by Bob Johansen, February 15, 2011

THE SEEMINGLY ALMOST HUMAN LIKE INTELLIGENCE OF THE SPIKE BULL ELK, THE BEAUTIFUL, REMOTE SNOW COVERED FOREST AND THE LONG BACKPACK MADE THIS HUNT HARD TO FORGET.

The morning was dark and damp from recent rains and the chill of fall hung in the air as we loaded our gear into the station wagon. It was about 2:00 AM and my hunting partner had just finished working the second shift at The Boeing Company. Hunting trips seemed to eliminate his need for sleep.

My hunting partner for this weekend was Gary Lloyd who had hunted with me on several previous occasions including a successful antelope trip about a month before. Our planned elk hunting area was up the Little Naches River Road, near Bear Creek on the eastern slopes of Washington's Cascade Range. Two previous weekends of elk hunting in Western Washington had left our elk tags un-notched.

After loading our gear and checking again to insure that we had loaded all the essentials for the hunt, we were soon on our way. The route to our high Cascade hunting area took us up and over the beautiful, snowy -- and very slippery Chinook Pass Highway.

We passed an unfortunate hunter who had just bagged a fat, forked horn buck with his panel truck. Deer season had been closed for two weeks and his panel truck, with water streaming from its radiator, was out of commission. We stopped and offered aid but the hunter said he expected his partner to be along shortly.

As we continued up the pass, the highway became very slick with ice and fresh snow. It was time to chain up. We pulled off the road near a well-lit sign and the chain-up operation went quickly and smoothly. The rest of the trip over the steep pass went quite slow but we still arrived at our destination, just off the Little Naches Road, near Bear Creek just before dawn. This was as far as we could drive. The rest of the trip would be on foot carrying packboards.

Our strong, military packboards had been prepacked into neat, well-lashed, weatherproof bundles containing sleeping bags, food, extra clothes and all necessary hunting gear. After pulling on insulated boots and heavy jackets, we slipped into our packs, picked up our rifles and took off into the dusky dawn, up the Bear Creek Trail.

About a mile up the trail, we stopped at a hunting shelter, a rough "A" frame cabin, that Lloyd and some friends and built a few years before. This would be our camp for the weekend and we would share it with two of Lloyd's friends that had been there all week. The coffee pot was steaming on the wood stove as we arrived -- And as soon as we unloaded our packs, we joined "Austin" and "Bob" with a cup of very hot and very strong coffee.

"How's the hunting been," we wanted to know?

"It's a packing day for me," said Austin, "I got a nice two point bull yesterday. I'm glad I brought my horse. The elk is about 5 miles back, up on Blowout Ridge."

Bob had seen a couple bulls but had been unable to bag one so far.

After warming up and discussing hunting strategy for a few minutes, Lloyd and I
picked up our rifles and continued up the Bear Creek Trail. The scenery was beautiful with about a foot of new snow on the trail and trees. This was my first hunt in this area. We had traveled quite a ways when I noticed a "three mile" marker nailed to a tree.

"How far back are we going before we get serious about doing a little hunting," I wanted to know?

"About twice this far," Lloyd said.

"It'll sure be a long backpack if we kill one," I said

"That's the advantage of having a friend with a horse in camp," he smiled. "If we do get one back there, I'm sure that Austin will give us a little help with his horse."

At a fork in the trail, nearly 5 miles from the Little Naches Road, we split up with a plan to meet later at a saddle on top of the big ridge rising steeply between the trails.

It was a tough, slow climb up the side of the ridge. The snow was about a foot deep; the side of the ridge was very steep and covered with down fall and old logs.

It took about an hour to reach the top of the ridge. I was a little tired and decided to look around for a place to sit and rest for a few minutes. As I looked around for a good place to sit, I suddenly spotted an elk standing motionless about a hundred yards off through fairly open timber. I was no longer tired!

Flopping prone into the powdery snow, I brought the cross hairs of the four power Lyman "All American" scope onto the big front shoulder of the elk. The entire elk was visible in the scope -- except the head, which was hidden behind a snow laden fir tree limb. My heart pounded with excitement as I waited for the elk to move a little and expose his head.

The minutes ticked by. Would he ever move? Suddenly he did. There they were; the horns (antlers) I had been hoping to see.

Shucks! Too late! All I could see now was the hindquarters. He had stopped again. I moved the scope slightly ahead in the direction he had moved. Surely he'll cross the next opening between those trees.

The seconds ticked by. And then, he slowly started to move again. The hindquarters disappeared but he didn't cross the next opening.

Sharp disappointment flooded through me as I lay there in the snow. The elk was gone and I hadn't even gotten a shot. Well, he wasn't spooked -- maybe I can track him and get another chance.

Slowly I started to move over to where the elk had been.

"Darn!! This snow sure makes a lot of noise," I thought as I tried to "pussy-foot” through it.

There they were, the big fresh tracks leading straight away from the direction where I had been laying in the snow. He must have seen me.

Slowly, and as quietly as possible, I followed the fresh tracks through the deep snow. My eyes searched eagerly through the snow-laden timber for a glimpse of my quarry.

After following the tracks for quite a while, I came to the first "puzzle" the shrewd young bull had designed especially for me. As he crossed another elk track, he turned abruptly and followed it a short distance. He then doubled back and laid out a "star" like pattern of false trails. Upon completion of the puzzle, he had jumped over a fairly large bush, straight down the hill and went on his way.

As I was attempting to unscramble the puzzle, my hunting partner over took me from the back trail.

"What the heck are you doing,?" he wanted to know.

"I was tracking a bull but right now I'm trying to figure out which direction he really went," I explained.

After a few minutes, I found where the bull had left the puzzle. If his foot hadn't disturbed the snow, just a bit, as he jumped over the bush, I may never have been able to pick up his trail. I told Lloyd I wanted to keep after him for a while longer.

"O.K.," he said, "I'm going on up the hill. See you this afternoon."

For the next half hour, the bull led me down along the steep hillside and into some heavy timber. The snow made tracking quite easy but it was very difficult to move along quietly. To add to the challenge, the elk had laid out a couple more snow puzzles. I was in the process of unscrambling puzzle, number three, when I heard a twig snap on the hillside above me.

I whirled around. There he was!! Moving out at top speed. As the rifle hit my shoulder, I caught a quick glimpse of horns, reassuring me it was my bull. The cross hairs of the All American centered instantly on the big rib cage of the disappearing bull.

"KA-CHUNK," came the short, snow muffled report as the .270 sent 130 grains of hot, "hand loaded for antelope" lead streaking toward its target

The bull, acting as if the shot was a clean miss, was out of sight in a fraction of a second as he crashed through the trees. From twig snap, until he was out of sight must have been no more than 2 or 3 seconds.

Slowly, I removed the spent shell from the rifle, put the empty brass in my shirt pocket and replaced it with a fresh load. There was no need to hurry now. If I hit him, he would soon die. If I missed, I could never catch him again anyway.

Carefully, I made my way up the hill to where I had last seen the elk. It was no miss!! The long streak of blood, splattered on the snow, indicated he had been hit hard. Every jump, on the desperate escape trail, left big crimson splotches on the clean, white snow.

Slowly, I began to track the wounded bull. The trail led down hill -- typical for a badly wounded animal.

I had followed the blood trail for only a couple hundred yards, when, much to my
surprise, I spotted my hunting partner. I thought that he was probably high up the hill and
hadn't heard the shot. Lying near him was a dead elk with its head twisted in the snow.
"What happened,?" Lloyd asked in a puzzled voice.

I was speechless as I stared at the fallen elk. His 16 1/2 inch spike horns were almost completely buried in the snow. From my position, higher on the hill, I couldn't even see them.

"Good grief," I thought, "Did I shoot a cow?" I had been absolutely sure I had seen horns, but the elk was in heavy, dark timber when I shot and now I was wondering if it was possible that I had made a very serious mistake.

As I walked down the hill, I spotted the horns and Lloyds perplexed frown broke
into a wide grin.

"Congratulations," he said, holding out his hand, "That's good shooting."

The bull had died running. When I found him, he was stone dead -- piled up in a lifeless heap in the deep snow. It was easy to see that he had not moved after he fell. The bullet had entered the rib cage, just behind the shoulder, passed through the lungs and hit a rib on the far side before exiting.

I was pleased that the fine animal had not suffered. He had died long before the shock of the bullet had worn off and before pain could set in. He was also spared the fear of the approaching hunter as he lay mortally wounded. I thought of the hunters prayer. "Please Lord, Let me kill clean -- or let me miss clean."

Still amazed, but very pleased at seeing my hunting partner, I asked, "How in the world did you ever hear that muffled shot? I could hardly hear it myself."

"It wasn't very loud," Lloyd admitted, "but I knew it was you and figured I'd better
come back and check."

We tied the elk to a small tree to prevent it from sliding down the steep hillside.
I removed my jacket, rolled up my sleeves and began gutting the bull. Lloyd was busy
building a fire so we could warm up a bit.

With the elk gutted and propped open to cool, we warmed our hands near the fire
and planned what we would do next. We decided to drag the elk, in one piece, to a
sheltered area at the bottom of the hill near the Bear Creek Trail. There, we planned to
skin the elk, cut him in half and hang the meat on a pole fastened between two trees. We
would then cover the meat with a plastic sheet and return the next morning and carry it
out on Austin's horse. We would carry the head, heart and liver out with us that afternoon.

Dragging the elk down the steep slope was quite an experience for me, and an entertaining show for Lloyd. The hill was so steep and the snow so slick, it was more a matter of trying to guide the elk instead of dragging him. Lloyd carried both rifles -- I took the bull. Part of the time, I was dragging the elk, part of the time he was dragging me but the part Lloyd enjoyed most was when I was inadvertently riding the elk at full speed down a steep slope, out of control, until we would crash into a tree or log. The elk would stop and I would go flying down the hill.

Skinning, halving and hanging the elk on a pole went smoothly and we got back to the cabin just before dark. About an hour later, Austin and his partner returned. Lloyd and I had a warm fire going in the stove and the cabin was quite comfortable.

Austin had successfully carried his elk out on his horse during the day while his partner hunted. Later on, during the evening, Lloyd asked Austin if he would help with our elk.

"We can't do it," Austin said, "We're planning to leave pretty early in the morning.
Besides, a couple young guys like you shouldn't have any problem packing it out."

"It's at least 4 1/2 to 5 miles back," Lloyd reminded him as disappointment flooded through us.

"Sorry," Austin said, "We're leaving early."

Lloyd and I figured we could possibly make one packboard trip in a day -- but two round trips would be nearly 20 miles, half of which would be negotiated under the weight of a quarter of bull elk. Covering 20 miles of slick, snow covered mountain trails in only one day loomed as a formidable, if not impossible task. We both worked at "white collar" jobs at the Boeing Company that offered little to benefit physical fitness. Fortunately, we had spent several previous weekends in the hills and were probably in better physical condition than we had been since last hunting season

The elk must come out tomorrow -- horse or no horse. The next day was Sunday and I had to be back on the job Monday morning. As we rolled up in our sleeping bags that night, we tried to condition our minds for the long, strenuous backpack.

Early Sunday morning, about an hour before daylight, we headed up the trail carrying only our packboards, hunting knives and a small hatchet. The trip back to the elk was great. We were fresh from a good night's sleep, the cold mountain air was exhilarating and the total silence of the snow-draped landscape was near perfect.

We cut the elk halves into quarters and lashed the hindquarters onto our backboards. If, for any reason, we were unable to make the second trip, we wanted to take the best quarters out first. After slipping into our packs, we hiked non-stop back to the shelter where we stopped for a well deserved rest.

We ate our lunch from a can (beans) and washed it down from another can (a malt beverage). Then we lashed our sleeping bags and the rest of our gear to the packboards, on top of the elk quarters. We picked up our rifles and took off again, non-stop, to the station wagon parked out on the Little Naches Road about a mile away.

It was about noon as we dropped our packs onto the station wagon tailgate. We were tired but after unlashing our loads and drinking a 16 ouncer, we headed back up the trail.

Although the front quarters seemed to be quite a bit heavier than the hinds, I think
it was the mileage beginning to take its toll. The second trip out was a little slower than
the first and it was nearly dark by the time we reached the station wagon.

The long backpack was over and I was suddenly very tired. I vowed that next time I hunted that far back, I would either have a horse at my disposal, or have more than one day to make the pack out.

Well, -- maybe I'd hunt that far back again if I had a good hunting partner that was
willing to pack like a horse -- and I'd bet he'd do it again too.

Later, some packages of frozen, wrapped elk steaks were delivered to Lloyd with captions on the wrapping paper -- captions like, “killed way back,” and “not tainted by horse sweat,” “tenderized by long back pack” and etc.

I made and presented Lloyd with a special, hand made back packing trophy -- a small model of our packboards with a little, painted, wooden elk hind quarter lashed to it. The attached brass plaque was engraved, "Worlds greatest back packer." It was a small token of appreciation for a job well done.



Bear Creek Bull: Photo by Gary Lloyd

Authors Note: This is not a trophy elk hunting story and it happened a long time ago. The nice bull elk was only a spike but a couple things remain strong in my memory. One was the seemingly almost human like intelligence of the elk and the other was the incredible beauty of nature in the snow covered remote area of the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington State.

It was also one of my longest, most challenging back packs in more than 50 years of hunting and probably one of the best and fastest shots in my hunting career. I had hand loaded ammunition and shot many rounds through my Remington .270 that year in preparation for an antelope trip to Wyoming. I had also practiced "quick draw" with my rifle in the woods. (Sans actual firing, of course.) I would throw the rifle to my shoulder and see how fast I could get the cross hairs on a squirrel running down a log or a bird in flight. All that practice and familiarity with my firearm paid off on this hunt. I'm quite sure that there was no more than 2 or 3 seconds from the time I heard a twig snap until the elk was out of sight.


Written by: Bob Johansen - 1968