[PHO127]

I left for Colorado on tuesday the 26th and was in Durango on Wednesday night. Had to get the ATV serviced on Thursday and wound up having to have some cracked welds done on the trailer. Got to the Cabin above Mancos, Colorado thursday evening just at dusk and it started to snow just as I opened the door of the truck. We got a foot at the cabin and 2 in the upper mountains. Friday was a recon day and we found Elk tracks in the new snow everywhere we looked. Saturday we started hunting serious but just missed a couple, Saturday night it dumped another 2 feet of snow. Last year we hunted in t shirts at 11,000 feet, this year we had 4 feet of snow. We were just missing the Elk all week, twice they came by within 50 feet of where I had been the day before, several times they would cross my tracks between the time I went in to a hunting spot and when I came out. On Monday night we went to a rancher friends house for dinner and when we came back there was a 400 to 500 lb cinnamon black bear at the road entrance to the cabin. Fat and shiney coat, but no guns or cameras with us, on Tuesday we found what we think were fresh Griz tracks in the mountains, they were about 10 inches wide and about 12 inches long. We asked the ranchers and they said there had been a couple of sighting of a big bear about a year ago but none since. This guy was headed into a 1,000 foot deep canyon. The snow was about 18 inches deep where we found his tracks and he was not leaving any drag marks in the snow with his feet as he walked along. We kept at it and on Thursday morning shortly after 9am I jumped a herd of 25 to 30 Elk at the 11,000 foot level in the black spruce, I got off a shot at a cow and dropped her. This was just on the other side of the mountain from where I got a 4x4 bull year before last. This time I did it right, she was uphill from an old logging cut and all I had to do was field dress her and tug on an ear and she slid to the road. Got a truck to her and out in an hour. This wasn't a big cow, a yearling, and probably only weighed 250 lbs but will be very good eating. I lost 10 pounds in 7 days of hunting, busting deep powder snow at 10,000 plus feet will flat wear you out. All in all we had a good time, I wound up being the only person to get an Elk, It was my hunting buddy the lever action .308 again with my hand loaded 150 gr Nosler partitions. One shot one kill.