The year was 1984. I would’ve been in my mid 30s living on a ranch with a wife and two kids. In those days hunting was a huge part of my life and our diet. I was lucky enough to have a friend named Ross, who was just as enthusiastic about hunting as myself. Perhaps even more. In fact, if you’re from the elk Valley, he is quite a local legend around there. A hunters, Hunter, and one of the toughest guys I’ve ever hiked with. We’ve been great friends and outdoor adventurers since we were nine years old.
Ross was single and living up in Elkford, the furthest town up the elk Valley and just by the name of the area and town you know you’re in the right place for hunting elk. In fact, when the season is closed in the spring and summer people often have to chase them off the golf course before they can get to the ninth hole. The road up into this valley and the town itself exist, basically because of the new coal mines that are in these mountains. The town itself had only been created just 10 years earlier. This is truly wild country. Now each mine site had a resident elk heard that has learned all the safe zones and no hunting areas. Often each mine site would be swapping pictures to see who had the biggest bull elk. This is all nestled high in the Rocky Mountains. The town itself being at an elevation of 1,300 meters or 4,300 ft.
Since Ross was living there, he would spend a lot of time scouting and I would meet him, bringing my two horses along aiding in getting us far into the backcountry. But this Hunt was right at the end of elk season in November with plenty of cold and snow. So this time I left the horses at home as we decided to hike for it.
We were way up in the Fording river where Ross’s friend had a trappers cabin, that we would use for our launch point staying three or maybe four nights.
So now we’re even higher into the mountains and as you can imagine, at an elevation of say 6000 feet in November, at the north end of the Rocky Mountains it was cold, damn cold, but we were tough, young and filled with courage tenacity, and sometimes a little tequila. We figured we were invincible.
Our first morning, we woke up to 6 inches of fresh snow on a base of two feet already. Hiking would be tough but we’d certainly be able to track them. I glanced at the thermometer that was nailed to the cabin and it said -20 C, or -4 F, and that’s without the wind chill factor. I dressed warm, and We started our ascent in the pitch black hoping to arrive at the plateau, right at first light. It would be another 2000 foot elevation gain, to the tree line.
Moving up the temperature never gets warmer and as we hiked hard through brush and snow, the exertion keeping our bodies warm, it was easy to forget about the dangerous cold.
We arrived at the plateau, just when we planned, encouraged to see fresh elk sign everywhere. As we studied the tracks, moving more slowly, we started to feel that the temperature had dropped perhaps another 5° with a slight wind we must’ve easily been looking at -30 C or -22 F. Now a funny thing was that Ross and I had both just bought, brand new hunting rifles. The browning BAR semi automatic and our only real concern at the moment was that the action on those rifles would not reload properly in that cold weather. Mine was chambered in 7MM Magnum, and his in 30–06. We had them clean and oiled up, but with blowing snow all around there was still a chance the action could ice up. So we made a plan, we had a strategy that, if and when we seen a legal bull, which would be six point or greater, we would both line up, and fire, one after the other so the second shot would be a quick follow up bullet into the elk.
We followed the tracks a little bit further, and as you know that late in the year, there’s no more bugling. These elk are basically held up high, keeping safe from the hunters, and as the season ends, they will start to move down to where there is much better feed. At this elevation on the plateau, We were already at snow above our knees, which is tough going for the elk having to paw and plow that much snow just to get a mouthful of grass.
We kept tracking, moving slow. This time of year the elk are generally very skittish, having being chased around by hunters and hearing shots for the past two months. These Elk are definitely up here hiding, thinking no person is crazy enough to come up here.
We got lucky and we came across them. There was a bit of a hollow at the top ridge and then a long run going up. Honestly, it looked like a huge natural amphitheater maybe five or 600 yards across.
They were at one end, and we were at the other. Too far for a shot, and I think they had sensed us, for they were starting to move up and not ambling along, they were moving like they were leaving. So we figured, OK our only chance is to get across and then up the next ridge. Because when they crested that amphitheater, it was even more steep and we would never be able to chase them after that. If they got the jump on us, we would never get close enough for a shot. Basically our idea was to cut around and then move up one side without being seen and meet them at the top. We had a bit of cover, but we still had to be stealthy and just as important we had to be fast. So we were running and if you know Ross at all, like most people do in that area, he was an animal. The guy would go and go and go. Nothing could stop this guy and I was hot on his tail. My lungs gasping for air, my legs in pain and my heart, filled with respect for the endurance of my friend and pride, for myself, that I was keeping up to this famous Hunter. Gasping for air at that elevation I thought to myself there’s no way I can make a shot in this condition. As we crested the top of that ridge, to our delight that heard of elk was about 200 yards away as they never even suspected that we were coming up there after them. Deep breath, deep breath, calm down, get your breathing under control. with a small scraggly Alpine tree as a rest I held my sights on a 6 x 6 bull. Ross fired first and there was no reason for me to shoot. No reason for a follow up shot as that elk went straight down. We celebrated, cheering and excited, waiting for the appropriate time to pass before we approach him. The adrenaline that was coursing through our veins now dissipating, the excitement of the chase, now fading as reality started to sink in. It was brutally cold as we approached that elk, and we were really starting to feel it.
A worry for our safety was in my mind, but being the hunters, the meat hunters we were, the thought of just leaving with only the antlers never entered my head. We started gutting that elk, but even with gloves, the cold had frozen our hands and holding a knife was becoming very difficult. As the shakes of hypothermia started setting in, my worry, increased. We had our pack boards on us and our typical Hunt would be too skin and flesh it all out strapping hundreds of pounds of meat to our boards before heading down. To cut up all that meat and fashion it to our boards is a time-consuming process and that was time I was starting to suspect, we didn’t have.
I was a skier as well and had spent lots of time in the Rocky Mountains skiing down the steepest of slopes. Speaking of steep slopes, we were right beside an avalanche shoot, that went pretty much right to the bottom plateau where the cabin was close to. I got to thinking, maybe if we sit on that elk, like a toboggan, holding its horns back so they don’t dig in. We just might be able to ride that sucker all the way down. Well, Ross thought that was a good idea and was willing to give it a try but first we had to finish gutting this big elk. By now we were aware of the danger, and thinking we had pushed it too far, and there was a good chance of our own demise or frozen digits. Like I said, with hands so cold, we couldn’t hold our knifes and the shakes of hypothermia setting in as we were pulling the guts out. Steam from the warmth of the body and guts rose from the elk and another idea hit my mind. I crawled right inside that Elks body cavity and I’ll be darned if it didn’t warm me up quite a bit. When I crawled out the shaking had stopped and Ross, went in to take his turn inside the warm corpse. To this day, I believe that, that idea saved our lives. No I didn’t get the idea from Han Solo in the Empire strikes back, but everyone always mentions that.
Feeling slightly better, and still not wanting to give up on our meat, It was time for the toboggan idea. We strapped our guns onto our pack boards. Both jumped a top that giant elk with each of us, pulling back on an antler to keep the head from digging into the snow. The hair on an elk is pretty darn slippery against that snow, and as we pushed off from the top of the ridge into the slide shoot, we were surprised on how fast we gained speed. I’d like to say it was an enjoyable and fun ride down, but it was not, the odd tree and rock lay in our way, and we managed to hit every single one sending both Ross and I flying through the air and rolling down the mountain. As I climbed back up to the Elk, I thought to myself I must’ve wrecked the scope on my gun for sure. On top its massive body we would climb again, pulling back on the head and pushing off with one leg to get us started on our toboggan of death, plummeting down a near vertical snow slide. Thank God it was early in the season and we didn’t cause an avalanche.
We finally made it all the way to the bottom. From there it was only about a half an hour skid to hit the road, where we could walk back to the cabin and get the truck. Still lots of work to be done as we had to chain up the truck to plough through all the snow and retrieve the elk back to the cabin. Now You might have thoughts in your mind of a beautiful log house at the bottom of an alpine bowl. This was not that! it was the ugliest, little, old, rustic cabin crammed into a patch of bush. Three of the four walls you could see right through. But as was our style back in those days, a couple of shots of tequila made us feel warm as we jumped in the truck and attempted to navigate up the unploughed old road. We cranked the heater in that truck and the warmth that came from those vents was worth $1 million in my mind. We made it back to that little crappy cabin, just as it was getting dark and luckily it had a woodstove and a good supply of firewood. That fire and a few more nips of tequila kept us warm until morning when we headed back to town. Happy to be alive. In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have taken that shot and luckily both of us made it down with our lives and all our fingers and toes. I thank God the outcome wasn’t any different, and we had a great story to tell
