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My second elk hunt

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My second elk hunt

Postby saddlesore » 01 24, 2023 •  [Post 1]

My 2nd elk hunt, 2 years later

Not as productive.

It took me two years to forget how much work elk hunting could be. Marty Vigil told me they had put a road into his favorite hunting spot and didn't think it would be worth going into so he bowed out of elk hunting. Another coworker, Henry Harrada, was interested in going and was willing to take me, still a nimrod, along with a young fellow who had just hired on, named of Conrad Kiech. I figured he could bear the brunt of camp chores with me . Since we all worked at Sandia National Laboratory we could all get vacation. At the time, Sandia offered 24 days a year when you hired on. It was an incentive to get people to move to New Mexico. I had moved from southwest PA and Conrad came three years later than I, from eastern PA. Henry was a native of New Mexico. His claim to fame was he had 9 sons and we kidded him on having a baseball team but his wife wanted a little girl so they kept trying.

Hunt destination was the Pecos Wilderness which is east of Santa Fe in the Sangre De Christo mountains. We all bought bull elk tags and at the time bulls had to have at least a 5" fork. So straight spikes were not legal. This tale will be more about strange things that happen on elk hunts. Unfortunately I could find no photos of this hunt.

We all pitched in on groceries, Henry did the shopping but told us to bring our own snacks or lunches. He didn't trust us and he turned out to be a heck of a cook. Early summer, we reserved four horses from a stable in Tererro, New Mexico. Guy's name was Happy Lay. I don't know if that was his first name or not, but he certainly lived up to it. We had three saddle horses and one pack horse. I was a little worried about only one pack horse, but Henry told us to put what clothes we needed in our saddle bags and we would tie our bed rolls on the back of the saddle. If we killed elk, we would pack them on the riding saddles and walk out. Back then we didn't have all the fancy base layers, two different pairs of boots and the ones we had were not insulated. Those chemical toe warmers were not invented yet .We took an extra shirt and pair of blue jeans, 3-4 pairs of socks and wore those cotton long johns without a spare. Henry told us not to worry about the weather as late September there was usually little snow. Our tent was one of those military octagon affairs. I think they called them squad tents. Heat was a Coleman single mantle lantern. Cooking was on an open fire. As I remember we had a big cast iron skillet, coffee pot, and two small pans. A side note, a few years later, Happy was kicked in the back by a mule. The mule caught him with both back feet and broke his back. He was paralyzed until he passed away.

You are probably thinking they must have been cold. In truth, you are not far off.

All set, the three of us loaded up the gear early Thursday morning before the season opened that Saturday. Off we went in Henry's station wagon. There was no such thing as a hunting rig back then and most families only had one vehicle. If needed while we were gone, wives had to depend on friends or neighbors. Wives were lot more understanding back then I think. I tried that several years later and come home to find the wife had rented a car. That was an expensive hunt.

Tererro was only about 140 miles from Albuquerque so the trip took about thee hours. We arrived pretty early at the stables. Happy had four horses brushed, cleaned up, saddled and ready to go. Not being accustom to rental horses, I was a bit surprised that we didn't have something that looked like those fine saddle horses you see in western movies and the saddles were a far cry from new.

We piled all of our gear on a tarp, filled saddle bags, tied on our bed rolls and watched in amazement as Happy packed all our gear on the one horse then lashed it down with a professional double diamond hitch. That load also included about 20 pounds of oats in the bottom of the panniers. Later I wished I had watched Happy closer.

We paid Happy for the horses and he wished us luck. Then put our butts in the saddles and rode off. I was feeling a lot better already about this hunt compared to the one two years ago. At least I had not been horse bit yet and I was riding instead of walking.

Climbing up towards Pecos Baldy mountain, we passed Round Mountain and met the trail that comes up from Jack's Creek Campground. It is not a tough trail, well used, with no dead timber to cross, or rocky slopes on the side of a mountain. As I recollect it was about 4 miles, as it did not take long to ride. Topping out we came to large rolling meadow that broke away down into a basin that held Pecos Baldy Lake. Up on the cliffs above we could see mountain goats bouncing among the rock face. Now days because of the crowds, a person has to make reservations to go into that country.

We didn't spend much time admiring the scenery on arrival as a storm looked like it was brewing and coming over Pecos Baldy from the west.

Chilly, but not too bad, we unsaddled the three horses, took off the packs and sawbuck, then hobbled the horses. About a half hour later, we got a little sleet, then a little snow, then a lot of snow. Still not having the tent up, Henry said to throw everything in a pile, spread the tent out over it and crawl under it and that the snow won't last long. So much for no snow in September.

Not much to do under the tent, so we all drifted off to sleep for a bit. A welcome rest at 10,000 feet. Waking up, I heard no noises. Everything was quiet. We rustled around to get out from beneath the tent. Poking our heads out the sky was clear and there was 5 -6 inches of snow on the ground. Really a beautiful sight, but then we noticed there were no horses in the picture. This is where you learned that if you want to hobble your horses to graze, you always keep one tied hard and fast.

Luckily for the snow, we picked up their tracks near camp, but they were headed into the timber near where we were camped. Henry called out to move and move fast. They don't need a trail to find their way back down the mountain. Leaving Conrad to get a fire going, we took off at a trot. It is not hard to follow four horses in hobbles in the snow. We caught with them in probably less than a mile, but we were soaked from the snow falling of the trees.

We made it back to camp wet and little frustrated. Conrad had a big fire going and had some what sorted the gear. I think Henry fried up some meat and heated a few canned vegetables. I can't be sure as my spirits were dragging about as low as my butt from our little side trip of chasing horses. Again I told myself, this elk hunting is suppose to be fun .

By dark we had the tent set up, bed rolls laid out, and wet clothes almost dried by the fire. It was about then that I leaned a Coleman lantern does not do much to heat a tent unless you stand up and get your head near the peak. Finally snuggled deep down in my bed roll, warmed, I drifted off to sleep wondering how the rest of the hunt would go.

Friday morning was clear, no hint of snow, but definitely frosty. Out hunt area was not large, so we were in no hurry to saddle up and check out the surrounding country side. Typically breakfast then was scrambled eggs , home fries, and bacon. Bacon was bought in slabs and you sliced of what was needed. Amazingly Happy had packed the eggs and none were broken, although frozen in their shells.

The sun was full up when we finished. We cleaned up the horses, fitted out tack the way we wanted. Henry brought out the maps and showed us where we would be hunting. Most of it was the dark timber that stretched for a mile or so east of camp. North of camp a mile or so was a cliff known as Trail Riders Wall. Not as impressive as the China Wall in NW Colorado, but still about a 1000 foot drop and ran about a mile and a half long. On one end was a narrow trail cut thru the rocks that was about a horse wide. The other end petered out in long meadow and could be ridden down with ease. Along the bottom was a beautiful meadow. Henry explained that the elk came out of the timber and fed in that meadow. We would space ourselves along the top of the wall and shoot down at the elk. We rode down the one trail, followed the base of the wall, then rode up the meadow on the far end. Next we headed toward Truchas Peak to look over that country. Most of the day was spent in the saddle. Enjoying the scenery.

Full of anticipation we crawled into our bed rolls early. Tomorrow hopefully we would find elk.

Saturday morning about five AM was clear and cold. Most of the snow was melted. After hurried breakfast, we saddled up. Henry was constantly gigging us to hurry. All set, we checked the pack horse to make sure it was tied good and off we went. Those slim little Mini Mags were not on the market yet and we made do with the bulky double D size battery flashlights.

We stopped about a quarter mile shy of Trail Riders Wall and tied up. Henry egging us on to hurry. We loaded our rifles and made to the cliff edge. It was a bit after legal shooting hours and we were not quite to the edge when we heard a shot . “Damn” Henry said. Arriving to where we would sit, we looked over and two hunters were standing around a dead bull elk down in the meadow. Henry turned to us and told us that if you wanted to kill elk, you had to be the first one there. Where did I hear that before. I kept that nugget of wisdom in my brain after that and practiced it on every elk hunt.

The remainder of the day was not productive nor the next two or three days. We were seeing elk, but any bulls were spikes running with cows. Several times I caught glimpses of butts, but could not identify the front end. Our talks around the campfire centered on me moving too fast. It took a lot of years for me to slow done enough to start seeing heads instead of butts.

One of the high lights of the week, if I could call it that, was that we had decided to ride into the country below Trail Rider Wall and hunt that timber along the meadow. We arrived early enough and tied the horse in one spot along the meadow, agreeing to meet back at one or two o’clock.
Henry and I met about one, and waited for Conrad. And waited , and waited. Along about four o’clock ,we had heard no shots, so we fired three thinking Conrad was lost. No response. Around five, we fired three more. No Response. By full dark it was too late to hunt for him so we begrudgingly returned to camp. Still a little distance from camp we saw the glow of a pretty good size camp fire. Wondering what the heck, we arrived to find Conrad sitting by the fire. His explanation was he knew where camp was, but not the horses, so he hiked back. He could not understand why we were so worried.

Along about Wednesday, I came back into camp around noon, and a Forest Ranger was there. He had a somber expression his face and I was sure we had done something wrong. He said he was looking for Henry Harrada . He did not want to say too much, but I explained that yes Henry was in our camp, and he was still out hunting. After waiting awhile, he told me he had a death message from Henry’s family and he needed to get back home quickly.

Henry got back in about an hour later and I relayed the message. He immediately saddled up, tied his bedroll on, and left, thinking it was one of his sons. Not being able to wait for all of us to break camp, he yelled as he left camp that he would meet us at the stables come Sunday.

For the remainder of the hunt, we were not very enthusiastic. I saw a few elk, but was more worried about Henry and how I was going to pack all of our gear on that one horse.

Sunday morning, we broke camp and I started to pile things on that one pack horse. About half way thru, there was still a lot of gear on the ground and not much more horse. I tied all that down with knots that I had no clue what they were and piled more gear on. Using the high line rope we used for the horses at night, I thru a tarp over the entire mess and threw more rope at it. The finished product looked like it was three feet higher than the horse’s back. I learned on that trip that anyone can pack going uphill, but it was another story going down the mountain.

Half way down, I looked back and the entire pack was leaning precariously off to one side. Each step of the horse it wobbled a little bit more. I had visions of a runaway horse, gear spread out for a mile. Starting down the last hill to the stables, I spotted Henry’s station wagon, and the pack still held. We rounded the barn and two other horse tied there spooked. The pack horse shied and the entire pack fell off to the side. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good I guess.

Henry explained that the death in the family was his brother. He had been working cattle near his place in Socorro and while riding up an arroyo , rattle snake came off the side of the bank and bit him on the neck. He died before they got him back to the house..

Elk hunts don’t always end up good.
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saddlesore
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Re: My second elk hunt

Postby Lefty » 01 26, 2023 •  [Post 2]

Great stuff!!
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Re: My second elk hunt

Postby Tigger » 01 31, 2023 •  [Post 3]

FANTASTIC! You sure have a talent for storytelling!
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