High Plains Drifting

Wyoming antelope hunting in early October is not supposed to be done in a blizzard, but for the second time in two years that's what happened. For 4 days the temperature never exceeded 20F but most of the time it hovered closer to 15. It was constantly overcast, and snowing. You would think this might be a disadvantage but as it turned out it had some perks. First of all it kept the other hunters at home and, on a private ranch that can see a lot of hunting traffic, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Secondly there were quite a few animals running around and our hunting action was pretty constant.

It was so cold that the heater in my camper was struggling to keep up day and nite. That's never happened in the camper before and consequently the water system constantly clogged with ice and wouldn't run properly. The snow melting on the roof ran down the front and fused the camper to the truck cab with a solid sheet of ice and and icicles.

We did fill most of our antelope licenses: Jordan got 2, I got 2, Mike got 1 and Steve got skunked. Although we weren't hunting elk we did see some the largest herds I've seen. One evening on the way back to camp we had a couple of hundred elks attempt to cross the road ahead of us. The following day while pursuing some antelope we happened across 2-3 hundred animals headed over the prairie and climbing onto a tree cover hill nearby. Very cool....literally.