Elk's In the Freezer, Let's go Skiin'

[Warning to sensitive readers: this post includes the photograph of a dead elk.]

An hour into the light of a new day. I heard the wings of a Wolf-bird slice the cold morning air and as Raven flew past it quorked a brief message: "This way." I followed and at mid-morning cut the tracks of a band of Elk People that had fed along the edges of a park. Tracking the elk toward the north facing bench where they be, I was not ready the first time. In fact, I was just photographing this track of a cow elk and its calf:

When I looked up, surprised elk plunged into the black timber below. I had not expected them to bed so high up on the ridge edge. I barked a cow call as they bolted. Sure enough, as I learned tracking them into the dense fir and thick deadfall, they ceased their panic and halted to look back after just a few hundred yards. Within a mile, they bedded again. This time I was ready, moving slowly, quiet wool & fleece from head to toe, glassing carefully every few steps. Soon I spotted a flicking ear and then the blond shadows. Less than 100 feet away, a nervous cow stood up from her bed and I shot once:

Raven croaked a happy note, but they are wary of us Human People and would wait to feed on the carcass until after I left. The Wisakedjak People ("Whiskey Jack," or Gray Jay) are much less timid, and I could hear their joyous, raspy calls before I had my daypack off. They cheered me on as I field dressed the carcass, and I rewarded them with some choice belly fat ("suet") from the kidney area:

The mating pair worked together cutting off slices to be cached -- they have a special, sticky saliva -- in hiding places around their small territory:

Meanwhile, I worked on splitting the carcass into two halves that could be dragged easily a mile or two to the nearest road (I'll return with help for this):

And laying out the heart, liver, tenderloins, and backstraps to cool before packing with me on the long hike back to the truck:

Each elk half I dragged away from the kill site and covered with fir branches to keep my Wisakedjak and Raven friends from stealing meat (Hopefully the wolves won't bother it before I return!):

On the 3 or 4 mile trek back (the last mile in the dark, using my headlamp) to where I had parked that morning, laboring up and over a steep ridge with 40 pounds of meat and gear in my pack, I thought about Bernard Dutka. My grandfather's friend and my hunting/fishing mentor, Bernie was about my age when he took me on as his outdoors apprentice. He guided me to the first whitetail buck I killed (I was 12), and in later years he liked to laugh & remind me of how long it took me to aim & fire the little .308 Sako rifle--the same rifle I carry today. Bernie was a crack shot, and I vividly recall him shooting a nice buck that leaped from its bed as we stalked through a slash-strewn clearcut in Wolf Run near Bradford, Pennsylvania. I need to call A.J., and take him elk hunting this weekend.

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This cow elk was taken from the Beaverhead National Forest on the Big Hole River side of the Continental Divide south of Butte, Montana.