The Great Fail

                                                               First camp sight!

Our epic hunting trip was indeed awesome, but we came up empty handed.  Three elk licenses, four days hunting, and we only saw one elk!  I had the one and only chance to shoot a cow elk, but it became aware of me and took off running through the thick woods.  It didn't feel right trying to shoot an animal that may have only ended up injured.  For one, tracking an 800 + pound elk that can potentially run for hours just didn't seem realistic.  Making an elk suffer more than it already would is unethical.

My buddies and I had some mild weather in the 60'F during the days and then damn near freezing nights, to be exact 10'F at night. Its hard to get motivated at 4:30am when its cold, but we were up at the crack of dawn everyday we were up and ready to go when the DOW timetable for legal hunting hours began.  

This kind of trip seems borderline crazy, considering that this was my first time hunting.  But it seems to me that if you don't go out into the deep woods to hunt, then its not worth it.  The first spot that we camped at was miles back by Aspen, Colorado and amazing.  My father-in-law, brother-in-law, buddy and I hiked all over the woods trying to find some evidence that elk were in the area. We all worked hard, but with no luck. By the end of the trip I can say that I hiked between 20 to 30 miles!

These photos were taken by my brother-in-law, Kyle Georgic

For a first time out hunting I can say that it was still worth every minute.  The spots that we camped were gorgeous and I would have never known about these areas had I not gone on this trip.  I learned how to track and identify all the animals in the surrounding area.  I got back some stamina from the long trying hours we spent looking for this beautiful animal. It looks like I'm going to be using the grocery store for sometime more.  In the end, I had a great time with my family and good friend, so the great fail wasn't all that bad!