When my two buddies and I awoke to more than 2 feet of fresh snow outside the tent, we knew the situation was serious. It was the third day of a 10-day wilderness elk hunt. We were on our own, with horses, camped at 9,500 feet in the Rocky Mountains.
By the time we finished breakfast, the snow was falling even harder. A storm had been forecast for the region, but it wasn’t supposed to hit for another week. Two hours later we scrambled to break camp, load the horses and head 18 miles down the trail.
On our way down the mountain, we ran into a forest ranger who was heading into the high country to inform elk hunters of the magnitude of the storm and to get them out quickly. A few days later, one of my buddies called the ranger, whom he knew, and asked about the
