Elk Hunt

This last weekend I traveled to the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico to Elk hunt with my dad.  It was a great trip – we couldn’t have asked for better weather and we were successful in killing a cow elk on our first morning out.    Some pics from my trip:

(Note: some pictures towards the end involve the skinning of a dead elk.  Fair warning.)

The rolling grassland before we hit the mountains.

Starting to get up into the mountains.

A picture taken by Mom of her bootprint in the snow.

Our campsite before we started setting up.

The completed campsite.

What I figured we would be sleeping in.

What we actually slept in.  My father is getting a bit fancy in his old age.  Not that I'm complaining - they were nice digs for camping.

The inside of the tent. 

The Elk cow Dad shot.  Note that she fell about a mile and a half away from where we could get the truck to.  Lucky for us it was uphill from the truck.

Dad filling out his tag.

The start of the skinning process.  We ended up packing out the hide as well as the meat.  Dad hopes to have it stretched and tanned.

On one of our three trip back to the Elk to recover the meat.

Me with a hindquarter strapped to my back.

Dad with his hindquater headed to the truck.

Mom got to carry the head (we needed it to give the lymph nodes and brain stem to the game warden - so they can check the populations for health and disease)

And one of our ice chests full of backstrap - we'll have a loaded freezer for awhile.