It was a repeat of many earlier blessings. Once more I spent the Colorado black powder elk season in some of God’s most beautiful country. For 10 of September’s finest days I lived among the cedars and pinion pines and sagebrush of northwestern Colorado and never felt more at home anywhere.

One might define home, either our earthly home or our spiritual home (including for many a heavenly home,) as where we feel we truly belong. Such is my feeling in the wilds of western mountains as well as other unaltered places such as southern creek bottoms and hickory covered ridges. I trust the blood of ancient ancestors, who lived in the wilds, remains in my veins and is responsible for my being drawn to wilderness. The title of my earlier book, “Here Where We Belong,” gets at this feeling of mine and others.

Someone recently said wisely, “Sometimes the best journeys are the ones that lead us home.” Such was my journey to hunt elk last month. I didn’t get close enough to an elk to bag one, probably due to my enjoying so much being home and seeing all its sights.

The place called Brown’s Park, Brown’s Hole to early outlaws, is 200 miles west of the continental divide that bring late September snows that cover the earth above timberline and dust the spruce, fir and aspen forests below as a warning of what October will bring. The “Hole” is a 35 mile long valley in much lower country.

           

The landscape

 

This is a semi-arid land covered with cedar (juniper), pinion pine and sagebrush, all of which grow in scarce soil in spaces between red rocks, some the size of small houses. Where the Bureau of Land Management has burned acres of the trees, their vertical, black and gray corpses reach to the sky like picturesque tentacles. In these huge “burns” wild ryegrass and cheetgrass now cover the ground and feed roaming cattle and elk. The cured ryegrass stems of autumn are two to three foot yellow/white needles with tiny seedheads on top, each stem a piece of Creation’s artwork.

Both the pinion and the cedar are low growing trees. Thus one can see many miles from almost any high point. Last month I saw a bolt of lightning from a distant cloud and counted 70 seconds on my watch before the sound of thunder reached me. As I waited for elk on one perch, I could easily see Irish Canyon, a deep cut that separates Cold Spring Mountain to the northwest from the Dry Wash area of western Moffat County. I sat wondering why Butch and Sundance didn’t simply ride south into Brown’s Hole through the handy trail of Irish Canyon after robbing Wyoming trains instead of taking the Outlaw Trail that lies to the east in much rougher country along Vermillion Creek.

The simple answer came to me. The road through Irish Canyon, to this day very narrow and the only road out of Brown’s Hole to the north, is bordered on each side by vertical cliffs littered with rocks where an ambush would be easy. Many lawmen wanted Butch Cassidy’s hide and he survived perhaps by avoiding such ambush points. The ill defined Outlaw Trail would bring him safely to ranches like the Brown place where I hunt. Here he would often trade tired horses for fresh ones.

Once when Butch and Sundance arrived at the Brown place with exhausted horses, the rancher, probably the Chew family, only had one rideable horse. In desperation the outlaw pair took an unbroken one and Sundance was its rider. A family member remembered, “Sundance left the place with that horse bucking him out through the cedars.”

           

Sister mountains

 

The Brown place lies at the northern base of Douglas Mountain. It, and the parallel Blue Mountain, to the south are long, flat top east/west mountains. Blue Mountain looks quite blue from a distance and Douglas does not. Douglas has a distinct bench halfway up that runs its length and is a favorite place for elk, bear and cougars to stay.

On September 16 I was stalking along the thick cedars after climbing onto the bench. It had rained slowly all night and, due to the moist air, I could easily smell mule deer and elk when I neared where they were or had passed since daylight. I entered a particularly thick spot where the rock caves that dotted the area and housed mountain lions became more numerous. I noticed several caves, which I always scrutinize with caution, within mere feet of me on both sides.

Just as I was feeling uneasy about so many boxing me in, a sudden whiff of scent almost knocked me over. Instantly I knew it was cat scent. Think of a giant house cat with very poor hygiene and you will approximate the smell. I stretched my eyelids wide open as I stepped backwards out of that tight spot. A single shot black powder rifle, or any long gun for that matter, is useless against a cougar that hasn’t eaten in several days and that can have your neck in its mouth before you can raise your hand. A handgun or sheath knife would be more useful and I had neither.   

The dangers that are part of nature in the west add to its magnetism. This is an unforgiving land whose rewards pull many of us stronger than its dangers repel us; much like the tracking hound is moved to catch a cornered porcupine.