All right, all right. Another day, another podcast. Let's roll with it. All right. Here we go.

All right. Here's a story from Colorado. I really like this story. I hope you guys enjoy it.

Here's what the writer says. I grew up in Colorado and I'm a proud member of the

Mescalero Apache tribe. I grew up hunting, elk, deer, and bear in the mountains,

but I've had the privilege of hunting all over the United States. I served eight years as an

infantryman in the U.S. Army and I have three tours in the box. I've seen all sorts of things

that would be hard to explain for anyone, but I'd like to focus this letter on the events that

happen right here in my home state. Growing up as a backcountry hunter and fisherman,

I always strive to get off the beaten path. Our elk camp is a six mile walk and we hunt even

further than that. My father and grandfather had a lot of stories that we would talk about around

the wood stove in our outfitter tent, and I would hang on to every word of the stories,

because I thought that's just what they were, stories, until I got older.

One story that sticks out was one about a cow elk my grandfather shot in a snow storm.

Grandpa hit her a little further back in the body than he would have liked and she ran

away before they even picked up a blood trail so they gave her some time to die.

It was easy to track in the fresh powder, though. They followed the tracks 400 yards through the

scrub-oaks into the back of a drainage where they found the imprint in the shape of an elk and the

track stopped. What they saw there scared the hell out of my grandfather. There were big tracks

with long strides that looked like something walking in bare feet coming down the ridge

and onto the shelf and then they went back up the ridge.

Whatever this thing was, it had taken the elk and carried it back up the ridge.

And that's one of my grandfather's stories, but here's mine.

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