Realized I never updated this from the Wyoming elk trip. Left the house on Friday, Oct 16 at around 5am and made it to just west of Lincoln, NE by midnight. Crashed for a few hours in the truck at a rest stop and hit the road again and met the boys around 12:30pm on Saturday where they were finishing up a packout on a small sliver of public that often gets overlooked.
Snow coming over Medicine Bow Pass
Dropped down into the valley to meet up with everyone.
Swung by the ranch to pick up some stuff from the shop.
Headed to camp to scout and try and cut some tracks in the fresh snow.
I drew a tag in Unit 11 which is a limited draw area. It’s southern boundary is around Medicine Bow pass and runs north to I-80. Don’t ask how I drew it on my first application. It was luck. We made camp right in the middle of the unit at Turpin Reservoir. This put us roughly 30 min to one hour drive from everywhere in the unit. It was gnarly high mountain terrain to checkerboard BLM/Private at lower elevation and we hunted just about all of it.
The rest of the week was legitimately a whirlwind. Literally and figuratively. Windy days we would stick to the timber and slowly move through it glassing and pushing. The first full day, we got into some fresh sign. Lots of rubs, droppings and got close enough to smell them. It’s a real thing, they leave a smell like a dirty barn stall. No luck and no contact other than sign. After that it was about 2 days of hiking and not seeing much of anything. We would drop a truck at one spot, drive to our starting point and work back toward the other vehicle then repeat. Strategy being we wanted multiple options to pack out to due to terrain.
Finished up a night hunt in a big meadow and headed to the bar. Oddly enough we sat down in the meadow and I started glassing. Something felt familiar. I’m pretty good at remembering terrain features, well we drove/hiked in on a trail that is marked decently. Well a year and a half ago the snow was so deep we got lost as fuuuuuck on the snowmobiles in this exact same meadow and couldn’t find this exact same trail which resulted in a 5 hr bushwhacking backcountry ride back to the bar. Same meadow, same bar.
Really the rest of the week was similar, find SOME recent sign, get close, never see anything. We covered pretty much the bulk of the unit with whatever the conditions allowed.
The last day and a half we backed up and punted. I had a cow tag in another nearby unit on BLM and state land only. We called in some favors and just couldn’t get into them for one reason or another. Really I could make a pile of excuses but we left it all in the woods and tried everything. Just wasn’t meant to be this year. Learned a hell of a lot, will go back and try again for sure.
Left to come home on Saturday, October 24 at about 4am. Grabbed dinner outside Kansas City with some friends currently stationed at Leavenworth then continued on to Lexington, KY. Same as on the way out I crashed in the truck for a few hours then was home by about 2pm Sunday.
While we ended up having Adam’s camper and more creature comforts than expected, I had packed and planned around not having it in case early snow prevented us getting it to the unit. For those of you thinking about a similar hunt, here is a quick gear breakdown.
Guns:
Primary - Rem 700 in 35 Whelen
Backup - Rem 700 in 7mm Weatherby
Timber - Marlin 1895G 45-70
Pack:
Mystery Ranch Selway 60
Sling Clip ($20 well spent)
Food/Cooking:
Jet Boil
Titanium utensils
ProBar for breakfast
Honey Stingers and Clif Bloks as midday snacks
Mountain House meals for dinner. (chicken and dumplings is the fuckin jam)
Sawyer squeeze filter kit
Boots:
Asolo Fugitive GTX
Clothing:
First Lite Fusion
Really any of the higher end camo will perform similarly. First Lite just fit me the best and being a gear nerd from my skiing days, Merino wool anything is just super versatile.
I had my lightweight Marmot Tent, 0deg bag and thermarest as well.
All in all, public land self guided hunts are no joke. Go prepared, weather changes constantly. Take more than you need. The last night we spent up at camp we could see the smoke from the remains of the Mullen Fire and the northern Colorado fires. I started my drive home through where the Mullen Fire burned right up to WY230 at the Colorado line. Between that, some of the storm damage we hiked through in the unit and passing a few of the Wildland Fire camps on my way in, it put a lot of things in perspective in terms of how gnarly nature can be.
