BACK IN THE YEARS when I had more mouths to feed and any elk was a good elk and where it died on the mountain was of no particular concern, I drew a tag to hunt moose in the Spanish Peaks Wilderness, in Montana. I did not much think about the hardships involved in such an endeavor. To me, a moose was just an elk by another color, and I had packed elk quarters from near and far and from riverbottoms to rimrock basins, suffering no consequences beyond losing a few pounds.
The destination for this hunt was a saddle on a ridge on the far side of the Gallatin River, where I was to meet up with my old friend Joe Gutkoski. Joe would hunt elk while I tried to pick up the trail of a moose.
There was nothing wrong with this plan, except that as far as moose hunting goes, I was two months too late. Moose are easy enough to find during the autumn rut, when they are down in the bottoms with their minds in the