This is for @fishmens67 I am no Pat McManus but I will try.
Elk hunting is an annual ritual for our family. Having a range on your farm goes a long way towards a successful harvest. We worked the wife at 500 yard line all summer long in preparation of our last hunt. She is small in stature and stride but is pure lioness in heart and endurance. She will lay in the dirt rain or snow for days to harvest an Elk. Over the years I have become the “deer dog” and don’t even carry a rifle anymore. She gets so much satisfaction over it I get my “fix” by scouting and setting her up for success. Honestly it is more gratifying, may be why I am a Coach? Anyway the Bull presents itself, we range it and it is right at 520 yards. I ask if she wants to improve our position just a bit, she looks me in the eye, lowers her pack silently on the ground and drops down behind it, whispering “I got this”. She gets solid and asks for verification on yardage, I confirm. She makes a couple of adjustments on her scope I call the wind she adjusts and calmly takes a great shot. Bull drops and the cows surround him to protect him. We stayed like this for about four hours. With nightfall rapidly approaching I start to figure out my easiest path down into the canyon and back up to the bench we are on. It is an easy two hours down and back in the daylight, and knowing full well I will be pack boarding till dawn I wanted it to be as safe as possible as it was treacherous steep. We break out our caver lights and stash every thing non essential out of our packs up top on the bench to reduce weight load. I throw down a tarp and. secure it with rocks as a drop zone for the quarters. We look at each other and she smiles and we bail off the side of the mountain into the canyon bottom. We get to the Bull and start the process of making the meat manageable for pack boarding back up top. It is simply to steep for horses. As I roll into my first packboard I moan under the weight, we adjust it a bit to make sure it is secure, I loosen my knife and pistol making sure I can get to them, knowing full well I have a wolf and bear buffet table on my back. I start heading back up the mountain in four wheel drive, that means both hands and both feet all engaged so as the weight on my back does not topple me back off the mountain. I am thinking to my self as my clothes become saturated with blood from the Elk and I have zero spatial awareness, simply putting one foot in front of the other lunging for the next hand hold. I can read the headlines now, Marine comes home from desert alive only to be mauled by bear on mountain! I make it to the top unscathed, caver light askew and quads screaming. Then think of my wife still in the bottom of the canyon with her back to the woods focused on cutting up my next load. I hustle back down and she looks like a crime scene. But elated, sadly she already has my next load ready. With zero concern for my physical condition she already has the next packboard ready to go. In what can only be misguided macho I shrug and load up. By now it is midnight, and you do not know dark till you have been in a canyon bottom in the wilderness at night. I make sure I have spare caver and back up to the top I go, recognizing my hand holds and spots to rest makes this trip easier. By the time I get to the top I now think a bear or wolf is a mercy death and long to be saved from the at least two more trips up and down. I head back down, naturally she is all smiles as she is getting closer to being done. I start the trip back up but this time on sheer grit, nothing left in the tank, legs on fire, blood soaked to the skin, heart beating out of my chest and can’t breathe. I drop the packboard on the tarp and decide falling down the mountain is much more efficient and quicker. Once I arrest my fall and figure out where I am vs original path I head back over to rendezvous with wife who is now wrestling with the rack as she has the meat squared away. Suffice to say we made a few more trips down and up to the bench. We spent the next two days in camp healing up. That boys and girls is Elk hunting as we know it. Just a man and wife and our animals. No guides no fences no pay to play. Just plain hard work. We can’t wait for next year!