DIY Public Land Colorado Elk Hunt

TLDR: I’m completely unprepared for a hunting trip that was very haphazardly thrown together and planned. Most likely will just walk in circles until my chest blows up and die. But I’m stoked and can’t wait.

So as the name suggests I’m a glutton for things that are going to be miserable but awesome at the same time.

I’ve watched all the shows and seen all the guys do it and always said damn I’d love to do that but was always turned off by all the naysaying that you find on forums about how you’ll never shoot an elk in anything but a unit that takes ten years to draw and has a hunter population of 2 guys per five square miles.


Well my good buddy moved to Colorado last year and we half joking said hey we are going to make a hunt next year. We are the kinda buddies that check up on each other once every other month or so and every time we would talk as if we were really going on this hunt. Well the more and more we half arse piddled about it the more and more we actually put small pieces of the puzzle together. Eventually we figured out the leftover tag drawing system and said screw it we will split the cost of a cow elk tag and flip heads for whose name is going on the tag. Didn’t think we needed to buy two tags since the odds of us filling is 15% and that’s if you know what you are doing.

The limited leftover drawing day comes around and we are both at work feverishly typing in information to be ready as soon as the clock turns over to 9am So that we can secure a tag in the unit and season we wanted. 9 o’clock turns over and my buddy is in but the system booted him back out and gave him a que, This whole process gave me flashbacks to lsu.edu and the shitshow that was trying to get the classes scheduled that you wanted. Well ten stressful minutes later and we have a cow elk tag for first season rifle in unit 16 and 161.

Now all of a sudden this trip is very real. $200 round trip ticket and half a cow elk tag later I’m apparently going to hunt in Colorado’s medicine bow route national forest.

Between work and life I have been able to do what is seemingly the bare minimum for this trip. Got new hiking boots broken in hiking the nearest retention pond levee I could find in Houston with my pack filled up with 40 pounds of dumbells. A few half hearted attempts at running. Needless to say I’m in peak condition for hiking at 9000 feet....


I’ve spent the last two weekends gathering all my old camping gear from when I hiked philmont, and made a decent pack which consists of a conglomeration of crap that is probably going to end up getting left at the truck when I realize how much utter shite I have.


I fly out Wednesday morning and get into Denver early morning which leaves us all day to go through each others packs and make any last minute purchases at REI. Thursday morning we are going to hop in my buddies truck and begin the ascent into the mountains. We plan to hike in about 3-4 miles from the trail head to set up our first base camp. Hopefully leaving us a few hours to do a little scouting. Friday gets to be an entire day devoted to scouting out the area before the season opens on Saturday.


It looks like we can expect a little snow / rainstorm on Saturday which I fully expect to make me miserably cold. But Saturday is game on and we plan to atleast travel a few miles in each direction. If by Sunday we don’t like the area we will pack out and reposition two ridges over which will probably give us a little more seclusion. We plan to hunt every day of the season until it closes on Wednesday and pack up camp and head out Thursday.

This is defintiely going to be the longest I’ve been camped since highschool but I’m stoked about the possibilities that lie ahead of this trip. If we don’t even see an elk this is still going to be an amazing trip and a much better week and half spent than at work.

Wish me luck and hopefully I’ll survive to chronicle my trip here after.