I grew up in Durango and started hunting elk in the San Juan's with my dad when I was a teenager.

I know the country well enough to point to drainage on a map and tell you where the ice clings longest,

and where the cows like to feed when the first cold snaps roll through. Copper Ridge was always a quiet place to us, high, windy, and out of

the way. You reach it by creeping up old mining roads that crumble at the edges and kick loose

rock into the drop-offs. By mid-September, the Aspen go gold, mornings bite at your ears, and the air at

11,000 feet feels clean in a way you only get in the high country.

My buddy Eli and I had hunted that ridge for three years without anything worth talking about beyond normal elk stories.

The fall of 2019 changed that.

We left Durango before sunrise in my old F-250, a flatbed trailer hitched on with our gear strapped down, a

wall tent, cots, a propane heater, coolers, and an ATV to reach glassing spots fast when

the wind shifted. The climb from Silverton was slow, low range, steady throttle, tires

slipping just enough to keep me honest. We passed one other truck

coming down stacked with firewood and didn't see another soul the rest of the drive. By mid-morning

we pulled into a small bench just below Timberline, flat enough for a tent and close enough to water

to be practical. You could stand there and see a broad face of the

opposite slope. It broke into shelves of talus and brush with open strips of meadow running like

ladders toward the top. We set camp, strung a line for wet gear, and took a minute to sit with coffee

and look over the country. The first day was normal. We checked wind, glassed, and watched

a line of cows slip out of the aspen groves near the top. A bull bugled once, thin across the

valley. It was the kind of note that raises the hair on your arms, even if you've heard it a thousand

times. We cooked dinner on the stove,

dehydrated beef stew that tasted better than it deserved,

...