Welcome back to CaffaroCast everyone. It's Friday the 9th. I just got back from a turkey hunting killing spree and Frank is getting ready to go on one.

And we have got a guest that I actually met more or less on the side of the mountain. We had talked a little bit on on social media, but when I was hunting up North for for Mule Deer, this guy had messaged me that had said, hey, I think I'm going to be in the same area.

As you're hunting and insure enough, I ran into him while I was back there hunting for Mule Deer. So Justin, Wal, ski, what's going on?

Hey guys, hope everything's going on on your side of the mountain. Yeah, yeah, we're good. I think you kind of wanted to do this as a lessons learned type of a podcast.

We kind of conversed back and forth about doing one kind of tell the story of how we met what went on when we were back there and what you learned on your first, more or less hardcore kind of kick ass trip into the high country.

Yeah, I'll start by saying that I'm my weight up. So I park at the trip. We can't just up the road from the trailhead to kind of get acclimated.

And then we drove down that morning to the trailhead and started hiking up. And about the time I got the tree line, I sent you a message and said, hey, if no one tells you today, you were right. This fucking sucks.

So, so to paint the picture for everybody listening, at the time you and I met, I was just south of 270 pounds and a 42 inch waist.

I'm certainly not a set of cartoons. So the hike from 10,000 to what that path is 13,000. Let's do it.

It's up there. It's it's up and that tree line, the actual path where you can see it. That hike. If I had not made already made the decisions you to go up that mountain, I think I would have turned around or tried to hunt the drainage on this side of the path.

So, and that looking up that trail, it just you can see the top of the entire way.

Where are you from, Justin? So everybody knows I live currently in Indiana. So I live on pancake 500 feet.

Oh, damn. What what how did you decide to come out to Colorado and pick the the area without saying the unit or specifics, I guess.

Kind of what was your process as far as deciding that. So where you wanted to hunt? So I'll refer in some of the notes that I have referred to my brother. My my brother was actually football coach of mine when I was 12.

So he became my big brother got me into our tree, the outdoors hunting, everything else. And I he lived in that area. He moved out there. I don't know in the mid 90s and became a guy for high speak outfitters and served with a guy all around the west.

So he had invited me out for several trips. I'd actually put into that tag a few times prior and never got drawn for it in 2019. I actually threw the tag with my brother and another guy on the way out.

Not on the way out a couple of weeks before the trip. I brought a broke his toe. And so when we got the amount he's like, dude, I can't do it. I can't make it up the mountain.

And so that was the first of many changes on my trip. But this that location was entirely his idea. So did you end up having to come out solo then? Has that what ended up happening?

So that we put in as a team or a group of three. The other guy I had only met for about an hour a year prior. He 20 to 28 I guess. Brother came out for a solo elk hunt and met two guys from Tennessee that he became friends with.

And ultimately we as a group decided to put in for the new elder tag together on three of us. So going up to the mountain, it was supposed to be my brother, myself and this other guy.

And it turned out to be just me and this other guy and we don't need to be so there for an hour. Prior to getting to the camp spot at 12 dollar or 10 dollars.

So I'll take it from there for just a second. You had messaged me quite a bit earlier in the year letting me know we may run into each other. So I was semi glassing for gear and expecting to see you and I.

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