So as to not hijack Ryan's thread any further about weird things in the back country, here is my story.
Richard (ffparamedic) and myself went on our first back country elk hunt September 6-13. We hunted high at about 11,500 for the first 5 days with no success. On the 5th day we decided to descend down to a nearby lake which looked to be about 1/2 mile from a basin where Richard had seen a cow early that morning. Upon arriving at the lake we encountered Jeff.
Now everyone that we had encountered thus far in our trip were extremely friendly and helpful, even the tree hugging hikers took the time to stop and discuss water sources and what animals they had saw. When we approached the lake, there was a rather large area that had clearly been used as a camp ground many times before but it was partially occupied by the largest one man camp I had ever seen. He had two horses and had his camp sprawled out over enough ground for 20 guys to camp. Richard was a bit ahead of me getting to the site and was already talking to the occupant, Jeff, when I got there.
My first impression of the situation was it was pretty ordinary but that quickly changed. Jeff was a larger man, 6'2"-6'3" and weighed roughly 210 lbs. He had a full beard and a rather unkept appearance, as you would expect of a hunter. Some of his gear was decent, while some was clearly old and battle worn, again as you would expect of someone who had done this more than a few times. When I got there Jeff looked as if he had just finished taking a whores bath and was putting his hunting gear on. I introduced myself and extended my hand, to which he said " no offense but I'd rather not shake your hand, I just got finished cleaning up". Now I don't know about you fellas but when a man won't shake my hand, it puts up a red flag that something is amiss. I tried to dismiss this and reasoned that we had been in the woods for 5 days and he had just cleaned up so maybe there was some basis there. Then not 5 minutes into the conversation he says, "hey man you're in Colorado, you wanna smoke some grass? it's legal here. When in Rome.". To which Richard and I declined and I said "we can barely breath up here as is. You're trying to kill us flatlanders." I thought nothing of this as I've been around a sufficient amount of drug culture to know that it's generally considered common courtesy to share, so no biggie for me. Then the conversation that followed consisted primarily of Jeff bragging, unbelievably so, about his mountain climbing all over the world (including the Himalayas) and how several local outfitters want him to guide for them. OK so the guy is a braggart, no big deal, we all know some that are, it doesn't even matter if the stories are true or not. Then gets strangely evasive when we start asking specifics of his hunt, like where he plans so that we can go somewhere else and won't get in his way or how long he plans on being out there. Then he tells us, rather than share the extremely large camp site which could easily accommodate 20-30 guys in addition to his immense occupation of space, we should go camp across the creek because his horses are hobbled he wouldn't want something to happen to our camp. Weird but OK. To say the least this entire conversation with Jeff was awkward and left both Richard and I on alert with an uneasy felling about our neighbor across the creek but we parted ways and went hunting.
The next morning Richard was at the creek getting water and spotted a 5×5 bull 400 yards behind Jeff's camp but by the end of the conversation the previous day Jeff had finally given up that he would be hunting that area today. Not 10 minutes later Jeff comes across the creek to our camp to shoot the chit and we told him about the bull. He got all excited and told us to grab our bows and let's go kill it and he'll call for us. We went with no success. On our way back he offers us some coffee which I appreciated because I hadn't had a decent cup in 6 days. Again he offers us a bowl and again we decline. He asks what we've been eating and we told him mountain house, so he invited us to lunch for some ground elk and potatoes. We accepted the invite and told him we'd be back after hunting that morning. On our way back from hunting we ran into some other hunters from the east coast and in talking to them, they told us that Jeff had told them that he had 2 other guys that came with him hunting, which we can only assume he meant us. Odd right? We get back to camp and start packing up our stuff and Jeff shows up and tells us food will be ready shortly. Richard finishes packing first and says that the guy seems lonely, so he's gonna go visit with him while I finish. I get over there about 10 minutes later and set my stuff down and Jeff says "before we eat we're gonna have a little mountain man challenge". Richard and I look at each other like "what the hell is this guy gonna do". Well Jeff proceeds to bring out a hatchet and school us flatlanders on hatchet throwing. Well first off the guy sucked at it, but Richard and I played it up like he was the man. More importantly though the guy already had us on edge just because we had a bad feeling about him, now he is well within our comfort zone and more critical, he was within 21 foot with a hand held weapon instructing us. Somewhere in this session of madness, Richard whispers "we're not hunting with this guy this afternoon. Come up with a reason or follow my lead". The guy had us on edge enough that I had my hand on my pistol when I was throwing and Richard had his drawn behind his back. Well that finished and we ate and during conversation, Jeff began oddly directing all of his questions at Richard like he took a shine to him. We came up with the excuse that I have to get home to my pregnant wife, who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time, because she was having contractions so could not stick around any longer. We loaded up, said our good byes during which Jeff made a statement that I didn't understand, he poked me in the ribs and when I spun around quickly, he jokingly said "what? Are you some kind of homophobe or something?" Well we booked it out of there, getting as much ground between us and that weirdo as quickly as possible. Once we were about a quarter mile away Richard stops me and says "do you know the first thing Jeff told me when I walked over there while you were still packing up? He said ""well you sure do have a pretty smile. Can I have a picture?"" Now I'm not homophonic but this dude was just creepy.
The moral of the story is, keep a gun on you for the people not the critters.
Richard (ffparamedic) and myself went on our first back country elk hunt September 6-13. We hunted high at about 11,500 for the first 5 days with no success. On the 5th day we decided to descend down to a nearby lake which looked to be about 1/2 mile from a basin where Richard had seen a cow early that morning. Upon arriving at the lake we encountered Jeff.
Now everyone that we had encountered thus far in our trip were extremely friendly and helpful, even the tree hugging hikers took the time to stop and discuss water sources and what animals they had saw. When we approached the lake, there was a rather large area that had clearly been used as a camp ground many times before but it was partially occupied by the largest one man camp I had ever seen. He had two horses and had his camp sprawled out over enough ground for 20 guys to camp. Richard was a bit ahead of me getting to the site and was already talking to the occupant, Jeff, when I got there.
My first impression of the situation was it was pretty ordinary but that quickly changed. Jeff was a larger man, 6'2"-6'3" and weighed roughly 210 lbs. He had a full beard and a rather unkept appearance, as you would expect of a hunter. Some of his gear was decent, while some was clearly old and battle worn, again as you would expect of someone who had done this more than a few times. When I got there Jeff looked as if he had just finished taking a whores bath and was putting his hunting gear on. I introduced myself and extended my hand, to which he said " no offense but I'd rather not shake your hand, I just got finished cleaning up". Now I don't know about you fellas but when a man won't shake my hand, it puts up a red flag that something is amiss. I tried to dismiss this and reasoned that we had been in the woods for 5 days and he had just cleaned up so maybe there was some basis there. Then not 5 minutes into the conversation he says, "hey man you're in Colorado, you wanna smoke some grass? it's legal here. When in Rome.". To which Richard and I declined and I said "we can barely breath up here as is. You're trying to kill us flatlanders." I thought nothing of this as I've been around a sufficient amount of drug culture to know that it's generally considered common courtesy to share, so no biggie for me. Then the conversation that followed consisted primarily of Jeff bragging, unbelievably so, about his mountain climbing all over the world (including the Himalayas) and how several local outfitters want him to guide for them. OK so the guy is a braggart, no big deal, we all know some that are, it doesn't even matter if the stories are true or not. Then gets strangely evasive when we start asking specifics of his hunt, like where he plans so that we can go somewhere else and won't get in his way or how long he plans on being out there. Then he tells us, rather than share the extremely large camp site which could easily accommodate 20-30 guys in addition to his immense occupation of space, we should go camp across the creek because his horses are hobbled he wouldn't want something to happen to our camp. Weird but OK. To say the least this entire conversation with Jeff was awkward and left both Richard and I on alert with an uneasy felling about our neighbor across the creek but we parted ways and went hunting.
The next morning Richard was at the creek getting water and spotted a 5×5 bull 400 yards behind Jeff's camp but by the end of the conversation the previous day Jeff had finally given up that he would be hunting that area today. Not 10 minutes later Jeff comes across the creek to our camp to shoot the chit and we told him about the bull. He got all excited and told us to grab our bows and let's go kill it and he'll call for us. We went with no success. On our way back he offers us some coffee which I appreciated because I hadn't had a decent cup in 6 days. Again he offers us a bowl and again we decline. He asks what we've been eating and we told him mountain house, so he invited us to lunch for some ground elk and potatoes. We accepted the invite and told him we'd be back after hunting that morning. On our way back from hunting we ran into some other hunters from the east coast and in talking to them, they told us that Jeff had told them that he had 2 other guys that came with him hunting, which we can only assume he meant us. Odd right? We get back to camp and start packing up our stuff and Jeff shows up and tells us food will be ready shortly. Richard finishes packing first and says that the guy seems lonely, so he's gonna go visit with him while I finish. I get over there about 10 minutes later and set my stuff down and Jeff says "before we eat we're gonna have a little mountain man challenge". Richard and I look at each other like "what the hell is this guy gonna do". Well Jeff proceeds to bring out a hatchet and school us flatlanders on hatchet throwing. Well first off the guy sucked at it, but Richard and I played it up like he was the man. More importantly though the guy already had us on edge just because we had a bad feeling about him, now he is well within our comfort zone and more critical, he was within 21 foot with a hand held weapon instructing us. Somewhere in this session of madness, Richard whispers "we're not hunting with this guy this afternoon. Come up with a reason or follow my lead". The guy had us on edge enough that I had my hand on my pistol when I was throwing and Richard had his drawn behind his back. Well that finished and we ate and during conversation, Jeff began oddly directing all of his questions at Richard like he took a shine to him. We came up with the excuse that I have to get home to my pregnant wife, who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time, because she was having contractions so could not stick around any longer. We loaded up, said our good byes during which Jeff made a statement that I didn't understand, he poked me in the ribs and when I spun around quickly, he jokingly said "what? Are you some kind of homophobe or something?" Well we booked it out of there, getting as much ground between us and that weirdo as quickly as possible. Once we were about a quarter mile away Richard stops me and says "do you know the first thing Jeff told me when I walked over there while you were still packing up? He said ""well you sure do have a pretty smile. Can I have a picture?"" Now I'm not homophonic but this dude was just creepy.
The moral of the story is, keep a gun on you for the people not the critters.
sounds like a long hard fruitless hunt but Jeff...Jeff was different. That wasn't Brokeback mountain you guys were hunting was it ???
