Must Be Nice

An unexpected encounter in the elk woods.

Elk camp last year was rife with near-disasters, narrowly-averted crises, and ill-made plans. I almost shot a horse (it looked like an elk through the opening-day blizzard), encouraged one friend to pull the trigger on a spike (fortunately he didn’t), and yelled at another to take a follow-up shot at what I thought was the cow he had already plugged once (thank God he knew better). These are mistakes I’ll only make once, and that I’ll learn tangible, cut-and-dried lessons from: lay binoculars on the target before a rifle scope, and be 100 percent sure of said target. Then there are things I think I learn year after year, but fail to commit to memory. Namely, elk are heavy. Very heavy. And popping three in the backcountry is not a good idea.

That didn’t sink in last year until there were 12 quarters and hundreds of pounds of trim meat hanging in a tree miles from the nearest trailhead. It wasn’t the physicality of the pack-out ahead that concerned me, but rather the mental component of the endeavor. To hike eight miles with fully-loaded packs was no big deal; my hunting buddies and I are strong young bucks. But then to turn around and do it again? And then again. And then yet again. That was the challenge. We settled on a leapfrog tactic—rather than considering the whole task ahead, we broke it down into manageable chunks. The first order of businesses was getting everything to the nearest major pack trail, which we accomplished in a day. That evening, we were sitting under our new meat hang, enjoying a much-needed snack, when Dick Fox rode up. He straddled a nice mare (the one I’d almost shot), his teenage son another, and a string of pack mules followed, bearing the body parts of several dismembered elk.

We chatted for a few minutes, and Dick was shocked to discover that we had no ponies, and no plans to acquire any for our pack-out. The light was fading quick, and his mules were anxious to keep moving. “Huh, must be nice,” he scoffed in a slow, raspy drawl, then kicked his horse into a trot down the trail. Huh? What must be nice? You’re the guy with horses!

It’s taken a few months, but I’ve finally got some idea of what he meant. To have an able body and be strong enough to tromp wherever I please in the woods. To hike to the top of a mountain in the dark, and glass for elk at first light. To nail a wild animal, deep in the backcountry, on its own terms, and have the drive and grit to pack out every ounce on my back. Yeah, I have to admit, it is pretty nice, and I’ll probably make the same mistake this year.