Joe's New Trophy

Joe went on his first elk hunt this year, and against all odds, he actually shot a bull. This is not a slam on Joe's hunting abilities, but most people hunt many, many seasons without getting an elk, so he was pretty lucky. The meat from this sucker filled an entire refrigerator and freezer. The guys cut all the steaks and roasts themselves, and then took 110 lbs of additional meat to be processed into 180 of hot sticks, sausages and hamburger. Good thing Joe cleaned out our freezer before he left.

Joe went with two friends up northwest of Vail. Here's a couple of pictures of their hunting area.

The guys hiked two miles from the end of the road to their campsite, carrying all their supplies on their backs. This is a picture of Joe's friend, Chris. Notice the big smile. He wasn't smiling at the end of the two mile trip.

If you look closely, you can see Joe underneath that giant stack of stuff.

This is Joe's other friend Stephen. He decided to go with the horizontal stacking method, rather than Joe's vertical design.

Here's Stephen coming to help Joe stack on all the meat from his elk.

This is Chris enjoying an elk...bagel. The guys wanted to enjoy some fresh elk steak over the campfire, but apparently they had no bread or utensils to eat it with. So they used the bagels they'd brought for lunch.

Here's how the elk head made it back to our house in Denver. I've seen a lot of deer carcasses strapped to vehicles in MN, but seeing an elk head emerging from a truck bed on the interstate would have been a first for me. I thought it was weird enough just sitting on the street in front of my house.

If this picture grossed you out, don't look at this next picture...

And here's the elk head in our garage (no, we will not ever use that towel again). Luckily it didn't stay in our garage very long, because it was about 75 degrees outside the day Joe brought it home. He took it to a local guy to get an English mount (the skull and antlers). And when it's done, he'll return it right back to the garage. Even if elk skulls fit into the decor of our house, it wouldn't physically fit into a room. Seriously, the thing nearly dwarfs the canoe. I'd have to dedicate an entire room of our little house to that thing.