Last November a mate and I spent a bit over 3 weeks hunting elk & mule deer in SW Montana around Gardiner with Hells-a-Roarin Outfitters. This was our "trip of a lifetime" and we had been planning it for over 12 months and as it was a horse-back hunt we had to learn to ride a horse and do all the associated horse-stuff like saddling-up, brushing and learning all about what makes them go and most importantly....what make 'em whoa !!
We spent around 6 months doing 2 & 3 hour rides with a local trail riding outfit near where we live in the state of Victoria in Australia....we rode every second week and quickly became quite proficient at the basics and by the time our departure date arrived we were confident we could handle most of the horse-related aspect of our hunt well-enough. Gardiner MT is a long way from Down Under and a series of flights totalling 22 hours aloft and over 12,000 miles travelled finally saw us at the outfitters almost 48 hours after we left home. Conditions were certainly a lot colder than we had experienced before at home and the high altitude (8000+ ft) caught us a little off guard for a while. My mate and I both leave almost at sealevel and our highest mountain is a bit over 5,000ft so the big country of the Rockies took our breath away...literally...for a few days. However according to the outfitter the weather was too mild (???) and as there was little snow the elk migration from the nearby Yellowstone park here had not begun...it would take seroius cold and heavy snow to get those elk moving and the hunting to improve.
We hunted hard each day riding out in the dark with our guide, often logging 30 -40 miles a day in the saddle, riding...glassing...rinding....glassing....then just for a change some walking and then more riding & glassing. The scenery was magnificent...such big country and always something too see or photograph.....worth the trip in itself just to be there doing what we had always dreamed of doing. The weather remained "mild" according to the locals....temps down to -20F and some light snow...by Aussie standards this was seriously cold weather....we sometimes get minus 8 or 10 in the high country in the dead of winter by neither of us had ever experienced cold like that ! And our young guides and the outfitter kept saying it was too warm and hoping and praying for some COLD weather to set in to shift the elk !!
The days slipped-on by far too quickly....we got a nice 24" 5 point Mule deer buck each as these were fairly numerous....but still no bull elk were around although most days we saw cows and some spike bulls in the bush here and there. The other hunters in camp were all faring similarly so we just kept goin' out and riding...and glassing etc day after day....things were expected to change with the weather sooner or later but we were rapidly running out of days and the weather still refused to co-operate. Some days we would ride-out and glass Yellowstone Park from high ridges and watch many hundreds of elk gathering along the river and flat country in the Park preparing for their migratory trek....many good bulls were sighted still in the Park but alas that's where they remained until our time was all-too-quickly up and the last minute of the last day of the Montana elk season ticked-on-by.
Our outfitter complimented us both on our efforts and commitment to the hunt and with a bit of tongue-in-cheek said he doubted any of his US hunters would have survived the arduous 3 weeks of solid hunting that we had put in...still they could always come back next year and hope for better (or worse) weather...this was probably our one and only crack at a trophy bull elk but so a sustained maximum effort was called for. We both vowed to return some day and continue our quest for a good bull.
The over-all trip was excellent...spectacular country, terrific friendly country people who were always happy to talk to a couple of blokes from Down Under a long,long way from home. Loved the horse riding and had a great deal of respect for those super-fit, sure-footed and very patient mountain horses....couldn't have done it without them...a highlight of the trip for both of us. Saw plenty of forest critters...wolves, coyotes, mule and whitetail deer, a few bison, elk of course, some bighorn sheep, a moose and even a bear although thankfully it was a long, long way off. Love to come back and do it all again some day....but until then we'll just continue to hunt our Down Under deer and fondly remember our big trip to the magnificent Rocky Mountain of Montana.
Attached is a nice pic of my mate doing a bit of glassing for elk in some huge country above the Yellowstone Park boundary....there were heaps of elk on the lower country...but all safe deep inside the Park....that's huntin' Cheers

35Whelen

Cool story and neat picture. Sorry to hear you didn't get your bull but it sounds like you enjoyed the hunt and have the right attitude.