WHITE RIVER NATIONAL FOREST — On the fifth day of the hunt, he appeared before me, cross­ing a mead­ow 300 yards down­hill between aspen and pine groves, with antlers that cast long shad­ows on the morn­ing snow. A crown atop the ani­mal king of the Col­orado high country.

A bull elk.

I’m seat­ed on a ridge­line at 10,000-feet of ele­va­tion a month ago on pub­lic land when mus­cle mem­o­ry calms a surge of adren­a­line. The black stock of a 270 Win­ches­ter rifle tucks into the crease of my right shoul­der. The elk, with long legs car­ry­ing his mus­cu­lar frame and thick brown coat, walks slow­ly into the view of my scope. A peace­ful qui­et is about to erupt with a sudden…

Breathe in. Breathe out.

BANG.

Hot lead fires from a long sil­ver bar­rel. Sec­onds pass like min­utes. The blast echoes over frozen moun­tain val­leys and a soft breeze car­ries the scent of gun­pow­der. My heart races and my eye returns to the scope to find the elk … unharmed. I’ve missed.

A young bull stands frozen in his tracks. His antlers tilt back. He sniffs the cool moun­tain air.

The hunt is not over.

***

On this Thanks­giv­ing Day, a time to hon­or fam­i­ly cus­toms, the tra­di­tion of har­vest­ing elk in the Rocky Moun­tain back­coun­try is on the decline.

The num­ber of hunters across the nation fell by 2.2 mil­lion between 2011 and 2016, accord­ing to the most recent find­ings pub­lished by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice. The same sur­vey showed the most sig­nif­i­cant drop among younger hunters, ages 25–34. In 1991, their demo­graph­ic made up for 28% of all U.S hunters. That mil­len­ni­al por­tion tum­bled to 16% in 2016.

In Col­orado, the num­ber of total big-game hunt­ing appli­ca­tions has dropped by 39,119 between 2018 and 2020. It should wor­ry any­one, includ­ing non-hunters, who enjoy out­door space man­aged by Col­orado Parks and Wildlife.

“Hunters and anglers are the pri­ma­ry fun­ders of con­ser­va­tion efforts when it comes to habi­tat improve­ment and bio­log­i­cal research that’s nec­es­sary for healthy wildlife pop­u­la­tions across the state,” said Travis Long, CPW’s statewide coor­di­na­tor for hunter edu­ca­tion. “Some of the old­er hunter pop­u­la­tion is drop­ping off and is not always being replen­ished by the younger hunter pop­u­la­tion. It has a long-term impact on how we fund our agency as the stew­ards of wildlife and the habi­tat for that wildlife.”

Colorado’s big-game hunt­ing also suf­fered the con­se­quences of an active wild­fire sea­son. In 2020, CPW reports it has processed about 12,000 tag refunds with an approx­i­mate impact of $3 mil­lion. The refund appli­ca­tion process remains open.

Last month, as my fam­i­ly start­ed our annu­al elk hunt, an emer­gency heli­copter flew over­head on our walk up the moun­tain. It car­ried a water buck­et, pre­sum­ably emp­ty, for aer­i­al fire­fight­ing else­where. We need­ed to be care­ful in dry con­di­tions, but two days lat­er, our con­cerns relented.

Praise Moth­er Nature. It snowed near­ly one foot.

***

I can’t tell you my exact loca­tion. Call it a well-guard­ed secret among fam­i­ly and trust­ed friends.

Just know, that in the mid-1980s, a few Front Range out­doors­men stud­ied maps of the White Riv­er Nation­al For­est — a 2.3‑million-acre expanse of moun­tain recre­ation in North­west Col­orado — for the most remote loca­tion to suc­cess­ful­ly hunt high-coun­try elk.

Their search led to the base of what looks like an extinct vol­cano, about 2 miles from a dead-end on the near­est pub­lic access road, where lava rocks are scat­tered across rolling moun­tain mead­ows, thick tim­ber and steep cliffs. The area is inac­ces­si­ble to motor­ized vehi­cles, so camp is hauled up the moun­tain in packs or pulled on a wheeled cart. The hunters found refuge inside sleep­ing bags and a tent, tucked away in the tim­ber near a spring-fed pond for drink­ing water.

Three decades lat­er — with my father, Dan, among the orig­i­nal mem­bers of the hunt­ing par­ty — we return to the same spot each fall for a sec­ond-sea­son rifle elk hunt. Our annu­al com­mit­ment, with bare neces­si­ties in an unfor­giv­ing cli­mate, is a reflec­tion of hunt­ing suc­cess. But it’s not our only calling.

My old­er broth­er, Matt, shot an elk this year, late in the after­noon toward the end of our family’s hunt. Field dress­ing a 500-pound ani­mal in nature is dif­fi­cult. It requires sev­er­al hands and knives to skin and process the elk into four quar­ters; includ­ing the back­straps, ten­der­loin and heart. We packed the meat into san­i­tary bags, placed them in large frame packs, and car­ried the elk down the moun­tain. My shoul­ders ached from the rough­ly 60-pound pack as we marched through the snow — men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly exhaust­ed. We hadn’t eat­en din­ner. The tem­per­a­ture dropped.

Fun­ny how no one seemed to mind.

Pink, red and orange col­ors danced on the hori­zon that evening before giv­ing way to a full moon that lit our jour­ney back to camp. The white land­scape seemed to glow and dis­com­fort gave way to awe. My broth­er turned to me, my dad, and my step­broth­er, Trevor, in the qui­et moonlight.

“I’m lov­ing every sec­ond of this,” Matt said.

Our bod­ies hurt. Our brains knew bet­ter. My broth­er spoke for us all.

***

The hunt continues.

I rack the emp­ty shell from my rifle, load anoth­er in the cham­ber, and quick­ly relo­cate the bull with cau­tious opti­mism. The long shot and down­ward tra­jec­to­ry spooked the elk with no clear direc­tion of the threat. He’s back in my scope…

Breathe in. Breathe out.

BANG.

There is an ini­tial pro­found sad­ness, for me, in the har­vest of an elk. They are incred­i­ble ani­mals. What pro­vides solace, though, as an omni­vore, is the chal­lenge of the hunt, the col­lec­tive fam­i­ly bond it cre­ates, and the stop­ping abil­i­ty of a high-pow­ered rifle. My bull elk took only a hand­ful of steps before drop­ping to the snow. A clean and quick exit.

We respect his mem­o­ry by not wast­ing his gifts. When the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic sub­sides, my fam­i­ly will gath­er for large meals, mak­ing up for a can­celed Thanks­giv­ing to cel­e­brate togeth­er­ness over elk steak. We’ll re-tell sto­ries of the hunt — with details exag­ger­at­ed more each time — to pre­serve the feel­ing we had walk­ing down that moun­tain in the moon­light. Or the great for­tune of a sec­ond shot that doesn’t miss.

Col­orado is home to one of the nation’s health­i­est elk pop­u­la­tions with an esti­mat­ed 287,000 statewide in the win­ter of 2018, per the state’s lat­est sur­vey, with 52% of all herds above their tar­get num­bers goal. CPW is work­ing active­ly to engage a younger pop­u­la­tion with fish­ing and hunt­ing through out­reach pro­grams that con­nect kids and adults with expe­ri­enced out­doors­men and women. Edu­cate your­self on gun safe­ty and hunt­ing laws. Cre­ate a mem­o­ry and fill your freezer.

This Thanks­giv­ing, Col­oradans should be thank­ful for the almighty elk.