My oldest son and I scouted a new area this morning. I already knew that elk would summer in the area we were hiking through, but the plan was to hike through here and glass a big drainage over the ridge for elk and mule deer. I was really hoping to find a big buck tucked away somewhere. However, the weather was not cooperating so we never made it to the ridge. Above treeline is no place to be during a thunderstorm. We were also slowed down when we ran into three bulls in velvet that we were trying to slip closer to and take photos.
Isaac on our hike up
I'm not sure what this plant is but there was a lot of it. A good September frost turns it brown and noisy.
We spotted this 5 pt from about 150 yards, so we slipped up to about 60 yards and took a few photos.
He looked right through us and went back to feeding.
A little higher up we spotted this bigger 5 pt that had a smaller bull behind him. The smaller bull can just be seen coming out of a depression on the left.
We decided to slip around them to the left and get a closer photo then keep hiking above them. We ran into two Dusky (Blue) Grouse on the way. One of them flushed about 10 ft in front of us, but we spotted this guy before he scared us.
We were even with the two bulls, but they had a few deer around them. The smaller bull was bedded beyond these trees to the right and the larger was just over the rise still on his feet feeding. This doe had spotted us, but we dropped below her sight and slipped around trying to sneak in on the bulls. She didn't like not knowing where we went and ran over to investigate. She eventually bounced back up past the bulls. When we got to where the elk had been, they were gone. I wasn't sure if she had spooked them or if they just moved on. I guessed they had went west instead of up and north, but when we hiked another 200 yards up we ran into them as we crested a rise in the timber. The better of the two bulls was only 70 yards or so in the open staring at me and they both trotted up through the timber after a very short stare down.
We still had another 1/2 mile to hike to reach treeline and the top of the ridge. Half of that was going to be really steep. We decided it wouldn't be wise to continue on considering the dark clouds that were building.
A photo of the two of us taken with the timer and my spotting scope tripod. The timer photos always look goofy and staged to me because I'm usually running to get in the photo and turn around quickly trying to look casual.
We spotted two bucks on our way back down that were just above where the two bulls had been. A 3 pt was bedded to the right of this 5pt when I tried to get a better position for a photo. The 5 pt was just about to run when I got the photo. Isaac was watching him with my binos and said the buck was watching me with grass hanging from his mouth as he chewed.
Some kind of wild flower.
