Laurel, in the meantime, was checking out our cargo, a brand-new Polaris Ranger 4x4 loaded onto the aforementioned brand-new trailer.
"So what's this I hear about the Ranger not fitting on the trailer?" she asked.
"It doesn't, no." I answered.
"So how did you get the Ranger on the trailer?" she continued.
"With a forklift," I replied.
"And how are you going to get it off?" she inquired.
"We'll figure something out," I assured her.
"And why did you buy that trailer?" she asked.
"Well, it all made sense at the time," I responded.
"Yeah," Haenggi chimed in earnestly.
Sometimes, great adventures are more misadventures than anything else, and the Great Colorado Elk Hunt fit that bill perfectly. As a group, we had somewhat mixed objectives. Wheeler, Haenggi and I were all content simply to get the hell away from our desk jobs and into the Colorado mountains for a few days. Peil was even less invested. He didn't own a gun or have much interest in hunting, but he loved the outdoors. His plan was to hang out at the camp, read Jon Krakauer, cook dinner and drink beer.
Linner, on the other hand, was on a mission. After bagging his cow in 2003, he was determined that this was his year to get another one, maybe even a bull. And he was not the sort to let the mob rule. Linner knew what he wanted, and he was going to drag the rest of the group along if he had to carry us up the mountain.
Our tardiness had stretched his patience. He and Peil had set up the tent earlier in the day. All that was left to do was haul our gear up the steep, muddy trail to the camp. I suggested we wait until daylight to go up-I was not terribly eager to spend the night in a zero-degree tent, and opening day was two days away-but Linner was already barking orders to the boys. We were going up the mountain, in the dark. There were elk in those hills, and David B. Linner was determined to find one and kill it.
After a 30-minute drive to the trailhead, the first trick was unloading the 1200-pound Ranger. We tried lifting the Ranger over the trailer rails, but we couldn't quite muscle the machine out. Finally, we stacked firewood and made a little ramp for the machine to drive over. After a couple of tries and some adjustment, it worked! Innovation at its finest.
With the Ranger off the trailer and the stars shining overhead, we loaded rifles, camp chairs, cook stoves, three coolers of food and beer, whiskey, cigars, headlamps, a GPS unit, ammunition, sleeping bags, books and snowshoes onto it, a Polaris Sportsman 800 Twin EFI and a Suzuki KingQuad 700 4x4. Two trips later we had all of our gear in the camp. We outfitted our canvas palace with two lanterns, employed the little wood stove to bring the inside to a balmy 55 degrees, set up some camp chairs and poured a glass of Maker's Mark. There is nothing better than a warm tent on a cold mountain!