Em's Elk Journals 2014: Opening Day

Elk Season 2014. A lot happened up on the mountain during the month of September. This year, our hunting camp consisted of just myself and Troy. We had a wonderful time together, learning how to hunt as a husband and wife team while chasing elk around the Colorado mountains. There were many memories made, that consisted of beautiful moments I wish could linger on, and other times where I wish I could go back and rewrite the story. Those tough hunts always seem to result in lessons learned ... even if they are hard to stomach at times.

I kept a diary almost every day while up on the mountain, and I'm once again opening up my elk hunting journals so that you can re-live these moments with me ... the good, bad and ugly. I'll clean up some of my entries a bit, simply because I was almost asleep by the time I sat down to write down the events of the day, and you wouldn't want to read through that mess. However, for the most part, I'll share with you each day's activities, the ups and downs of elk hunting, all the emotions I was feeling, and also lessons learned. I even have some fun videos to share!

So let's get it started! Here is my first entry ...
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DAY ONE - OPENING DAY
August 30, 2014

We woke up early this morning. I suppose the excitement of opening day played a part in the 4:00 A.M. alarm. The plan was to reach "big bull meadow" before the first break of dawn. This meadow has brought us luck first thing in the morning on previous hunts, so we thought maybe lady luck would visit us again. After sitting watching the morning sun rays slowly creep down the tips of pine trees, working its light down towards the open meadow, I heard something above us. Then, a doe with a buck hot on her heels ran across the meadow before us. We hoped that elk would follow, but after another hour or so with no other action, we decided to push further into the timber. With not a lot of elk sign, our spirits were a bit down and we chatted about whether or not to head back to camp or sit tight for the afternoon, then push further up the mountain. We decided to take a nap, which was followed up with a Mountain House lunch. (If you've never eaten a hot Mountain House meal, while sitting under a lodge pole pine tree in the mountains, you are missing out!)

Around 2:00 we pushed further into the mountain and found a meadow with fresh tracks and elk droppings. It looked promising, so we set up our decoy and nestled along a pine tree on the edge of a small meadow. However, around 4:30 the clouds rolled in, the breeze picked up and we decided (actually more than once) to head back to the truck. You see, if he road gets wet on the side of the mountain that we were on, you might as well plan on spending the night. The road turns to a slick mess and sliding off the edge is not optimal, considering it is quite the drop off! Since it was only the first day and a whole month of hunting was ahead of us, we were okay with throwing in the towel early that day in order to get back to camp. One thing about mountain storms you can always count on ... they are unpredictable. It could blow over in a few minutes, linger and decide to come back and hit you again, or just build and build until it unleashes its fury upon you. I guess fickle is a good word to describe them.

We were able to get ahead of this storm and arrive back safely in camp. Since it was still early, we cooked steaks and sat around a fire just enjoying being back up in the mountains once again. Ahhhh... sweet September!

Happiness is the feeling that washed over me as I let my sleeping bag envelope me and encourage me to drift off to sweet dreams of arrowing a big ol bull elk. Hopefully tomorrow we will figure out where the elk are hiding, but for now it is enough to know that I'm simply on the mountain elk hunting again.