re: Missing elk hunters in Col

I've never been worried about those.

Mostly, just the moose and the meth heads. Have been really close to both, and had to draw on some dogs once, almost froze to death, had a fox steal my sammich out of my hand, bout slid the truck off a cliff, spent 2 days huffing oxygen in a hotel room in my drawers watching trailer park Boys while my buddies were out hunting...

Colorados a rough place.

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Hunters were found, unfortunately deceased.

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Have they said what the cause was ?

You would think if two young fit men were taken out it must have been a flash flood or something that caught them off guard.

Sad Either Way

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Are there grizzlies around that area?

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Not at all. And the black bears around there are mostly pussies who are more scared of you for some silly reason. They aren’t very big. We’ve come across some with her cubs and they still were the ones to flee first. They seem to want no part of human interaction in that area.

The best I can think of is they were too scared to make it back across a river and decided to stay the night, not yet cold enough to force there way off the mountain and by the time they realized they had to get off it was too dark and harder to cross the river at that point and they were stuck, and then froze to death that night.

Know quite a few westerners and they have told me they would rather run up on a mountain lion woth cubs or a grizzly with cubs than a moose with a calf. Colorado just reintroduced wolves as well. Not saying it was an animal attack but that would be a hell of a note

Likely like someone was saying they thought they were gonna make a quick trek and left some stuff behind and the weather got bad. Temp can drop 50 degrees in minutes up there and add some precipitation and hypothermia kicks in quick in which your decision making abilities go to crap

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Always wear wool. It insulates when wet,

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nothing insulates when it's wet. wet merino is still cold.

all i have is merino wool when i'm out there.
I had a rain jacket on as well the whole day. I was still freezing cold, and this was at 3pm on that Friday they went missing.


You aren't starting a fire with flint and steel in those conditions. you need a lighter, somethign with a constant flame. you do your best to find as much dry pieces of wood and get your fire started that way. You look under the big pines b/c they do a great job of keeping things under them dry. Even then, i think it would have been extremely hard to find enough dry pieces to get a fire started after it had been raining for over 24 hours.

For me, I always have a dry sack in my backpack when i go out hunting. It has my merino quarter zip and long johns in them, my headlamp, and a lighter. I always have a small sawyer filter in my backpack as well, and i typically always go out with at least 5L of clean water, a small med pack, and a rain jacket. I quit wearing rain pants as it feels like all that does it make my legs sweat, and if its just a quick shower, you can stay dry for the most part under a tree and my pants dry quick anyway if they get a little wet.

Is a ferro rod considered the same as flint?

That sucks. The outdoors can be dangerous and unpredictable. Stay diligent my friends

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specially in this case where they left most of their gear back at the truck

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That is my biggest question. Why not bring your packs?

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Rio De Los Pinos Trailhead is at 11,700 fee

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Oof. That's up there. By all accounts these guys were fit and experienced backcountry hunters so it isn't surprising that they would have left the trailhead light to try to be fast.

Exposure in bad weather at that altitude is a killer fa sho