On the Hunt for Elk

Story and Photos by Levi Armichardy

At 3:30 am, Dad wakes my brother Tucker and me. Groggily, we slide out of our sleeping bags and get dressed. While Mom makes breakfast, we prepare our packs for the day. Our friends, Chance and his son Sam, come into the wall tent. At 4 am, all six of us get in the car. The headlights illuminate only a small portion of Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America. After a few miles on the paved road, we turn off onto a single-lane dirt road that climbs up and out of the canyon.

In the dark, we see only a black abyss on the left side of the road. Tucker, Sam, and I attempt to doze in the back seat, but the bumpy road makes it impossible. After two hours we arrive at a saddle on the rim of the canyon. Before us to the west, steep grassy hillsides drop three thousand feet to the reservoir that was once the Snake River. Behind us lie the towns of Cuprum and Bear, and farther out Council, with Council Mountain on the distant skyline.

At 6 am in November, the sun isn’t quite out yet but the sky is beginning to turn from predawn gray to orange. A foot of powdery windswept snow covers the ground. A cold wind blows from the east. I’m wearing four layers but the wind cuts right through them, chilling me. With enough light to see by, we begin glassing three big ridges downstream (north) of us, looking for elk. We spot a few, but the wide open slopes of Hells Canyon often make it more of a challenge to get within shooting range of an elk than to find one.

We talk it over and decide on a plan. The ridge we’re on continues up to our left. At about one mile, it intersects with the first big ridge. At about three miles, it meets the second. Chance and Sam will take the first one, and Dad, Tucker, and I the second. With full light now, we say goodbye to Mom, who has to go to town, and set off.

So much controversy and misunderstanding surround hunting today that I’ll take a moment to explain why I love it, with the disclaimer that my views do not reflect those of all or probably even most hunters. There are the standard reasons, of course: the thrill, Nature, the self-sufficiency, etc. All those are influences, but for me hunting at its core is a way to deepen my connections—to people, to the land, and to life itself.