What does you typical day consist of while elk hunting? Couple other ?'s too.

[castandblast]

Guys, I just reread this thread from start to finish. A ton of great info in here! Definitely have a better idea what to expect. I'll take the advice of packing enough food with intentions of staying the entire time in case we're just covered up in elk everyday. I liked the idea of renting the hotel room for a few hours to get cleaned up if we do make the trip into town.

I went hiking the other day and a bad storm rolled through. Lightning was real close and the thunder was almost deafening. Luckily, I wasn't far from the truck so I went to take cover. I can't imagine a storm like that while I'm about 10 times closer to the heavens than I was here. I'd say a bad lightning storm would startle the manliest of men. Do you guys just hole up somewhere in those situations? Try to find a meadow and get away from all the trees?

Any other useful advice?

I just get off the ridge tops and enjoy the show. I love watching a good electrical storm. I also like the way the temps and light level drop in the aftermath and it can get critters up feeding early.

 

[5MilesBack]

Yep, bears and cats have nothing on a good ole high altitude lightning storm. Bears and cats aren't even a concern to me, but when you're stuck on a mountain when the lightning appears out of nowhere......it's a little un-nerving to say the least. Especially when it's also dumping 6" of hail and raining bucket fulls at a time. After one of those I'd gladly trade it for a 100 cats and bears on the way back to camp.

 

[COlineman78]

I'm far from the manliest of men, but lightening is definitely my #1 concern in the mountains. Just today, a bunch of people (and a dog ) got struck on one of the 14ers: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...people-struck-by-lightning-on-mount-bierstadt I like to turn my Delorme inreach onto "track mode" in lightening, so at least my family would know where to find all my gear!

The lesson learned here is to stay off the peaks during a storm. Any thunder storm while above tree line can be dangerous. This is going to become a bigger problem as more inexperienced people keep doing these 14ers. I've never done Bierstadt, but from what I've seen it's by far the easiest of the 14ers (short of Pikes and Evans where you can just drive to the top). Someone told me that they did it in sandles once, so it's just plain stupidity to get caught in a storm up there.