Packing and Heading out

[JimP]

I didn't move over here to Colorado until 87, and I remember it was during 4th season I believe.

The Eagle County airport is also the base for the HIATS (high altitude training school) and it was the base are for the operation. There were a number of hunting camps to the north of Vail that they evacuated.

 

[Winchester]

Must have been a different storm.

 

[BKC]

You may be thinking of the Christmas Eve blizzard of 1982. We got 4 or 5 feet of snow along the front range. I was flying helicopters for the Army out of Fort Carson at that time. On Christmas Day the storm broke and it was sunny and cold. The state policy asked for our help and we were alerted on Christmas morning to go to work. We flew to Memorial Park and landed to coordinate with the police. They gave us sectors to search and their handheld radios.
We flew all day Christmas Day finding stranded motorists and radioing the police so they could get snow plows to go get them.
There were clear blue skies and snow covering everything… it was very beautiful.

I remember the 1982 christmas blizzard, Junior in College, Great snow ball fights

 

[Winchester]

I’ll bet !!

 

[Maxhunter]

You guys are bringing up the good old snowy days.

 

[Winchester]

Yeah, but they’re not ALL old days…
I have 2 feet at my house right now.
Been plowing off & on all weekend !

 

[JimP]

The first year that I had a cow elk tag here in Colorado it was for 3rd season. We had a foot of snow on the ground and after working until midnight the Friday before the opening I managed to sleep in. My hunting partner called me at around 7 am. I got up and headed over to his house and then down to the local gas station for a cup of coffee. We headed up the hill following other vehicle tracks. We got to a intersection and saw that some had turned off but there were still some going the way that we were. The next intersection the tracks turned to the left and we went right, we were the first vehicle that way. We came around a corner and spotted a small herd 200 yards away. I got out of the truck and sat down in the snow and took a shot. The elk dropped like a rock. I went and placed my rifle back into the truck and my partner told me that she got back up. I looked through my binoculars and sure enough right where my elk had been standing was a elk. I grabbed my rifle and it was gone. We finished our coffee and hiked up to where they were at figuring that we had a tracking job at hand. My elk was laying right where she had fallen. It's a good thing that I didn't shoot the second one.

I was home at 9:30 in the morning with a elk hanging in my garage. My friends wife didn't believe her husband and had to come over to make sure that we even went hunting, she didn't believe me until I showed her the elk. That night the temperatures dropped down to a -10. I was glad that I didn't have to go out the next day with the lower temperatures.

 

[RICMIC]

My first hunting trip in Colorado was in 1979 or 80. Two of us cops managed to talk our chief into letting us both take vacation from our small police dept., and we were lucky that we hadn't gone a couple weeks before. During the earlier season, a big storm had hit and the same story of evacuations and rescues had occurred. During the 2nd OTC season, everything had melted and most of the hunting rigs had been retrieved where we were hunting, but some from out of state were still stuck in the muck.
Those were the days where we could get both deer and elk tags OTC, and hunt anywhere in the state. The deer area where we hunted is now unit 10 & 21 and takes max points, The elk area was in 22 and was much higher. We got back home late for our next shift with no game, no credit cards, and $5 between us. As the mountain men used to say, "Them was shining times."