I have found the elk on public land!

[Chris in TN]

I have dissected the unit(s) my daughter got her elk tag in. I've drawn a 1-mile buffer around every road and hiking trail, a 2-mile buffer around every trailhead or dead end road, I've shaded out all of the south facing slopes and every steep cliff face and every north facing slope that is steeper than 30 degrees. I've buffered around all of the outfitter campsites and ranger stations. I've eliminated everything below 7500' elevation because it's either private or too hot for fall elk.

The good news is, after doing all of that, all of the elk in the unit either live on private land or in a handful of six-acre blocks that are left. The Colorado hunting atlas says one of those blocks sits directly between the summer and winter ranges, so that spot should be money.

The bad news is, that spot is a seventeen mile hike from the trailhead.

Alright, just joking about all of that. Or venting. Or realizing that a lot of e-scouting conventional wisdom only goes so far and hunting can't be reduced down to a complex exercise in linear programming.


Moving on to actual serious questions:

Setting aside the problems of having to climb over dead trees that are everywhere, is there a maximum slope figure you guys use when planning approaches? I am not a mountain climber. My daughter and I did a hike in the smokies the other day - which are not nearly as steep as the rockies in general - and we climbed a hill of about 450' elevation gain that looks to average about 16% overall. I know I've hiked up roads that were pushing 40% before. But those were more or less open bare dirt. I know physical fitness plays a role in this and we are on our way in that arena, I'm just wondering what my practical safe limits are here....I'm thinking longer 40% slopes are probably the max, especially if they have any little ledges at all in them. In years past I've been in places in the smoky mountains where I was following a ridgeline cross-country and came to a near vertical cliff and had to make long detours to get off that cliff. I am trying to avoid that here.

Second question: I have AT&T cell phone service. Looking at their map, they claim service across most of the mid and high elevations in the area we're looking at hunting. Is this ridiculously optimistic? Am I correct that I should expect at very best to only have service on ridgelines? I don't *need* service but if we end up needing to call a game packer or wanting to text a picture to the folks back home, it would be nice to not have to hike back to the truck and drive halfway back to town. Yes, we plan to have an inreach (maybe two) but I'm just trying to figure out if our phones will be useable at all. I vaguely remember having maybe one bar of service the last time I was in the area on a USFS road and that area shows coverage on the current AT&T map, but I don't know what if anything has changed since I was there last. I searched and found a thread on this forum discussing cell service but it's a couple years old now and I know the answers change every year.

Also - apart from hunting pressure, do timberline elk normally perhaps feed on one side of a mountain, in one drainage, then cross back over to another drainage to bed/water? And if those elk are pressured while near the treeline would it be normal to expect them to be just as likely to go over the top and drop into the next drainage, instead of going downhill into the same drainage, away from something that spooked them? I'm looking at a couple of ridgetop saddles and wondering if they'd be productive once shooting starts.

There's just a heckuva lot I simply do not know.

 

[spike camp]

What do you do for a living?

 

[grfox92]

I've done a bit of elk hunting over the last 5 years and I've neve done anything even remotely close to this.

Get up above 8k feet and start pounding ground. That's worked pretty well for me. We've had several bulls on archery range every year.

I think you will be set up for disappointment when you get to these spots and they look nothing like what you think they did based on the map.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Tapatalk

 

[P Carter]

As frustrating as this is, I think the answers are: it depends; it depends; and it depends. A bit more detail:

-Approach angle: it's not clear to me whether you're referring to percent grade or slope angle. I don't think roads approach a slope angle of 40%; they can have a grade of 40%, but that's very uncommon, and that's a slope angle of like 22%, which in elk country (again, to me), is just flat-out not very steep at all. To me, "steep, verging on too steep" is something like 40-50% slope angle, which is like 100 - 110% grade. But it depends on the length of the climb, the elevation, the vegetation, the altitude, the weather, etc. 50% slope for 1/2 mile at 5,000 feet in the sagebrush in cool weather but no snow or rain? A good pull, doable, might keep the rifraff out. 50% slope for 2 miles at 9,000 feet through deadfall in the snow? Totally different beast.

-Cell coverage: I never count on cell coverage. It's too spotty, and where it exists, drains too much battery. Don't count on it

-Elk behavior: can't be predicted without specific experience with the specific terrain you're talking about. Ridgetop saddles might be fine, but i've found that they don't use the escape routes you can see from satellite imagery. Experience is the only answer here.

 

[Billy Goat]

You find elk where you find elk.


That's the big secret.


Coming from the east, it was different to wrap my head around. Basically deer are everywhere, find what they need, and you find deer.

You find elk where they are. Might cover 6-8 different areas that are perfect before you find them, and where they have been isn't where they always are.

 

[Pony Soldier]

Sorry you are still thinking whitetail. I live on summer range. The valley is 12 miles long and about 3 miles wide. All summer there is a chance that one of the ranches will have a elk herd on it at least one night per week.

Starting about the first of August when I start cutting hay, I see few elk during the day but note the molested bales where elk visited at night.

As we approach sept. The elk start to move out of the fields to the midrange for the rut. More north slopes for the cooler temps and lose 300-500 ft of elevation.

As I start cutting out trails I note where the elk activity is. It is rarely predictable. Sometimes they may push west and at differant years they trend to the east. I question if they can predict the intensity of the coming winter. The are a small number of local elk that seem to remain but the larger herds move.

After the first hour or two of rifle the search is on. Where they will be this year, month etc is a crap shoot. Only my daily searches narrow the area down but only for a day and then the search continues. On the average
I need three to four weeks of countinuous field time to get one cornered and I have been at this for 35 years locally 65 years overall.

There are no guarentees only field time.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

As far as cell phone coverage in remote areas, my advice is not to count on it, but you *should* get better coverage high up at night. During the night, radio waves can go further by bouncing off the ionosphere. One remote mesas in Twentynine Palms, I could have good conversations at night in places where I had no signal during the day. So, I kept my phone off all day and would try it out at night if I wanted to call someone from the field.

With that said, I view hunting trips as a great opportunity to unplug from the outside world. No cell phone coverage is a positive, not a negative.


____________________
“Keep on keepin’ on…”

 

[LCguy]

A 40-45 DEGREE slope is generally the max I personally am willing to climb. That equates to 100% grade. To me, it's just too dangerous to climb down slopes much steeper than that. Good rule of thumb I follow is that I have to use my hands a lot to get up it, it's probably too steep to climb down.

 

[Chris in TN]

What do you do for a living?

I have, for most of my adult life, been involved in fields that all sort of revolve around making or using map/GIS data. And at the moment I have a fair bit of free time. I'm sitting here right now gawking at aerial photos while waiting on a work email to show up.

 

[TaperPin]

I have dissected the unit(s) my daughter got her elk tag in. I've drawn a 1-mile buffer around every road and hiking trail, a 2-mile buffer around every trailhead or dead end road, I've shaded out all of the south facing slopes and every steep cliff face and every north facing slope that is steeper than 30 degrees. I've buffered around all of the outfitter campsites and ranger stations. I've eliminated everything below 7500' elevation because it's either private or too hot for fall elk.

The good news is, after doing all of that, all of the elk in the unit either live on private land or in a handful of six-acre blocks that are left. The Colorado hunting atlas says one of those blocks sits directly between the summer and winter ranges, so that spot should be money.

The bad news is, that spot is a seventeen mile hike from the trailhead.

Alright, just joking about all of that. Or venting. Or realizing that a lot of e-scouting conventional wisdom only goes so far and hunting can't be reduced down to a complex exercise in linear programming.


Moving on to actual serious questions:

Setting aside the problems of having to climb over dead trees that are everywhere, is there a maximum slope figure you guys use when planning approaches? I am not a mountain climber. My daughter and I did a hike in the smokies the other day - which are not nearly as steep as the rockies in general - and we climbed a hill of about 450' elevation gain that looks to average about 16% overall. I know I've hiked up roads that were pushing 40% before. But those were more or less open bare dirt. I know physical fitness plays a role in this and we are on our way in that arena, I'm just wondering what my practical safe limits are here....I'm thinking longer 40% slopes are probably the max, especially if they have any little ledges at all in them. In years past I've been in places in the smoky mountains where I was following a ridgeline cross-country and came to a near vertical cliff and had to make long detours to get off that cliff. I am trying to avoid that here.

Second question: I have AT&T cell phone service. Looking at their map, they claim service across most of the mid and high elevations in the area we're looking at hunting. Is this ridiculously optimistic? Am I correct that I should expect at very best to only have service on ridgelines? I don't *need* service but if we end up needing to call a game packer or wanting to text a picture to the folks back home, it would be nice to not have to hike back to the truck and drive halfway back to town. Yes, we plan to have an inreach (maybe two) but I'm just trying to figure out if our phones will be useable at all. I vaguely remember having maybe one bar of service the last time I was in the area on a USFS road and that area shows coverage on the current AT&T map, but I don't know what if anything has changed since I was there last. I searched and found a thread on this forum discussing cell service but it's a couple years old now and I know the answers change every year.

Also - apart from hunting pressure, do timberline elk normally perhaps feed on one side of a mountain, in one drainage, then cross back over to another drainage to bed/water? And if those elk are pressured while near the treeline would it be normal to expect them to be just as likely to go over the top and drop into the next drainage, instead of going downhill into the same drainage, away from something that spooked them? I'm looking at a couple of ridgetop saddles and wondering if they'd be productive once shooting starts.

There's just a heckuva lot I simply do not know.

It’s fun watching your thought progression - the joke you started off with made me chuckle.

Route finding definitely has a learning curve. Issues are not just for guys who have never seen typical western topography, but anyone who hasn’t been off established trails. The bus uptown and the struggle bus are one wrong door away from each other.

It can’t be stressed enough that backcountry travel has already been figured out for most areas by thousands of years of game trail use. They quite literally are backcountry highways. Just make sure the game trail is headed in the direction you want. Slope on a good game trail and half the slope on an area even animals don’t like to walk through because of downfall are not even comparable. For the most part stay out of areas with no game trails while wearing a loaded pack, at least until you have some travels under your belt.

Keep in mind avalanche chutes are usually tempting on arial photos because they are clear looking and go directly up, but the vegetation and slope are usually a bad combination, yet year after year we see folks struggle up them, sometimes try to go down, and some come to vertical walls that are not passable. The next tattoo, have them write it somewhere really small, “avalanche chutes are not always passable.” Maybe do a catch all phrase like, “Don’t assume something is passable until actually laying eyes on it.”

Rocky ridges, or anywhere a jagged topographic line is trying to warn you of impassable rocky features should be approached with caution since many seemingly innocent rocky areas have trapped flat landers like big Venus flytraps, either going up or going down. Knee high rock fields can be a giant pain to cross, while hip high rocks have called many inexperienced folk to the struggle bus and they eventually turn around after a good struggle. Beware of dry rocky creek beds for the same reasons as avalanche chutes - just because you make it half way doesn’t mean there isn’t a vertical wall.

It’s a warning sign if someone is planning to go straight up and not follow the contour to best advantage. Go to the side of a ridge or knob. The sides of open areas are easier than bushwhacking through unknown timber. Dry is easier than wet areas. Dirt is easy to walk on than rock slides.

In general if folks are trying to compute maximum slope, it’s too steep because slope isn’t constant, and one short steep section to cross will ruin your day. 2,000’ gain in 4 miles is a moderate workout with a heavy pack and that’s only a 1’ rise in 10’ slope. Check hiking charts of major peaks and many established trails are in that range. Twice that slope and you better be in good shape. Short sections three or four times that should be seen in person before declaring them a good passable travel route. Going off trail makes it harder. Not being good at route finding makes it harder. Assuming a map is reliable information makes your life harder.

Back in my earlier years we’d let young guys practice route finding on the fire crew as we cut cross country to a backcountry fire, but many times we just had to say uncle and take over. If it was easy everyone would be naturally good at it.

 

[bz_711]

I've has success climbing extremely steep grades to start just to get to a bench or flatter area...the grade keeps 99% of humans out. Plus pack out is all downhill. Sometimes .25-.5 miles is all it takes.

I've been very happy with my Zoleo for making contact back home when there is no cell signal...worth every penny. Also - I got sick of taking 30 min drives just to make a call home...that time should be spent sleeping or listening for bulls.

Good Luck!

 

[Hnthrdr]

Dude you are way over thinking it. Seriously. Seems like you have a lot of YouTube knowledge and are excited. Keep that, use it. Show up a day or two early if possible, that time will be far more valuable than “e-scouting” really elk aren’t hard to find. I’ve bounced otc units 2-4 hours away and found elk and killed a bull in less than 24 hours, they are 600lb animals that scream like murder in Sept you will find them man, just stay positive and use all the info you have gathered, and if you don’t… well that’s hunting, if you want to send a PM and chat I can help ya, offer is open

 

[TaperPin]

Also - apart from hunting pressure, do timberline elk normally perhaps feed on one side of a mountain, in one drainage, then cross back over to another drainage to bed/water? And if those elk are pressured while near the treeline would it be normal to expect them to be just as likely to go over the top and drop into the next drainage, instead of going downhill into the same drainage, away from something that spooked them? I'm looking at a couple of ridgetop saddles and wondering if they'd be productive once shooting starts.

There's just a heckuva lot I simply do not know.

Every area is different, but I take kids here to point out some elk behavior. It’s a north facing area with a creek just off the top of the photo and timberline just off the bottom. #4 is about 1000’ higher than 2. Elk bed in 1, 2, and 3 until the season and move out of 3 completely and shun 5 unless suicidal. Elk move up at night, usually after dark unless snow is on the ground, and never bed there, so fresh sign at 4 and 5 doesn’t mean elk are huntable there. Eating and walking a few miles with some elevation gain is a walk in the park for them. Travel routes into and out of the area are just above 2 and to the left of 4. In ten years of hunting you might see an elk every other year glassing from the top - this area can’t be hunted if you don’t get in there with them. Elk that hang out in the open don’t live long, despite the common belief elk love to just come out early to show off. You can’t shoot an elk during the season if you spend every day focused on 3 and 5, although people try and they go home empty handed saying there’s no elk in this area. It’s comical to be up top watching the movements of the goofs down below.

It’s a good collection of teachable spots from timberline to dark timber and a collection of dry and damp, bow season to the end of October. Everything to figure the area out is there if the hunter uses common sense while poking around and hunts where elk are, not where elk were. Think of this as one of a hundred case studies, and 99 out of 100 times won’t apply directly to where you are hunting. The principles are more important to learn.

 

[wytx]

You lost me at "no elk below 7500 ft", you just eliminated a lot of elk country.

 

[grfox92]

Dude you are way over thinking it. Seriously. Seems like you have a lot of YouTube knowledge and are excited. Keep that, use it. Show up a day or two early if possible, that time will be far more valuable than “e-scouting” really elk aren’t hard to find. I’ve bounced otc units 2-4 hours away and found elk and killed a bull in less than 24 hours, they are 600lb animals that scream like murder in Sept you will find them man, just stay positive and use all the info you have gathered, and if you don’t… well that’s hunting, if you want to send a PM and chat I can help ya, offer is open

This is very good advice. I can't stress enough, at least in my area, e scouting for elk is useless. It will tell you nothing in reality.

I have stood across from the most elky looking perfect specimen of habitatat, that you would expect to without question find tons of elk in. It has it all, food, water and cover. You can just imagine the bulls bugling there in September. Put boots on the the ground and there isnt even 3 or 4 year old elk sign. They just aren't there.

This is not a one time thing. Its literally the reality of elk hunting. Here's the kicker, next year, that spot can look like the Deseret Ranch.

Focus on getting in good shape and putting boots on the ground when season gets here. If there are elk in the unit, you will need to find them on the specific days you are hunting. Predicting where elk will be is an insane thought process. I've seen elk get up from a bed and walk 5 to 7 miles to the other side of a unit just to lay down again.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Tapatalk

 

[Chris in TN]

Every area is different, but I take kids here to point out some elk behavior. It’s a north facing area with a creek just off the top of the photo and timberline just off the bottom. #4 is about 1000’ higher than 2. Elk bed in 1, 2, and 3 until the season and move out of 3 completely and shun 5 unless suicidal. Elk move up at night, usually after dark unless snow is on the ground, and never bed there, so fresh sign at 4 and 5 doesn’t mean elk are huntable there. Eating and walking a few miles with some elevation gain is a walk in the park for them. Travel routes into and out of the area are just above 2 and to the left of 4. In ten years of hunting you might see an elk every other year glassing from the top - this area can’t be hunted if you don’t get in there with them. Elk that hang out in the open don’t live long, despite the common belief elk love to just come out early to show off. You can’t shoot an elk during the season if you spend every day focused on 3 and 5, although people try and they go home empty handed saying there’s no elk in this area. It’s comical to be up top watching the movements of the goofs down below.

It’s a good collection of teachable spots from timberline to dark timber and a collection of dry and damp, bow season to the end of October. Everything to figure the area out is there if the hunter uses common sense while poking around and hunts where elk are, not where elk were. Think of this as one of a hundred case studies, and 99 out of 100 times won’t apply directly to where you are hunting. The principles are more important to learn.


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That's actually helpful and to an extent I can sort of take that and apply it to at least one of the areas I'm looking at, possibly more than one. So, thank you.

 

[Hnthrdr]

In addition THE BIGGEST FACTOR= other hunters pressuring the animals. I have a handful of units I have got to know pretty well over a few decades and even one that I spend a lot of time in… elk will be in about 5-7 places regularly… every year during season this can change. Sometimes drastically, last year for example there were 8 camps at the base of a big ridgeline that typically has 1-2 or none. Elk blew out of that area and didn’t come back until the last week of Sept. camps were mostly muzzy hunters and the 10-20 hunters on this ridge moved the elk significantly from their normal area, this year who knows what could happen? Gotta be flexible and adaptable and have plans A-M don’t worry about getting past M lol

 

[Chris in TN]

Focus on getting in good shape and putting boots on the ground when season gets here. If there are elk in the unit, you will need to find them on the specific days you are hunting. Predicting where elk will be is an insane thought process. I've seen elk get up from a bed and walk 5 to 7 miles to the other side of a unit just to lay down again.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Tapatalk

Thank you. I need to hear this stuff.

Also, am I correct that if Plan A is to backpack deep into a particular unit when most of my hunting options lie in one general area (or one slope of a few thousand acres), I should either ditch that plan, or commit to only hunting that for perhaps one day - like hike in Tuesday AM, scout midday very lightly (after having scouted other spots that, for the purpose of discussion, held nothing, let's pretend), set up camp, hunt Wednesday opening day, then perhaps hunt the next AM and hunt our way back out and be in a different area (not necessarily miles away, just 'different' as in 'the next spot') by the afternoon of the second day?

Thus far our plans have hinged around hiking into one spot for 3-5 days. It seems like even if we do that it would be a mistake to stay there - if we aren't on elk by day 2, leave. Or if we get on elk and haven't killed one by day 2, we've probably spooked them anyway, or they being elk, might have left just for fun.

Right?

Part of me loves the idea of backpacking deep into a wilderness blah blah blah. But the shorter that trip is the less junk I have to haul in and I see several advantages there.

At the same time it seems fairly likely that I could stay in a spot that had elk sign but no elk, and it's fairly possible that a herd could show up, whether from pressure or just because elk like to travel, on day 3-4, right?

I had a long conversation with a guide several years ago that shared that it was pretty common to have drop camp hunters get frustrated and leave then spook elk on the way out because they just were too impatient, or expecting to see them every day like deer. Or even because sometimes first rifle season causes a 4-day shuffle and when they begin to settle back down they show up again.

 

[Chris in TN]

In addition THE BIGGEST FACTOR= other hunters pressuring the animals. I have a handful of units I have got to know pretty well over a few decades and even one that I spend a lot of time in… elk will be in about 5-7 places regularly… every year during season this can change. Sometimes drastically, last year for example there were 8 camps at the base of a big ridgeline that typically has 1-2 or none. Elk blew out of that area and didn’t come back until the last week of Sept. camps were mostly muzzy hunters and the 10-20 hunters on this ridge moved the elk significantly from their normal area, this year who knows what could happen? Gotta be flexible and adaptable and have plans A-M don’t worry about getting past M lol

This is the exact reason I have always preferred private land hunting. I love the idea of hunting public and the whole experience of doing wilderness stuff, but at the end of the day a huge part of any hunt isn't man versus beast, it's man versus man, unless you get a really high-quality tag.

 

[Hnthrdr]

Thank you. I need to hear this stuff.

Also, am I correct that if Plan A is to backpack deep into a particular unit when most of my hunting options lie in one general area (or one slope of a few thousand acres), I should either ditch that plan, or commit to only hunting that for perhaps one day - like hike in Tuesday AM, scout midday very lightly (after having scouted other spots that, for the purpose of discussion, held nothing, let's pretend), set up camp, hunt Wednesday opening day, then perhaps hunt the next AM and hunt our way back out and be in a different area (not necessarily miles away, just 'different' as in 'the next spot') by the afternoon of the second day?

Thus far our plans have hinged around hiking into one spot for 3-5 days. It seems like even if we do that it would be a mistake to stay there - if we aren't on elk by day 2, leave. Or if we get on elk and haven't killed one by day 2, we've probably spooked them anyway, or they being elk, might have left just for fun.

Right?

Part of me loves the idea of backpacking deep into a wilderness blah blah blah. But the shorter that trip is the less junk I have to haul in and I see several advantages there.

At the same time it seems fairly likely that I could stay in a spot that had elk sign but no elk, and it's fairly possible that a herd could show up, whether from pressure or just because elk like to travel, on day 3-4, right?

I had a long conversation with a guide several years ago that shared that it was pretty common to have drop camp hunters get frustrated and leave then spook elk on the way out because they just were too impatient, or expecting to see them every day like deer. Or even because sometimes first rifle season causes a 4-day shuffle and when they begin to settle back down they show up again.

How old is your kid and how much background do you have in back packing? I would highly advise against it. Unless you spend loads of time in the mountains, are acclimated and have a bunch of packing/ meat preservation experience you will set yourself up for disappointment or worse. Loads of elk get killed w/in a mile of a road, don’t know anyone who would attempt 17 mile packout without pack animals or cold weather and days to do it. Also most of these units are so busy the backcountry can be just as crowded as the closer areas