Day 6:
After a fitful sleep I wake up in the pre-dawn hours and boil water for oatmeal. The plan is for Bob and Mark to saddle horses while I hike up the ridge and take an hour to spot the valley before joining the group for a day’s ride up valley to a high pass. Typically optimistic, my spirit today is neither high nor low, but just is. I leave camp at 7:45am, and within 100 yards, I cut the overnight tracks in the snow of the moose that we now have 3 days of history with. He is headed Northwest and will likely keep walking until he either finds a cow, or else falls off the edge of the Earth.
Climbing higher on the slope behind camp, I turn to give a quick look with my optics to the open basin behind me.
With a fortuitous glance, my binoculars land on the brown-black shape of a cow moose in the meadows far below. Scrambling for my spotter, the tripod is quickly set up to scan the forest behind the cow. My heart leaps in my throat as I swallow hard at the massive sight of a bull moose just inside the forest edge. And just like that, the hunt is on!
To be continued.