to the tent slowly so that I wouldn’t lose the trail.  As I neared my tent I spooked a few cows in Hope Meadow.  It made me happy that they were there.  They didn’t spook far and I believe that we spent the night in close proximity.

Upon getting back to camp, I stripped my top layers again.  I had sweat through four layers of clothing and now faced the real danger of losing precious body heat by keeping the wet clothing on.  The night would be extremely cold, as there were no clouds.  I wore my wet third layer trying to play the delicate balancing game of cooling my core down without sinking too deep into the cold.  I was grateful for the wool.  Even when wet, it allowed my body to retain its heat once the sweating stopped.

I shut my headlamp off while I ate dinner and just sat eating, dumbfounded by everything that had happened.  All-in-all the entire chase had only taken about two and a half hours, but it felt like a lifetime.  I was on auto pilot as I packed everything up for the night.  Tomorrow, I would hunt the morning but then be done.  Starting Wednesday afternoon, I would be focused on cleaning up camp, having a fire Wednesday evening and then heading home Thursday morning.

I took the morning slow.  Four packets of oatmeal were eaten to warm my body up, as the morning was well below freezing and I was still wearing wet clothing.  I began the walk to AM to hunt for Junior.  I was admitting defeat to Senior.  I sat all morning in AM and just thought.  My mind thawed out with sun as the morning wore on and I could sit and soak in the area and the lessons this land had taught me.  I will be forever grateful for this time.

Around 11 am I heard something from the peak where I had sat the day before.  It certainly wasn’t elk, and my journal indicates I thought it was a bear at first.  I sat and watched the area where I knew the sound was coming from.  Finally, I realized it was a moose.  I responded with my own moose call in the direction of the noise, thinking I’d have some fun if it came within sight to watch.  Suddenly I saw movement, but it certainly wasn’t a moose.  What I realized is that I had just called a pair of moose hunters closer to me.

I chuckled at this thought that I had tricked this pair into thinking I was really a moose.  Watching them with my binos I realized they had a rifle, and I certainly was within their reach.  It never made me nervous, but I stood up, waving my hands and whistling.  They never saw me.  I watched them settle in and sit for about ten minutes.  The direction that they had come from was Senior’s hills.  Knowing that Junior had gone that way, and that I had committed to not hunting Wednesday afternoon that it was time for me to turn this region back over to the wild and these two hunters and head for my vehicle.

I walked back to camp, had lunch and tore down.  It was very mixed emotions preparing myself to leave.  I fell in love with this area and this adventure, but I couldn’t wait to talk to those close to me upon leaving the forest.  Taking on these mountains alone these past few days had been an experience unlike any other.  The walk out was difficult, but does not deserve many words beyond that.  I dropped my stuff at my vehicle, stripped down and laid in the icy cold waters of the creek, washing my dirty skin.  I was shivering and laughing out loud.  Of all the hardship and adventure that I had the past days, emerging from the woods was anti-climactic and makes you realize how the world pushes on despite the tremendous ups-and-downs that you experience on a personal level.  It’s a humbling notion.

I found myself saying ‘thank you’ out loud before I departed for civilization.  This area and these past days taught me some of the most important lessons that I have ever learned in life.  These lessons are deeply personal and powerful.  That’s the beauty of these lands.  Going out on them, pursuing whatever passion you desire, is bound to teach you lessons you never knew you needed or wanted to learn.  These lands have intrinsic values some seem to doubt.  I invite everyone to take advantage of the protections and systems we have set up to keep these lands wild.  Step out on a path not yet taken and you’ll be guaranteed to discover something profound.  

My addiction to these lands and this pursuit has only grown.  Although I faltered in the closing yards going after Senior on this trip, upon leaving I had a profound sense that this was only the beginning. While I began putting together this adventure with the goal of harvesting an elk, I realize now that this pursuit is not a single trip or animal bagged, but will be a conglomeration of a coming lifetime of activities on public land.

I feel a sense of commitment to protect these lands and opportunities in my life moving forward.  I hope that those of you who have read these accounts feel inspired to at least learned a little more and maybe find yourself one day embarking on your own journey through the lands that we are blessed to own as a citizen of this country.

Kyle Zibrowski