On my very first elk hunt, outside of Oak Creek, Colorado I learned a valuable lesson about bringing along replacement equipment. We had been hunting all afternoon, mostly along two tracks and logging roads. The weather had been unseasonably warm for November so it was not too bad the first two days of the hunt. Then one of those quick snowstorms moved in and dumped a foot and a half of the pearly white stuff on top of the still too warm ground. It created a shiny clean blanket over muddy roads and the forest floor.

We chained up the Toyota pickup and old International Scout and vigorously climbed what seemed like straight up a logging road for about five hundred yards. Someone spotted a cow elk and the pursuit was on. We then went on to the end of the road and beyond. I recall the show coming over the hood of the Scout until we could go no more. The elk went down and was field dressed and put in the back of the vehicle. This gave us a little more traction once we got rolling.

On the way back we found a clearing off the side of the now muddy road. A couple of the guides wandered off to look for signs of more elk. These were guides who had been dragging around city slickers for the past couple of months through archery, muzzleloader and rifle seasons. This was the end of the third rifle season and their first chance to carry a rifle and take one of the numerous big bulls they have been tracking.

The timber was mostly good, tall aspen and the forest floor was littered with dead fall much of it now hidden beneath a blanket of newly fallen snow. Since I wanted to get grasp every moment of an elk hunt, I followed the best that I could. It was really my first time since losing my leg twelve years before that I had been really off the beaten path. It was my first experience maneuvering around and over fallen trees. I remember thinking; do I put my crutches over the branches and then my leg or visa versa? As I figured all of this out I could see that I was losing the race with the guides. They were becoming hidden as the number of trees between them and myself grew in large numbers.

Suddenly a shot rang out from a hundred yards away. Then another and another. Then the still air was filled with a shout “Bulls!” Something happens when lead starts flying and you are not quite there. Your heart beat s a little faster than normal and you begin to move in the direction a little faster. Actually a lot faster, in fact as fast as you can move. Watching a one legged man on crutches trying to move in these conditions could be comical or frustrating depending on your level of compassion. Being a one legged man on crutches in this situation is just frustrating.

When I finally caught up with the guides only because they were at the top of a fifty-foot cliff trying to spot the bulls they had just shot. They made the decision to go back to the trucks and go back down the road where we had loaded the cow up and find a more level way to get to the deceased bulls.

So it was turn around and head back through the brush and downed timber I had just came through. I was tired and thought a short nap was in order before attempting the long trip back to the vehicles. The guides had different plans. Not wanting to hold them up too long I headed back with them.

When were reached the trucks I came to the unpleasant realization that the rubber tips of were no longer attached to the bottom of my crutches. I looked back through the woods where I had just came from and just knew that those rubber tips were going to be where ever they were for many seasons to come. I climbed into the Scout and we headed down the logging road to gather up some bulls.

Since I was no longer ambulatory I stayed at the vehicle while the rest of the crew headed through the woods to dress and carry out the elk. About forty-five minutes later one of the guys came back and unloaded a front and hindquarter from his back, looked at his watch and said, “sixteen minutes.” That was the time he took to get to the vehicles from the elk. He changed his steamy, sweaty shirt and disappeared back into the woods.

The sun started dipping below the distant hills and the snow began to fall again. It would not be long until darkness greeted the scene. One by one the guides came and went until all of the meat was retrieved. It is times like this that I miss being able to partake in the festivities, even if only to be able to gripe about how hard it was to pack them out around that big stone fireplace back at the lodge in Steamboat.

Before we hit the Lodge, Denny and I drove into downtown Steamboat to find a drugstore that might have some crutch tips for sale. The streets and sidewalks of Steamboat were nothing but a solid sheet of ice from the new storm that had just passed through. I remember walking ever so carefully on the ice from the truck to the warm drugstore. Using crutches on ice is bad enough when all of the parts are there and really tricky when it is aluminum against frozen water.

The store had one pair of crutch tips, which I purchased and we returned to the lodge. Everything worked out ok and from that hunt on I have always carried and extra set of crutch tips in my daypack.