Flatlander here!

[mandrroofing]

Here in Central ohio its pretty darn Flat and rarely ever need a topo. That being said for whitetails i look for funnels like timber choke points,fence lines and so forth for funnel the deer.From what i can tell on the topo map this looks like a bench of sorts that has a nice size meadow to the north end.i have noticed that there are not a lot of area like this in the surrounding area.its pretty darn steep.i can not scout by foot,Is this an area that i should pay attention to?Im just trying to get better at finding these area on topo maps to make myself more of an eficient elk hunter.BTW this is not a north facing slope and ill be there the last week of sep. in colorado.40 foot contour lines

[westaner]

Scout the water below the bench for the head waters ,maybe wallows. looks like a deep dark timber where your black case is laying on the map .google earth also helps give perspective . Also use the sun feature letting you see where shadows are durring the hottest part of the day for each month. Let's you see were grass grows the best out of the burning sun!

[Trophyhill]

if those creeks have water then I would pay particular close attention to that area. has everything I like.

[Indian Summer]

I can tell you a few things just by glimpsing that little section. First yes that is the kind of place you are looking for. And yes that water on the left is good but I'd start looking above it for seeps and wallows that surface first.

But an elk "place" is a big picture. A lesson in geography will show that your place is much bigger. Benches will usually continue at the same elevation and that's a good route. That bench runs from about 10,400 ft to 10,600. If you look on the top right corner you'll see that the bench continued on the other side of that finger ridge and there is water is just a bit higher in elevation. I'm sure it keeps going too. You might run into skinny spots in the benches but overall they'll run for long ways at the same elevation and when you can find a saddle that drops to the same elevation as that you'll have a bottleneck worth adding to your milk run.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that while there's a good chance that & the other south facing white areas are meadows there's always a chance they are rock. Those are the kind of things you go look for on Google Earth or similar programs with satellite images.

Just the fact that you are staring at maps says you're on the right track.

[>>>---WW---->]

You sure know how to pick the vertical stuff. LOL! The bench area looks like a good bedding area. They can see and possibly smell everything that comes up the trail below on the map. There is also another nice little bench just above the word (meadow) on your map. Just from the steepness of the area, I'm guessing that most of the white areas on your map are either rock faces or boulder fields.

That is some might steep country you are looking at. But it might be worth a shot if there is a reasonable access and especially if you can hear a bull talking up there.

[Birks]

One thing that i like to do when scouting is use the 3D maps on my phone, because you can now see the lay of the land.

[WapitiTalk1]

I'm not a CO guy but I wouldn't discount the areas I've marked with the black stars... The N and NE facing spots marked may be worth a look after the elk leave the feeding areas and seek a somewhat (or significantly) cooler environment to bed. I'm assuming the access trail is the one of the W side of the map going up the draw bottom. If there is a way you can start to contour and get up on that ridge above the meadow, starting from a lower elevation, that will save you some sweat for sure. Busting up from the bottom is gonna be a tough haul, particularly if there is brush involved. As IS and Trophy mentioned, the head end of those draws may have seeps and wallows. The elk may or may not be using the wallows that late in the rut but possibly. They will for certain be using water sources so they're worth the effort to check out. Can't really tell what the lay of the land is from a topo/terrain map (vegetation, timbered, burns, rocks, etc. like you can see on a SAT image) but again, don't discount the N and particularly the NE areas for bedding. If you spend some time on that ridge top, you should see where they move back and forth, and, most likely get some responses to your location bugles. Just some late night rambling. Best of luck to you in your SEPT adventure...

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