Virtual Elk Hunt

Unit 9

September 26, 2009

Final Weekend

The sun is relentless this time of year. The angles at which it rises and sets can be blinding. This final weekend of archery season was warm and dry. The weather was too warm and too dry to get the elk moving. That can slow down the tempo of the rut just as much as a heavy snow storm.

We were invited to ride horses in Unit 9. What? Unit 9 isn’t elk country! However, Red Mountain open space offers thousands of acres for hikers, mountain bikers and horsemen to roam. If you really want to get away from the crowds this is where you want to be. For anyone familiar with the Unit you might ask why? There are no elk in Unit 9 this time of year, right? Well, not so fast. Remember that cold front that pushed through last week? Well it had an affect on elk. For those few elk in Unit 9 it was enough to get the moving alright. Unit 9 is typical wintering grounds for elk. Hay ranchers dot the landscape growing lush alfalfa hay. No elk can resist alfalfa. Large tracts of private land surrounded by national forest skew the boundaries. State Trust Lands are always your best bet in areas like this. The land is void of most trees except along creeks where Juniper and Oaks grow. The higher up in elevation you go the more trees start to grow. This where prairie meets high desert. Where oak brush and scrub oak grow. Where buffalo grass and prairie grass grows. Ranchers have an elaborate array of water tanks pumping up water from below into filtered make-shift water tanks made up of aluminum and large tractor tires. Most river beds are dry but if you look hard you can find water. And where there is water there is life. Birds, coyotes, deer, and yes, even elk.

We rode for six hours from Colorado to Wyoming and back. Am I sore! It hurts to sit and it hurts to stand. High atop my ride, a Percheron-Thoroughbred mix I could see antler sheds from deer, old bones from cattle and deer and elk tracks and scat right in our trail. A small herd roams the 287 corridor between Fort Collins, Colorado and Laramie, Wyoming. In this group I observed about a half dozen elk that left tracks behind. Telling a story of how they were pushed lower by harsh weather and a cold front from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains overlooking the Great Plains. I imagined their route that took them along the Cheyenne Rim from higher terrain and the safety of trees to lower oak brush and wide open spaces. The elk used to roam to the prairie a long time ago. Until the fur trade nearly wiped out the great elk herd. After that the elk were pushed into the mountains into the most rugged areas where they had a better chance to survive. It was unusual to see elk sign in such a dry, parched land. But I am reminded that elk are incredibly adaptive. Even if generations of elk learned to live in the mountains, some still remember their legacy on the Great Plains. Elk continue to adapt to pressure, roads, human expansion and progress. More and more they are becoming like their White-tailed cousins. Deer live most of their lives in small stands of trees between farmer’s lands. Big bucks roam at night through crops from one stand of trees to another.

You can see the Mummy Range off to the right in the background covered in new snow. We could also see Long’s Peak from here. We snaked our way through the dry river bed through the red hills in the photo.

We arrived in Wonderful Wyoming at last. Where are all the antelope? We followed the rim through a couple of gates before returning to Colorado. And much to my surprise we saw winter elk scat. The cheap batteries I bought didn’t last long in the camera which is why I didn’t get photos of the scat and tracks.

As we teetered on the rim in a small cove of the prairie where the wind blew up and over the rim we found a lot of winter elk scat. In the shadow of the wind it appeared they grazed and bedded on the short buffalo grass. Small herds of elk like this are easy to miss. And that’s exactly why I’m sure they do that.

We found few trees in this dry, windy environment. In the background you can see some pine growing on a north facing slope. This is typical deer country. Big bucks will often bed in the shade of cliff or rock outcropping. Much to my surprise we didn’t see any deer or antelope.

Watanga Lake was as good as it was going to get for me this year. My busy schedule and the huge effort it takes to get up to where the elk are will always be a handicap for me. By time I have enough time I’ll be too old to hike those lofty haunts near some patch of timberline in the Colorado Wilderness. Until then I’ll continue to chip away and learn.

We hope you enjoyed the photos and the stories. We found elk sign and sometimes elk in every adventure. More often than not the elk gave us the slip. Sometimes we were within minutes of seeing elk, other times we missed them by a day or four. You need to spend enough time in elk country to find the elk. And sometimes you need to time your visit with the peak of the rut. In 2009 that’ll be the during the full moon phase which mostly falls in early October. And even then the elk will mostly rut hardest at night. When the temperatures are cool and there is enough light for them to see well. We hope you can get out during this time to scout or just listen. Roam the back roads during the full moon either on bike, horseback or some other quiet vehicle. Listen for the elk frenzy that occurs during a short period during the peak. That’s when the elk are most competitive and the herd bull changes often. That’s when the biggest bulls on the mountain will be out competing for the right to breed. This is the most important time for elk. It will determine the future of the herd.