NOTE: This is a post about elk hunting, and how we got our freezer full of YUM-O elk meat (which was not connected to the hunt, BTW…), and has photos of all that entailed. Remember that the meat you eat was once a live (and often beautiful) creature, and that includes your Whopper, Chicken McNuggets, and Filet O’ Fish. Contrary to what many city folk (and I don’t say this lightly, as I was born and raised in NYC…) seem to believe, meat does not grow on a Meat Tree, prepackaged in a Styrofoam box…
On the 7th day of our Road Trip from West Virginia to Colorado to go elk hunting (12/3), we finally arrived at the Hunting Outfitter near Meeker, Colorado at about 3pm. We met the Outfitter at his meat processing plant, where he and his workers were processing 13 elk- the hunting there obviously being great… As our hunt was to begin early the next morning, we wanted to sight our guns that afternoon to make sure that nothing had jiggled in transit and that they still shot true, and the Outfitter took us to his “shooting table” so we could take a few target shots. A shooting table is a table with an attached bench and a gun rest, and I had No Clue how to shoot from one, having never done so before. I squirmed about on the bench, trying to find a comfortable position from which to shoot accurately, while Mr. Outfitter acted like there was something wrong with me, got a Very Concerned Look on his face, and made patronizing comments, indicating that he didn’t approve of my 30-6, or Dan’s 308 rifle- which he knew were our weapons, as that is basically the first thing I told him when I originally inquired about booking the hunt back in September. I tried to explain to him that in the Army (I was a Sgt. In the IDF, 1984-1986) I always target shot prone, resting on sandbags, and at the range or in the field, always standing up or kneeling, without a gun rest or a shooting stick, and that I thus had no clue how to shoot sitting at a table or use a stick, but I don’t think he believed me. I’d like to have been able to LOL at that, but the truth is that his attitude and comments stung and put me on the defensive, and I found myself babbling to him about taking the moose at 275 yards with one shot in Canada, as my eyes filled with tears. I know- I’m a weenie. LOL 
The Outfitter told us that the hunting that fall had so far been “great”, and so I actually asked Dan what we’d do for the last 2 days if we both got our elk on the first day. “Do laundry” was his response, and we both laughed, full of hopeful anticipation… We then checked into our cabin, and the Outfitter’s sons helped us carry in our suitcases and brought us a case of bottled water. The cabin was cute, decorated in true brown wood and leather “hunting lodge” style, with lots of taxidermy animals, mounts, and hides. It had a full kitchen, a living room and dining area, two bedrooms, and one bathroom- with a tub that had the faucet disconnected from the wall so it was only usable as a shower. Aching for a hot bath, I actually filled the tub deep enough to bathe in by stopping up the drain, pulling the curtain shut, and leaving the shower on for about ½ an hour. One bedroom had three twin beds and the other one had two; Dan and I had assumed we’d be able to share a bed, as we always do, but that obviously wasn’t going to be possible, so we chose the room with 2 beds, and turned the heat on full blast to warm it up.
This particular Outfitter was supposedly renowned for fine food, which we had been looking forward to, and dinner, which was served to us in our cabin in take-out boxes with disposable cutlery (due to COVID, dontcha know…), should have been quite nice: the entrée was pistachio-crusted salmon with asparagus. But it was so insanely overcooked that it was basically inedible; the asparagus were actually shriveled up, so it was obvious that no one had even looked at our entrees before they were brought to us. I managed to choke down a few pieces of the salmon, and ate the little cup of salad, which was good, but Dan took one bite of the salmon and got so nauseous that he had to go to the bathroom… and that was the end of dinner. 🙁 We watched some TV and then went to bed, hopeful that things would turn around in the morning and the hunting would be great.
Up at 5am on 12/4, we dressed warmly and walked over to the main house, where we had a continental breakfast and coffee, made sandwiches for our lunches, met the other hunter who was being guided by the Outfitter, several other guides, and Ed, who would be our guide for our 3-day hunt. At about 6am we left with Ed in his F-150 truck, and spent the next 12 hours, until we returned at 6pm in the dark, driving around the mountains, and sitting in Ed’s car for hours in several places, apparently waiting for elk to magically appear. They didn’t. We literally saw nothing living that entire day. I sat up front and chatted with Ed to kill time, and took photos of the pretty scenery, and Dan sat behind me, basically in silence, taking turns with me looking through our binoculars out the truck windows in the hope of spotting some elk. That night we were served a dinner of elk steaks, which were perfectly prepared and very good, but having not seen even one elk, we were both pretty bummed out.
Up at 5am again on 12/5, we basically repeated everything we had done the day before, with the same results: nada. We sat in two places for 4 hours at a pop, again waiting for elk to appear, which they didn’t. I put on my camo “war paint” for good luck, and to have some fun, and Ed used his elk call a few times and taught me to use one enough to capture me on video squeaking like an elk- check out my “elk calling videos” below. I again sat up front with Ed, while Dan sat behind me, and in chatting with Ed learned that some of his hunters “had 5 million a year to spend on hunting”- making it clear that we weren’t in that league…
We saw one living thing that day- a deer- using Ed’s long-range binoculars. By the end of the day both Dan and I were very concerned that this was Not the correct way to hunt, and that our “once in a lifetime” elk hunt wasn’t going to be successful, but we kept our thoughts to ourselves, and tried to remain positive. Dinner that night was “Greek”: a nice, spanakopita-type pastry and roast chicken, with a Greek Salad. And so, to bed…
Day Three (12/6), the last day of our hunt, began with Ed disappearing for over an hour after breakfast, we assumed to have a meeting with the Outfitter about hunting tactics… After 7am, when it was already light, he drove us to a spot where we met up with the Outfitter and the other hunter and guides, and were shown, using high-powered binoculars, a few elk way up on a mountain that we were not allowed to shoot at, as they were 1) under a powerline, 2) way too far away (well over 1000 yards), and 3) on someone else’s land- someone who, we were told, didn’t like the Outfitter… The Outfitter laid on a tarp on the ground with his long-range (1400 yard) rifle, and, using a silencer- for reasons we didn’t understand- took two shots at the elk- missing both; but whether that was by accident or deliberate was unclear. We assumed that it was deliberate, and that the shot was meant only to scare the elk into moving away from the power line, and hopefully towards an area where we could shoot them later, but if that was the case, why use a silencer?
Ed then drove us up to a place by a fence that looked down into a valley, and, leaving his walkie-talkie with me, hiked off somewhere, supposedly to work with the Outfitter to somehow move the now-scattered elk we’d seen that morning down into the valley below us. Dan and I stood by the fence in silence and hope, our guns at the ready, for over an hour, watching and waiting for elk, but none ever appeared.
Ready… 
Looking for elk… 
Dusk- turning the mountain tops gold…
Ed, the Outfitter, and the other hunter and guides then arrived, and asked us if we’d heard any rifle shots, which we hadn’t. After eating our sandwiches, we spent the rest of the day with Ed in his truck, as he drove, now frantically, up and down and around the mountains, trying, evidently, to find us an elk. In vain. On two occasions he got out and walked away from the vehicle with his cellphone for half an hour at a pop, we assumed to have more “meetings” with the Outfitter. I had Dan sit up front with Ed all day, in the hope that he might be able to talk to him about hunting tactics and come up with a more effective strategy than the one he’d been using, and I sat in the back- and literally said not one word for 12 solid hours. The closest thing we saw to an elk were a few tracks in the snow:
At the end of the day, as we drove back to the ranch in the dark, we asked Ed if we might be able to stay on for another day or two and continue to hunt, so we might at least get a shot at an elk and not have our once-in-a-lifetime elk hunt be a total (and very expensive) bust, but Ed stated he didn’t know if that was possible, and that he had No Idea what the Outfitter charged for hunts, or the cost of an elk tag for people from out of state- which was, of course, total BS. When we got back to our cabin we tipped him, as we felt that was the right thing to do, given that he had, seemingly, done his best, and drove us around for three, long and fruitless, 12-hour days. He was actually surprised and appreciative- he evidently did not expect to be tipped. Dan then went to talk to the Outfitter and Ed about staying on for a couple of days to continue hunting, but the Outfitter refused, stating he had a new group of hunters coming in the next day for a 7-day hunt- obviously a bull elk hunt, and obviously folks who had paid a Lot more money than we had… When he came to our cabin with our Chile Relenos dinner and actually had the gall to happily ask me how I was, I told him: Not Good. Not Good At All. I told him that given that he had told me that this was a hunt with a “99% success rate”, and that a 3-day hunt was “more than sufficient” for a successful hunt, that he was processing 13 elk the day we arrived, that he knew that this was a “once in a lifetime” hunt for us, and that we literally hadn’t seen an elk we could shoot at for the entire 3 days, I felt like we had been screwed out of almost $6000, he actually said “That’s how I make my living”. At which point I literally burst into tears and left the room, leaving Dan to talk to him- to no avail.
The next morning (12/7), as I slowly packed up our suitcases, Dan went to talk to the Outfitter yet again, trying to work out a solution that would be acceptable to all of us and give us a chance to keep hunting, at least for a day or two. No dice. Instead, the Outfitter made lots of excuses, including blaming “drought”, “no snow”, and stating this was, inexplicably, “the worst year ever”, after which he handed Dan a small box of elk sausages, marked “Not For Resale”. I’d like to have been able to LOL at this, too, but it was truly like a slap in the face. The day we arrived, the Outfitter and his workers were processing 13 elk, and he told us that the hunting had been “great”- which it obviously had been… Dan then asked him if he knew of anyone or anyplace where we could continue to hunt, and the Outfitter told him “there’s plenty of public land to hunt on”, leading us to believe that was possible. But, as we learned after we left the ranch and drove to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife office in Meeker, our doing so would have been illegal, and would have subjected us to arrest and/or serious fines, as the elk tags we had purchased were ONLY good on the Outfitter’s private land- and specific lots of it, at that. Being blatantly lied to, on top of everything else, made us both quite upset, to put it mildly…
So we left the ranch and drove into Meeker, first stopping at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife office, where we got the bad news mentioned above. Then we checked out Meeker’s interesting White River Museum: http://rbchistory.org/white-river-museum/, housed in two of the original seven Officer’s Quarters, built in 1880 by the US Army, which was brought to Meeker to keep the peace following the infamous Meeker Massacre and Milk Creek Battle. One building houses most of their Pioneer Collections, with artifacts ranging from agriculture, to early fashion, to home artifacts, to transportation. The second building, called The Garrison, houses the Ute Room, with artifacts including Chief Colorow’s peace pipe, the Indian Agency Room, the Officer’s Quarters, and the Military Room. See http://rbchistory.org/meeker-history/ for some of the history of this area. We perused their gift shop, too, and I bought a jar of local honey, to add to our foodie-winey-boozy take-home box…
White River Museum 
We then had to decide what to do about our freezer, which now contained a small box of frozen elk sausage, and was going to have to be plugged in somewhere every night all the way home… Dan pulled over and told me to plug “elk farms” into the GPS, and I did so, and BAM! Up came elk farms! We just might be going home with a freezer full of elk after all! I had stopped posting pix on Facebook at the end of the first unsuccessful hunt day, when things began to feel like they were going south, and, as friends had started to PM me, asking “did you get an elk yet???”, I was scrambling to come up with a way in which to save face and put a positive spin on things- both for them and for us. “Turn that frown upside down”, and “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, basically. If we were able to get an elk from a farm, at least we’d have a couple of years of yummy meat, and I’d also be able to say “We did a hunt and we got an elk- although the two had nothing to do with each other…” We left a message on the voice mail of one elk farm that came up on our GPS, and I then called a CSA farm, where the helpful lady I spoke with told us she’d recently seen a sign on Route 6 advertising elk for sale, so off we went to find it! We found the sign for the Porter Elk Ranch: http://porterranch.net/ on Route 6, and called Mr. Porter, who suggested we come to his ranch, which covers thousands of acres south of New Castle, Colorado, and which the Porter family has homesteaded since the late 1800s, to see the elk he had for sale. Stopping to ask directions along the way, we had almost arrived at his hay barn when we met him in his truck on the road. We followed him back to his ranch, where we saw the first elk of our trip, and I delightedly jumped out of our truck and started snapping photos of them!
Mr. Porter told us that while he sells bull elk for $1500 (he won’t sell cows, as they are his breeding stock), most of his buyers want the rack, and he had one with a damaged rack which he would sell to us for $1200, cash only, and that we could come and shoot it in the morning. This is NOT hunting, it’s “harvesting”- basically going to a butcher or a slaughter house to buy meat- but it was way better than coming home with no elk meat at all. We saw the elk he spoke of, and it was a massive animal, making the price per pound actually quite reasonable, but we honestly didn’t know if we could fit all the meat into our freezer! He suggested a motel in New Castle, owned by people who bought elk from him, where we could spend the night and think it over (and go to an ATM machine…), and that is what we did. We had a nice dinner at a cool restaurant in New Castle, the 88 Grill, which has an 80’s theme, combined with a lot of New Castle history, and what looks like a fun hotel above it, the Ore House Inn, that has theme rooms!
When we got to our hotel, The Lodge at Newcastle, (where we were able to plug in our freezer), the owner of the elk farm I had first called and left a message for called back and offered us a deal: a cow elk that they would slaughter, gut, skin, and cut up into about 5 pieces for us, for $800 cash- cheaper than beef!- and we agreed. He told us to bring meat bags or bed sheets to wrap the meat in, and the next morning we stopped at a grocery to buy meat bags (which turned out to be cheaper than sheets, LOL), went to an ATM, and then drove to the Grand Mesa Elk Ranch– and found our elk skinned, gutted, and hanging off a forklift, ready to be cut up and bagged. Dan and Andy first had to crawl inside the back of our pick-up and unbolt the camper top and take it totally off in order to get our freezer open enough to get the giant hunks of elk into it, after which they cut up the elk with a saw, we bagged up the pieces, put them in the freezer, and got the camper top bolted back on.
Joe then gifted us with about a dozen packages of frozen lamb, as well, another local Colorado meat we had wanted to buy, and we were barely able to fit them into the freezer on top of all the elk! We had to leave the giant elk ribs behind, as well as the hide- there was simply no room in the freezer for them. 🙁 We are lucky that we didn’t choose the bull elk, as there was no way all the meat would have fit into our freezer! Joe also had some of THE coolest chickens I think I’ve EVER seen- especially this gorgeous gal:
Next: Back to Palisade, Colorado, for more foodie-winey fun!
