Colorado 2020 was quite the adventure. Three of us left Michigan Wednesday morning for a 24 hour straight thru trip to southwest Colorado for 3rd rifle season. Myself and a friend held Mule deer tags we'd draw and all of us were planning on buying over the counter elk tags. We'd be hunting public land on a do it yourself trip. It would be my fifth trip, "John's" sixth trip, and "Sean's" third trip to the same general area. The drive went well and we arrived in town early morning, we grabbed the last of our grocery list, tags, and made our way up the mountain. We planned on camping fairly high and hunting in a migration route like we've done in the past. The weather was calling for a good amount of snow, we had prepared for that, and were willing to move camp quickly if needed. All went well Thursday and Friday.




Opening morning came and so began the snow. We'd planned to hit a trailhead up the road further together just before first light, then fan out working our way to the top by late morning and coming up with a plan from there based on what we'd seen and previous experience hunting this mountain. About an hour into my hunt I ran into a mess of deadfall and started to sidehill to the next ridge. We'd gotten about 3" of snow so far. As I'm working across trying to be as stealthy as possible I hear a stick break below me. I've got one hand on the ground keeping myself upright, and turn my head to see elk! One cow and one butt, in a flash gone. I make my way over to their tracks finding one bull track with four to six cows. Perfect, it's opening morning, I've got idea tracking snow, I'm on a fresh bull track here we go. I begin to track the group, I'm on the left edge of the three of us and they're headed right to the guy in the middle. After a bit their tracks turn back to a walking stride and I slow down even more scanning in front of me every couple of steps. Suddenly, BOOM, that has got to be Sean! I get ahold of him, sure enough he got busted by the lead cow but was able to identify a legal bull and get a shot off, but he's unsure of the shot. I tell him I'm not far and will continue to follow the tracks to his location. By now it's snowing heavily, big white flakes, and the tracks I'm following are already getting snowed in. I hit fresher running tracks and suddenly see blood. Get ahold of Sean again, he doesn't have blood at the shot sight and is back to the originally shooting position. I tell him I'll wait for him, but to hurry because the snow is already covering the blood. He comes over and we begin tracking, kicking the top layer of snow to expose the blood trail 1/2" underneath the top. Suddenly he yells, "Bull down, Bull down!" We rush down and find a skinny, tall, unique looking 4x4. We take some pictures and get to work breaking him down. John makes his way back down to us after following a buck around. We enjoy some lunch, make a campfire, and take some more pictures together. Our first ever opening day bull down before 9am.





John and I hunted our way back down to the road hoping to find a deer. Sean worked to get the meat off the steep part of the mountain throughout the rest of the day. What he didn't bring out he stashed for the next day about a mile in. We all arrived back to the truck around dark fairly wet from the snow falling all day so we decided to leave the meat since Sean was now tagged out and would have all week to get it out..

Sunday morning about 1am we all woke up to massive wind gusts. Our tarp over our tent was shredded, and we went outside to cut it off so it didn't act as a wind catch. Our stove pipe had blown over. There were over 50mph gusts that night and we could feel the tent lifting up. We packed all our personal stuff preparing to make a dash to the truck and trailer should the tent blow off the side of the mountain. There were a few moments we thought this was going to happen. We could hear trees breaking throughout the mountains. All the while it was still snowing. We sat there and made a game plan till about 4am when the winds died down some. Sunday night we were supposed to get 1-2 feet of snow, we already had 12"-14" so we decided to get a few hours sleep then pull down camp first thing in the morning.

Our campsite was down off the mountain road about 75ft, the "driveway" was fairly rutted out as well. We loaded the truck with our personal gear and then tried to get out to the main road. We got stuck right at the top. Then came a truck up the road. We became pretty good friends with these two guys throughout the week and they were chained on all four. They said it took them two hours to get to us from were they were camped since they had to cut the road open again from all the fallen trees. They were going to go check on the other camps above us on the road. They agreed to pull us out of our little hole. We got chains on and the trailer hooked up, we left it pretty much empty. They came back down after pulling some other guys out and pulled the truck and trailer onto the road. Then we had to drive down to the next corner and unhook the trailer so a few other trucks going down could get past us. We proceeded to finish taking down the tent and reloading all our stuff. Moving everything up to the road by hand, a ton of work. It was now mid afternoon. We wanted to get the trailer off the mountain before the snow got worse. So we elected to drive down to the base of the mountain and set camp back up. We still had the majority of an elk up the mountain with another 1-2ft of snow predicated for that night...




Monday morning came and so had the snow. Everything was white. We drove partway up the mountain then chained up. We planned to drive as far up as we could, John and I would hunt while Sean got the rest of the bull out. We began to see fresh elk track everywhere. We chased a few different ones and I had a bull in my scope but couldn't get a good shot before he ran out of the lane I had. Soon the snow got deeper and deeper. Someone tried to go around us and ended up sliding out, we pulled them out. Then our buddies from the day before came up behind us, we let them break trail since their truck had a bit more ground clearance. We got to just past our old camp where the road does a very tight turn into an uphill and couldn't make it any further, the other truck only made it about 300-400 yards before coming back down. We parked off the side and decided we'd just have to walk it to the trailhead. It was three miles just to the trailhead. There were two camps remaining and we talked to both groups on our way up. The one camped near the bottom of the trailhead agreed to drive us down as far as they felt comfortable once we came down with the meat. Sean and I headed the mile up in knee and waist deep drifts. We were exhausted once we got to it and still had to come down. It was still snowing to beat the band. We warmed up some food and began to descend. We had everything in a sled rather than trying to carry it on our backs. We found ourselves in a ravine littered with deadfall. There was an old trail on the top of the ravine so we hoofed one quarter at a time up the side of it. We finally made it down to the other camp at dark, he drove us two of the three miles back to our truck. We then started to make our way back to our truck. Sean was soaked, cold, frozen gloves, and wet boots. I was pretty cold. We weren't in good shape. We powered through and finally made it to the truck.





We thought we were in the clear now. But then only a short ways down the road the rear end of the truck kicks out towards the edge of the road! Straight down, nobody else was going to be coming up the road and it was now two hours after dark. We just sat in silence for a good ten minutes. I thought we were spending the night in the truck. Sean and I were still unthawing. We had 3/4 tank of gas, but all our clothes were wet. We said we could go back up the road two miles to the local guys camp we'd talked to earlier, but we were in no shape to walk in the cold. We eventually maneuver the rear of the truck closer to the center of the road, but in the process break one of our front tire chains. This then wraps around the axle and pinches the brake line. One tire spin from ripping the front brake line. We have to back up to get some slack so we can remove the chain. We get that off and slowly limp our way down the mountain.



Tuesday we head to town to replace our broken chain and grab a few other supplies. We check some other places out, but have little encounter with any game. Wednesday we decide to drop down to one of the other old places we used to camp and try to fill our deer tags. We leave very early and get to a friends camp around daylight. We make a game plan with them and head to our tried and true deer hunting place. John and I had made a plan as to who was first shooter so whenever we happened to be hunting together we wouldn't rush each other. One guy was first up for a bull and the other was first up for a buck. I was first shooter for a buck. Suddenly, we run into a nice buck. I take aim, stop him, and dead trigger. Hadn't taken the safety off. I line up for the shot and flinch as I shoot launching it right over his back. I can't believe myself! As I line up for another shot, John fires and drops a great muley.



Now I'm feeling pretty defeated. I've had a nice bull and buck in my scope and still haven't notched a tag. I planned to take the route up the mountain John was going to take, we've killed some good deer hunting these benches on the way up. John and Sean head the other way to check for some elk sign. I'm working up a steep face and hit some fresh cow and deer tracks. There's a little meadow here and I've decided to take a little break. As I take my pack off and kneel I spot a deer move right behind a big pine about 300 yards away. All I can see it rear end. I glass the rest of the shadows and see another deer. A buck. But I can't get a good look through the brush. I sneak forward another 75 yards. Seeing what I think is a decent buck, but still can't confirm it's what I'm after. Move forward some more then I get a decent look and decide it's a shooter. I'm in a little bowl with deadfall on the rim and I can't get a clear shot resting off my pack. After the encounter earlier in the day, I wasn't confident taking a freehand shot. I sneak out the side of the bowl some just so I can get a clear shot. I settle in and wait. He needs to take two steps for a perfect broadside shot. He turns his head, and I can confirm it's a good buck. He takes those two steps and I squeeze right behind the shoulder. I see him take off and what looked like tip over into a little cut. I make my way over and it was a perfect shot. Didn't go 30 yards. My best mule deer to date!! I talk to the other guys and they agree to come over since they haven't gone very far. We take some pictures and have two bucks in the truck before 11am. (I'd cut his front leg in preparation to quarter him out and pack him out on my back for those wondering why it's missing in some of the pictures. Turns out with three guys with 1-2" of snow sliding down hill works very well.)  We spend the rest of the day quartering out our deer and dropping the heads off to the local taxidermist to have them caped out to mount back home.







We found out that night the group of two guys, who we became good friends with, shot a bull that night. It turned out to be the one I saw Monday morning. We planned to head up the original mountain again in the morning. Early afternoon I found a small group of elk and shot my second ever bull. I tagged out with a buck and a bull for the second year in a row! (Had a leftover deer tag last year and drew one this year). Despite the craziness we had our best trip ever filling 4/5 tags with only three guys. We met some great people who we hope to see again when we're back for 3rd rifle. Thanks again Colorado!








Now off to finish cutting and stuffing the freezer

Great expectations!  Colorado has some monsters!!

Chop chop OP!

Trying, images are giving me fits..

What part of SW Colo?

Great pics and a nice bull.  We always hunted first rifle and occasionally got snowed on but nothing more than an inch or two even at 10K.  I heard horror stories from our outfitter about trying to get hunters out when things got hairy during third rifle.

Near Pagosa Springs

Awesome animals and story. Congrats.

We were over on the Uncompahgre Plateau, south and west of Montrose,  and could not find a thing.  Except cattle.  There must have been,  no shit, close to a hundred head of cattle still roaming up there.  

Well, we also saw deer but of course no one had a buck tag this year.

Glad someone had a successful hunt though.

Epic man! Thanks for sharing your adventure, it was a nice break from GD and politics. I need to check out this section of Arf more often!

Hunted outside Pagosa in both 77 and 78 last year during 2nd season and came home empty handed. Y’all did good! From the reports I read this year was better than last.

Congratulations on a great trip!

Great story!!

Thanks for sharing this with us OP. I love a detailed hunt story!

Love it, I’ll be going to Colorado in 22 with a few buddies for 2nd rifle

Trying to decide if I’ll go do 2nd season this year solo or not. Probably unit 24 if I do. Last year kinda did it for me for partners