The opportunity to hunt western Colorado came from a colleague of mine. Conversations of ordering numerous supplies with him grew tiring and one day I mentioned..."Oh I am going hunting this weekend". From there on out, we can spend only seconds talking about business before we hardly get a word out about how our hunting ventures went. It wasn't long thereafter when the words muttered out...."you should come out here and hunt"... It felt like seconds after that I knew I was going. I am not really sure how being gitty like a school feels but yeah I was comparable to that.
Now Pennsylvania has always been so simplistic to obtain a hunting license. You go to Walmart or a local gun shop...say "I need a license" and twenty minutes later you have tags on your back. I found myself zombie faced and staring at the regulations for CO on the Internet. Aside from a DNA sample, background check and Christmas Story decoder ring I would also have to jump through hoops to obtain an Elk tag. Ok, well its not that complicated but I did need some assistance along the way. We figured out the area we wanted to hunt (similar to WMUs in PA), and the date range of our hunting adventure. We planned on just doing cow elk so we could get an over the counter tag....no lottery thank god.
I was sitting at my desk when my friend called me in August..."hey I am standing in line at the DOW (Dept of Wildlife)....did you get your tag yet?" Me of course "oh crap". How could I forget? Then it clicked...not my brain but my mouse in my hand. "Yea Jeff I am online right now buying my tag". It was that easy. Colorado keeps an up-to-date spreadsheet with the animals, WMUs, and available tags left. A couple more clicks later and I had a receipt of my elk tag. It was suppose to be that easy....my tag didn't show up until days before my departure. Something about the company who had one job to do and send out tags to those kind folks that bought dropped the ball. No worries the plan came together.
I lined up the trip to arrive a few days earlier in Colorado to assist with attitude adjustment. If you have the chance to do so...I highly recommend it. Those couple of days couldn't have felt longer knowing I would soon embark on my elk hunting venture. Another level of excitement was quickly building too, my colleague Jeff in which I concocted this crazy idea with...we had never met in person. Let alone spending a week in the wilderness together, alright we were staying in a pretty sweet camper so it wasn't like 'Deliverence".
The taxi ride was short to his house and before I knew it we were shaking hands and sharing a beer in his kitchen. Wait it was a soda, because we were leaving once my crap was loaded into the truck. The drive was bittersweet. I had spent the evening at a business dinner where some grand idea was to eat at some crazy derkastan restaurant. The co-worker next me agreed to find the most normal thing on the menu and hope we could hold it down. Our host at the dinner loved to hear himself talk and as we wait for him to finally sign the check we could leave. Needless to say, the gas I passed on the trip west gagged me and Jeff in the truck.
Remember that flat tire I mentioned earlier, you know at 3am, yeah it was also on fire. What a way to start a trip, shaking bottles of water to put out a tire fire. A very used and borrowed utility trailer shared its problems with us on this trip, that wouldn't be the only flat tire. A few hours later we woke up from the Walmart parking in Rifle, CO. I was freezing cold because the heat stopped working and decided to college shop for breakfast in Walmart. Yes, I paid for my stuff, college shop means you find the first edible thing to eat you see when you are typically drunk. Walmarts in walking distance of college campuses...solid business plan.
A fresh spare tire and a load of groceries for the week and we were set out on our last leg of the trip. It took us a while to find a suitable campsite for the fifth wheel and before I knew it we were setup. With a few hours to spare, we figured lets take a ride and scout some areas. Of course the game warden stopped by to check out licenses and it provided the opportunity to discuss any successes she had heard about. It seemed most folks were filling tags in the area. It was a good interaction with Janny law and fueled out hopes in tagging out as well. The landscapes of our campsite alone were incredible as you can see from the pictures I shared below. But our hunting views would prove to be even better, in my next blog.
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