MERIDIAN —    We knew going in that the odds were against us. An elk every five years of hunting is the average. Even hunting for the more plentiful cows in the great herds of the mountains, our chances were not much better than the cow/bull average. Throw in the fact that our hunt followed the rut by a month when the November storms move the elk, slow our pace with deep snows and freezing winds, and we had a deck stacked against us that included the handicap of hunting an area completely unfamiliar, except for maps. My nephew, Rob and I were in for a challenge.

    Of the stumbling blocks that lay ahead, the one that worried me most as we planned the hunt was the potential, almost the certainty, of weather that would curtail our hunting. Most of us would refer to such weather as “bad weather” but I like all of weather’s elements; it’s the devastation and often human injury and death that it sometimes brings that I would erase if I could. We would be at the mercy of Mother Nature’s winter forces on the windy, harsh slopes of the mighty Wind River Range in Wyoming that stretch up to the continental divide.   

    Our planning was buoyed by the hope for some luck with the weather; that we would have a non-typical late kickoff to winter, with the winter storms delayed until December. It was not to be. The first day of a long hunt saw 20 inches of snow fall; a storm that kicked off a series of icy fronts, one of which dropped the thermometer to 11 degrees below zero. Our mornings averaged from about zero into the single digits. Of course the big snow never melted for the entire three week hunt, and it won’t melt until well into next summer.

          

Reward Enough?

 

    So a large part of our hunt’s rewards would fall into the category I often write about; the satisfaction of standing up to Mother Nature’s hazards and living through them largely unharmed and even in relative mental and physical comfort.

    We bundled up in poly and fishnet underwear and finished out in wool and goose down and Goretex. We wore mittens often instead of less warm gloves. My pack boots had hand warmers stuffed down next to their wool liners. As I waited at crossings and saddles sitting on a closed cell pad between my back side and the snow, I kept my feet in giant booties that I acquired just for this hunt. These are soft, insulated boots that fit over your hunting boots. They resemble the huge, square-toed boots worn by astronauts who walked on the moon.

     Mother Nature showed her stuff as she dueled me one windy day. I knew where to expect the elk to exit a high, dark timbered ridge and where I needed to be to intercept them. But MN decided to test me with 60 mph wind in below freezing temperatures. I stood it only a few minutes before I had to retreat to a small copse of trees for a shred of shelter. When the nine elk came out of the timber, I was 50 yards short of where I needed to be to have a rest on a tree for steadying my rifle that was waving around in the windstorm. Deep snow slowed my approach enough for the elk to drop into a depression before I could get to my rest tree. Chalk one up for MN.

          

Undefeated

 

    But we were not defeated by her world famous powers in our long vigils on other stands. When the winds calmed, I sometimes used a small umbrella  to shed the falling snow. We stayed until dark on most days, feeling the air get so cold that we could hardly stand up at sundown. When the snow stopped as if there was no more in the heavens, the last tiny particles of moisture froze and fell as sparkling ice crystals, swirling like chromed dust in the dry air.

    Snow blew from distant peaks and sprinkled us and dimmed the elk tracks that had been sharp and fresh at noontime. On we stayed, shouting back internally at Mother Nature in a respectful stubbornness. “Come on Old Gal, is that all you’ve got? Give us your best shot! We can take it!”

    And so she brought it on again and again. And we stood our ground. Yes, she cost me an elk when a little mercy would have given me a shot. But she didn’t run us off her mountain. We came prepared and we put up a good fight. On the last evening we left with our heads held high.