Sometimes I forget what it is about the whole business of chasing around after elk that seems to feed my soul like no other activity I might pursue in the big outside world. Through the long months between general big game seasons, there is never really any doubt in my mind that I enjoy elk hunting.But over the course of a year, with all the other possibilities for spending precious spare time jostling for the place in the front of the line every week, and all the wonderful experiences each new day affords in our part of the world, I forget what I am really talking about when, without thinking about it much, I claim to love my days in pursuit of the wily wapiti above all others spent outside.
Well, it only takes that first day afield in fall in the middle of elk country to bring it all rushing back. Last Sunday was that day for me.
There was still a half hour before shooting light. Starting where Sparky had left me, I would drop off the mountainside, descend a steep open hillside, and then follow a side route up the thickly timbered ridge across the drainage from where I began. That would be the beginning of a wide circle across the broken landscape that would take me eventually to the place where Sparky would leave the truck. We planned to meet up sometime around 4 p.m. The whole day spread out before me like a blank canvas.
In the dim early light, progress is very slow. But that's OK because the hunt begins right where I am. My eyes adjust to the dim light. My ears strain to tune into the sounds of the woods. At first, each step involves carefully avoiding anything that might cause a sound that could startle and warn a nearby but unseen elk. It's all part of getting oneself calibrated for the hunt.
But soon enough, things settle into a familiar pattern. Walk. Stop. Look. Listen. Think. Smell. I feel my joints loosening up. I feel my breathing settle into an easy rhythm. And I begin to notice all those little things about how the land lays and how it all seems to be so intricately and haphazardly arranged at the same time.
This is always good food for thought, especially on a warmer than usual November day with no tracking snow and a steady, pushy wind that dictates how you move across the terrain so as not to send your scent boldly rushing ahead of you.
There was little sign of elk that morning, nor deer, for that matter. I didn't see any fresh scat in places I knew to be favorite haunts of elk in more inclement weather. I saw no elk beds in the tall grass. I could not catch a whiff of the sweet, musky smell of recent elk occupation even in places I have always found hints of their presence. The dry earth did not betray the presence of elk with fresh tracks. And only in a few places could I imagine that an elk had passed when I noted a freshly turned over rock or a broken branch across a game trail.
But I did begin to notice other things. On the forest floor, for example, there are communities of tiny plants and growing things that carpet the ground beneath the lodgepole, Douglas fir, and ponderosa pines. There is a whole miniature world of life going on there, on every square foot beneath the towering canopy.
And I noticed another thing. It was those trees that look like nearly perfect upside-down question marks.
You know what I'm talking about. You have seen them. A stout trunk rises from the ground, maybe as much as 3 or 4 feet, then there is an inexplicable bow, sometimes nearly a half circle, formed by the trunk before it gathers itself in for a long straight shot into the sky. I noticed that some of the best specimens were the lodgepole pine, some nearly a foot in diameter. And I could never really identify what in the nearby environment might have caused the trauma that resulted in the disfigured trees.
I could, of course, imagine all kinds of little things that might have been the cause. But if there is an obvious and general explanation, it eludes me. I will look forward to a knowledgeable explanation from one of you readers out there.
Caches of pinecones appeared all through the forest, gathered, I assume, by the squirrels that were strangely silent on Sunday. There was none of that noisy chattering that usually comes when I invade their territory. I found myself wondering about where those squirrels might be as I settled in against one of the question mark trees for an early lunch about mid-morning. I fell asleep right there, with the warm sun in my face.
Soon enough, I was on my feet and on the hunt again, but now distracted by the wind that had been my companion all morning. For with the wind, the forest was alive with talking trees. Some moaned. Some talked softly as if they were in the back of the room trying to be unobtrusive. Some cried out in creaking pain or perhaps alarm. There was a feeling that followed me all that morning and into the afternoon until I finally emerged from the dark forest to a high open park. It was a feeling that I was not alone. It was not a weird feeling. It was a good, strong reassuring feeling.
In the tall, dry grass of that broad ridge top park, I saw my first sure signs that elk were about. The grass was matted in places where a dozen or more elk had settled in after a night of feeding. Fresh scat glistened in the bright sun. Standing downwind, I could catch faint whiffs of the elk that had been there as recently as a few hours before.
When I stood on the edge of that grassy park and looked out over the broad valley to the south and west, I tried to trace the edges of the wildfire that had raged there for weeks last summer, but the flat light and shadowy contours made it difficult to tell what had been burned and what hadn't. What I saw was a living landscape, shaped and carved by fire and all the other forces of nature which are so beyond our full understanding and our control. That, too, is reassuring for me.
Presently, I continued on again. I did find tracks in some crusty snow, but no elk. I disturbed a long-legged cow moose in thick brush whose bellowing suggested to me that I would be wise to give wide berth to avoid getting between her and her calf. But no elk.
I arrived at the truck a little early, and I was waiting there when Sparky showed up, a little early as well.
“Well?” he looked at me with the usual hopeful question.
“Nothing,” I replied. “How about you?”
“I saw a bunch of cows, I don't know how many. And there was one bull, antlers anyway, through the brush. No open shots,” he said.
“But it was a great day, don't you think?” I asked.
“It was a fine day,” Sparky grinned at me.
And yes, now I remember exactly why I love it so.
Greg Tollefson is a freelance Missoula writer whose column appears each week in Outdoors. He can be reached at gtollefson@bresnan.net.
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