Muzzleloader Elk Hunt

 Isabel had to miss a few days of preschool so we could go down to Ephraim for David's elk hunt.  He has been putting in for this tag for around 14 years or so, so he was pretty excited to finally draw out. 

 David and his dad were planning to backpack into an area to hunt, so Grandpa wanted to test out the capacity for his pack.  Looks like it holds quite a bit!

 He was excited to go, but pretty sad he wasn't part of the hunting part. All in due time little man, your time will come!

 They had great weather for the hunt, and I am so happy he made it out alive:)  They had so much fun!  They hunted up there for a few days, and then came back down the mountain to get more food/water/shower/wash clothes, and then headed back up to another part of the mountain with his brother and brother-in-law to do some more hunting.

 There are lots of other pictures of them actually hunting, but they are on Jack's camera, and I haven't gotten them yet.  I can't do the story justice, but David shot a really nice 5x5 bull elk.  It was a really fun hunt and his brother Sam was able to get lots of it on video which was really nice!  When we heard he got the bull, all the girls and the kids loaded up in the RAZR's and Jezebel and headed up the mountain to meet them.  We had a little picnic while we waited for them to pack the elk out.  He shot it in the bottom of a pretty steep range, so they had quite the adventure getting it out.  Word is that Randon had the heaviest pack and still made it out first, dropped that meat, then went back for more to take some weight off of the other guys's packs.  All that with his bad knees, I would wager to say that Randon rocked it!!!

 Grandma is always great to have lots of yummy snacks for the kids, and they had lots of fun exploring in the beautiful Fall weather

 Here are David's parents with the rack on top of the RAZR.  They got good pictures before David had to skin and quarter it, but I don't have those yet either. 

 Here is my great hunter!  I am so glad he had so much fun.  I was lucky enough to have Camille help me can a bunch of pears while he was hunting.  I love Fall time for all the fun things we get to do!

 Good thing he doesn't know how to start this thing, or he would be miles away by now, he loves riding them so much!

 Hunter had a little cold and wasn't feeling too hot, but Uncle Randon was able to get lots of giggles out of this dude.

 Isabel, Brigham and their cousin buddies were exploring all over the place and took turns "rescuing" each other.  It is so cute to see them play together and its even better when they get to play without killing each other, because that is something that happens rather regularly:)

 The next day, we went back up the mountain to listen to General Conference at their base camp.  The kids had fun dancing to music in between sessions and we got a good laugh out of people trying to catch Aspen leaves as they were falling out of the trees.

 David is pretty content up in the mountains and the kids wear themselves out from playing so hard.

 Still finding a way to roughhouse in the outdoors;)

It was a super fun week and a reminder to me of how lucky we are to be able to have such a beautiful mountain to play on.  Thanks for the fun memories G & G Bailey!