Welcome to my web page dedicated to my February 2002 Elk hunting trip in central western New Mexico. We hunted in Area 15A near the small town of Quemado, just inside the New Mexico border with Arizona.
We drove my truck Godzilla, which you may remember from last years Elk hunt in Wyoming. We arrived in Quemado amidst a really heavy snow storm at just before dusk on Wednesday, January 30th. The last 75 miles or so were in the snow storm, and by the time we arrived in Quemado, Godzilla had icicles hanging off the running boards almost to the ground. This picture was taken the next morning, as we set out from our hotel to scout the area for the most likely place to hunt on opening day.
We had 2 full days to scout the area, and since neither my dad nor I had ever hunted in New Mexico, this gave us a good chance to familiarize ourselves with the hunt area. We drove down every road we found in the area, and while driving down the road to Fox Mountain, we managed to get seriously stuck in the snow. We were going downhill in a winding little narrow canyon, and all of a sudden Godzilla just stopped! As we were already in 4WD mode, I tried backing up, but all 4 wheels just spun like crazy. When we got out to investigate, we were in almost 2 feet of snow. The snow was up to bottom of the doors.
Well, I had purchased a set of tire chains for each set of wheels (fronts and rears) just before this trip, and we got to use them right away. Now remember, we were in a narrow winding canyon, going downhill. We couldn't go forward and we couldn't backup at the moment. So, I had to shovel snow for several feet behind the truck so I could back it up just enough so we could lay the chains on the ground and roll up on them. There just wasn't any way were could jack the truck up to put the chains on......
So, after a good 2+ hours in the freezing snow, we managed to get everything ready, and we crossed our fingers and tried to backup. My dad walked along side the truck to keep me from backing over the side of the road and ending up in the bottom of the canyon we were in, until we reached a place that was wide enough to turn around in. We then proceeded to head back to the highway, about 2 miles away. When we reached the highway, I took these pictures of Godzilla all chained up.
You can see by the tarp over the back end of the truck, we had all of our gear with us at this point, since we didn't yet knowwhere we would setup our camp for the hunt. So unloading everything to get to the tire chains and shovel was oh so much fun......
The rest of Thursday was uneventful.
My dad has a friend who lives in this general area, and told us we could stay in his cabin for the hunt, but it was a fairly long drive, time-wise, from our exact hunting area, due to the road and snow conditions this time of year. Well, we wanted to see just how bad it was, so Thursday night we decided to drive to his cabin. It lies about 30 miles up in the mountains from another small town called Reserve, which is 53 miles South of Quemado. This cabin is literally on top of the Continental Divide, which way down South in New Mexico isn't quite as tall or as rugged as it is in Colorado, Utah, or even Wyoming. But it is still quite a drive. His cabin is the only dwelling on this particular road, and no one lives there for most of the year, so we got to blaze the trail up to it, again in 12+ inches of snow. It took 90 minutes to get those 30 miles from town up to the cabin.
We spent Thursday night at the cabin, and had already decided it was way too long a drive back to our area, so we left the cabin early Friday morning. Well, part of that road is very rocky and rough, and just after leaving the cabin, we slid around on the road and managed to slam sideways into a nice pointed rock that punctured the sidewall on the left rear tire. POP! hissssssssss......
So, after unloading the truck to get the tire wrench and jack, we managed to get the flat tire changed without the truck sliding sideways off the jack onto me while I was jacking the truck up. This was a good thing. Also good, was the fact that we had the foresight to bring 2 spare tires with us, so now we still had one spare tire left. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I didn't take a picture of this particular piece of excitement.
Ok, now for more driving around. We stopped in Reserve for fuel. Somewhere in this process, I managed to lose my darn sunglasses. I was especially mad about that, because a couple years ago, I finally decided to break down and buy myself a pair of good quality sunglasses, and bought that pair of Ray Bans. Can you say *Not Cheap* boys and girls?? arggggg!!
So, we decided to go back to Quemado and get a hotel room for the hunt. Normally we use my dad's giant Army tent. But for only a 5 day hunt, we didn't think it worth all that extra trouble to carry and put up the tent, cut firewood, etc.. So we got a hotel room for the trip. mmmmm nice soft (real) bed.......hot showers every few nights........can you sense this wasn't necessarily a bad thing?
The snow storm we encountered when we arrived in New Mexico was actually the only time it snowed while we were there. However, the weather wasn't really what you might call warm. The first couple nights were below 0*, and the daytime temps were in the low 20's. Most of the hunt was spent driving around very slowly, hoping some Elk would run out in the many wide open areas in this part of New Mexico. So we got to stay warm for most of the trip at least.
Saturday we saw a small herd of Elk almost as soon as it got light enough to see. However, they were right in the middle of someone's ranch, on posted No Hunting/No Trespassing property where they knew they were perfectly safe. Who says animals are dumb? We didn't see anything else all day. But, due to the cloud cover all day, the sunset that night was quite spectacular. These pictures were taken from our hotel parking lot on Saturday night.
Here are some pictures of what that country looks like. Huge wide open spaces, small hills here and there, and forests of differing pine and oak tree varieties.
We left most our gear back at the hotel, except of course for the chains, spare tire changing equipment, and lunch, of course! Just how does a hungry Elk hunter go about getting a bite to eat for lunch you ask? Like this of course.
Notice the mud which now covers Godzilla in the last picture. By Tuesday, the nasty weather had cleared, and the sun had begun to shine. The temperatures got up to the low 40's, and the snow and ice which had covered all the roads began to melt.....into great mud bogs. The soil in this area of New Mexico is mostly volcanic ash and clay, which turns into instant mud with even a drop of water. These pictures show how much mud I had hanging off my tailpipe (or rather Godzilla's tailpipe), and everywhere else. It took me 2 hours at home to wash all that mud out from under the truck frame, wheels, etc..
Our trip wasn't a total dud. We actually did see Elk several times. Mostly on private land, but a few times out in the open. When we found them on legal ground, we proceeded to bail out of the truck and shoot at them of course. Now, this was a muzzleloader hunt as opposed to a modern rifle hunt. Muzzleloaders are really only accurate out to a little over 100 yards, and are only really effective at taking game out to maybe 300 yards at best. This was the 8th Elk hunt in that part of New Mexico for the 2001/2002 year, with the first season being back in October 2001. So, by this time, the Elk were used to being hunted and shot at, and were therefore quite wary of hunters and were always quick to run off as soon as they saw us. We were never able to get within 200 yards of any Elk, so we didn't expect our shots to be on target. But, as Elk easily climb hills and run much faster than humans can, we figured it was best to shoot when you see them rather than trying in vain to run after them and get closer on foot.
We also saw other animals in the hills: Rio Grande Turkeys, rabbits, ravens, cattle, horses and even several herds of Antelope.
So... We didn't get any Elk this trip, but at least we did see some, and we even got to shoot at them! Which is better than any of the last 4 years hunting trips. Better luck next time, as they always say......