Ross and Adam: First CO Elk Hunt Planning Thread

[Jimbo V]

Anytime I start with a new area I review the topo online along with google earth. Anyway the forest service has all topos available online just scroll down to the link that reads geo enabled PDFs. http://www.fs.fed.us/visit/maps. I have actually printed them and used them for short trips. You'll be fine as far as getting into your areas. Maybe a little post holing on north facing slopes but aside from that should be fine! Good luck have a safe vacation



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[COlineman78]

I'd love to do a 14er. I had better go full Everest mode and take some oxygen for these flatland baby lungs.

I bet you'd be able to do several if you took your time. Quandary (where the picture is from) has gotten the reputation of being one of the easier ones, but I found Grey's and Torrey's easier. It's funny to see all of the overweight Texan's taking breaks along the trail to Quandary well below tree line and wondering if they'll even make tree line. There are 2 that you can drive to the top of (I still haven't): Pikes and Evans. Bierstadt is a very easy hike to the top, but this leads to complacency with the weather and people go up too late in the day and get hit by lightning.

 

[AdamW]

I bet you'd be able to do several if you took your time. Quandary (where the picture is from) has gotten the reputation of being one of the easier ones, but I found Grey's and Torrey's easier. It's funny to see all of the overweight Texan's taking breaks along the trail to Quandary well below tree line and wondering if they'll even make tree line. There are 2 that you can drive to the top of (I still haven't): Pikes and Evans. Bierstadt is a very easy hike to the top, but this leads to complacency with the weather and people go up too late in the day and get hit by lightning.

Thanks for the info man!

 

[RPS]

I scanned your thread and have a couple thoughts. 1) Bears aren't too much of a worry in CO if you don't do anything stupid (leave food out), 2) make sure you have a plan for how to get your elk out when you get one, especially if it isn't real cold.

 

[AdamW]

I scanned your thread and have a couple thoughts. 1) Bears aren't too much of a worry in CO if you don't do anything stupid (leave food out), 2) make sure you have a plan for how to get your elk out when you get one, especially if it isn't real cold.

Thanks RPS. Yep, I think bears are honestly way down our list of areas for concern. We'll be smart with food and other scented items and shouldn't have any issues. And great thoughts on the meat care. Packing out an animal or even processing one in the field (beyond field dressing/gutting it before getting it back home to butcher it) is totally foreign to me so I've been getting schooled on the gutless method. Lots of videos watched and articles read on that subject so should we luck out we're doing it well and legally. Planning to have coolers with jug ice in the truck on standby and Ross and I are going to look/ask around about some local processors in the area when we are both nearby on our vacations this summer.

Getting pumped!

 

[Scoot]

Packing out an animal or even processing one in the field (beyond field dressing/gutting it) is totally foreign to me.

I didn't read the whole thread, so sorry if this is redundant... Look at video's of "gutless method" for taking care of an elk. Gutting one is a bunch of extra work and definitely not necessary.

Good luck on the hunt and don't forget to enjoy every minute there. It's my favorite 10 days of the year, every year!

 

[AdamW]

I didn't read the whole thread, so sorry if this is redundant... Look at video's of "gutless method" for taking care of an elk. Gutting one is a bunch of extra work and definitely not necessary.

Good luck on the hunt and don't forget to enjoy every minute there. It's my favorite 10 days of the year, every year!

Oh for sure, gutless method is the plan if we happen to luck out. I worded that poorly in my last post.

 

[COlineman78]

Packing out an animal or even processing one in the field (beyond field dressing/gutting it before getting it back home to butcher it) is totally foreign to me so I've been getting schooled on the gutless method. Lots of videos watched and articles read on that subject so should we luck out we're doing it well and legally. Planning to have coolers with jug ice in the truck on standby and Ross and I are going to look/ask around about some local processors in the area when we are both nearby on our vacations this summer.

Any grocery store and some hardware stores will have Dry Ice, so I'd immediately get some in the coolers once you have your meat in there if you don't plan on getting it processed. If you do plan on getting it processed be aware that the good processors can get backed up and it may not be done by the time you leave and it'll cost you something like $125 extra to get it shipped. Processing costs around $300 for an elk assuming you are just doing ground and steaks. Where they really make their money is all the sausage and jerky though, so be careful not to go overboard. Listen to the Gritty Bowmen episode on meat care. What you might do is ask a processor if they will just keep your meat in their freezer while you continue your hunt. If anywhere near Steamboat, Steamboat Meat and Seafood is the best processor we have found.

 

[Hunt2Eat]

I'm new to the forums here and just read through this thread. I went for my first elk hunt last year during 2nd rifle. One thing I learned is not to underestimate the how fast and hard the weather can change. We drove into a wilderness area on a 4x4 road and didn't see another soul. Seemed amazing at the time. Fast forward 2 days and we got hit with a Mountain storm that dropped about 6-8 inches of snow on us.
We were so concerned about getting the truck stuck that we packed up camp and hiked the 6 hours back to the truck only to find that that side of the Mountain hadn't gotten any snow. It was worth it though because the weather was heading that way and we didn't have any way to communicate with our wives back home. This was a problem bc I told my wife if she didn't hear from me by x-day, call the rescue squad, lol. That could've gotten expensive if we couldn't make it out of there. It was a 6 hour hike to the truck and about 4 hours of 4wd roads to get to cell service.
This year I bought a Delorme so I can at least text her and let her know I'm alive. Should help to keep me in the wilderness longer.

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[Redmech]

Good info guys, this trip is getting more and more real daily.

 

[sharpshooter269]

It's a lot of extra work but I prefer to chill the meat and take it home and process it myself. Had s processor get a little careless with my meat, end up being short quite a bit of meat. My .02


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[COlineman78]

It's a lot of extra work but I prefer to chill the meat and take it home and process it myself. Had s processor get a little careless with my meat, end up being short quite a bit of meat. My .02

I agree. I've had a processor "Lose" my entire elk before. I am also convinced that they skim meat off everyone's as we always end up with less than if we do it ourselves. We also prefer no suet (most processors include 15% or so in the cost), so it's even easier. We will take it to the processor if it's the last day and we don't have time to take care of it and have to be at work the next day.

With our cheap non-commercial grinder it can take quite a while and ends up taking about 10-12 hours to process and package with 2 people. If you do plan on doing this I highly recommend a fillet knife as we always forget. This can also be done once you get home; no need to spend your limited time here working on it unless everyone tags out. 2 years ago I tagged out the first morning and my dad the 3rd morning, so we took our time and relaxed while processing at camp.

 

[AdamW]

Great info guys. Yes, my preference would just be for cooler service if we could get that. I've seen and heard processor stories back here in MO as well. I'm going to hit some outdoor shops as well and maybe do some asking around for additional info on processors, etc. My family has always processed our own meat up until my wife and I got married; her dad is in tight with a local locker back home and I'm fortunate enough to get my deer processed by people we trust for basically the cost of the plastic burger bags. I knew I married her for a reason.

Whiney news: the only day I could detour through the Denver area is on a Sunday. I wanted to swing by Kifaru. Haha.

Also, big congrats to my hunting partner Skinny Ross on crossing over the 60 lb weight loss mark! Paleo diet (and dedication) for the win! I don't want to be the fat guy on the team! Especially when there are only 2 of us!

 

[Redmech]

This trip seems like a success already. I think it's pretty cool that Adam and I have been able to get our lives set up with our work, families, and health to make this trip a possibility. If we pack out heavy, that's just icing on the cake.

 

[AdamW]

Just got home from spending several days in CO. It was a mix of summer vacation and hoping to do a little scouting for this fall (or at least set eyes on the area). Both were at least marginally successful I think.

We left MO around 5:30 am to head west and arrive at a decent time. Loaded up the wife and the road dog and headed out.

As we got closer to our destination, I noticed how vastly different the terrain in south/central CO was from the northern parts of CO we've been to in the past (north of Denver on up to Estes Park for the touristy stuff). Much more of a desert feel, but quickly changing back and forth to green pastures with mountain runoff flowing through like an old western. Pretty cool, made me want a horse and a Stetson. Saw a ton of antelope, which was neat. I should probably put a speed goat hunt somewhere on my list of to-do's.

I tried not to drag the wife all over the place against her will, but she was a good sport and hiked some places much rougher than I expected she'd want to. She's a big yoga nut so as long as I took pictures of her doing standing mongoose or whatever the pose was called on a creek rock, she was cool with hitting the woods. She's not too bad, I guess I will keep her for a while.

I swung by an area USFS office and grabbed one of the NatGeo maps that almost perfectly covered our unit and a MVU map. Went to the local CPW office and by chance caught the biologist in the office. I re-introduced myself from a few months (and 2,000 phone calls ago for him) and flopped my maps out on the counter. He again was super polite and pointed a few places out on the map and told me to touch base with him again as I had more questions. I also picked up a flyer with a list of area meat processors in case a tree falls on and elk and we find it.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I am more or less confident after getting a look at the area. No doubt some of it would be brutal to access, both road condition and boot work wise. But we didn't sign up to hike a golf course, so I'm keeping a positive outlook! I'd considered asking some Roksliders if they've hunted the area before and had any info they'd be willing to share via PM, but that seems to go over really well or not so much when it comes to forums. I guess if it helps we haven't been sitting on our asses with 1 post on "Where do I hunt in this unit?" Haha.

Got a chance to test some gear in the mountains as well. The Kifaru T2 is super comfortable and my boots felt great!

We did some road trips around to different places and ended up on some roads we didn't intend to. I will blame her, she will blame me. Anyway, enough yapping, here are some pics from the trip.

 

[AdamW]

 

[chrislane]

How badly did the altitude get you? Looms like a great trip!

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[chrislane]

Great info guys. Yes, my preference would just be for cooler service if we could get that. I've seen and heard processor stories back here in MO as well. I'm going to hit some outdoor shops as well and maybe do some asking around for additional info on processors, etc. My family has always processed our own meat up until my wife and I got married; her dad is in tight with a local locker back home and I'm fortunate enough to get my deer processed by people we trust for basically the cost of the plastic burger bags. I knew I married her for a reason.

Whiney news: the only day I could detour through the Denver area is on a Sunday. I wanted to swing by Kifaru. Haha.

Also, big congrats to my hunting partner Skinny Ross on crossing over the 60 lb weight loss mark! Paleo diet (and dedication) for the win! I don't want to be the fat guy on the team! Especially when there are only 2 of us!

That's awesome, I'm back here in MO cheering you guys on! I'm down from 185# to 160# (I'm only 5'5) with exercise and slightly modified Paleo. I'm hopeful for my two year plan to go. I WILL make it happen.


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[Redmech]

That's awesome, I'm back here in MO cheering you guys on! I'm down from 185# to 160# (I'm only 5'5) with exercise and slightly modified Paleo. I'm hopeful for my two year plan to go. I WILL make it happen.


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That's awesome, nonprocessed, non grain, natural clean food is good for your health, diet, and joints.

 

[weaver]

Awesome thread. I love the proactive approach you guys are taking on this hunt. Good luck but I don't think you'll need it