Last Monday's elk flight:

(This is a horribly photo-laden entry. Those of you with slow connections, or on your short lunch break, might want to skip it.)

The call from dispatch was unexpected. My warden would be landing from his elk count in about 15 minutes, and the pilot and plane were available for the rest of the afternoon, if I wanted to go up. The way the dispatcher worded it, the pilot clearly expected me to go up. And he's right. A good layer of fresh snow, mostly clear skies and absolutely no wind.

Perfect conditions for flying elk.

First thing I did after hanging up was go into the bathroom, and remove the nice lunch I had just finished eating not an hour before.

Bulimics have got nothing on me when it comes to purging.

Then hustle to change batteries in the tape recorder, empty the memory card on the digital camera, replace batteries in the camera, and change into fire-resistant cotton clothes. Also find new rolls of film for the regular camera, which is frozen in the truck at about eight degrees, so I lay it in front of a furnace vent and knock the heat up. Had film break on me before because it was too cold and brittle.

Twenty-five minutes after the call, I'm at the airport. We're losing our daylight, so I opt for the faster, but more expensive airplane. Driving to the hangars at the other end of the tarmac while the pilot ferries over in the Super Cub they had just finished using. Store the Cub in its hangar, turn the Cessna around (avoiding the berm of plowed snow on the asphalt), and load up. As usual, I take the back seat, allowing me views and camera angles from either side of the craft.

As the pilot goes through his start-up routine, I notice the front right window is ajar. He slams it shut, but this leaves a small metal bracket sticking straight out of the plane. The bracket for holding the window open as one flies, which we are not likely to do in this weather. Appears that a screw has fallen out.

Turns out the pilot knew about that, has the screw in his pocket. We waste precious minutes of daylight trying to get the screw replaced from inside the plane, until the pilot finally gives up and goes outside to screw the bracket back onto the window. And then returns to start the start-up routine all over. He mentions the GPS is in the other plane. We'll have to do our 20-minute check-ins by general landmarks, rather than our exact location.

Okay, did that for a long time before modern technology came along. Not planning on crashing, anyway.

Conditions are still perfect. It is a rare day in our country when the windsock looks limp:

Minutes later, we are taking off down the runway, covered with patches of new snow.

One of the enjoyable aspects of flying is seeing the unusual patterns in the land:

The commute to the elk areas we need to count takes us north past the Haystack Mountains

and their rocky canyons, dusted with snow:

But most of the time, this is my view:

As the time for our first check-in nears, the pilot remembers the LORAN:

Not as accurate as the GPS, but still provides better locations than "about four miles southwest of Bear Mountain". Just glad he does the check-ins for us, because I would be sick in a minute if I had to focus on those little glowing numbers while bouncing through the air.

We headed straight for the Seminoes, passing to the right of the Ferrises.

Not a lot of snow on the south side, but as you can tell, the snow got deeper as we neared the gap between the two mountain ranges. Perfect conditions for spotting large brown things, like elk.

No elk on Bradley, not even any tracks in the deep snow

nor any around the Sunday Morning Rocks, which are places we might expect to find some bulls hanging up high.

We fly the entire north face of the Seminoes, and find no elk, no tracks.

Not even any elk down by the Miracle Mile

where they have been for several previous winters. Time to move farther from the mountains, into the areas they generally only use when the winter gets nasty.

I'm looking out my window, trying to get a shot of a small herd of panicked antelope, when I see them straight below me.

Elk.

Bedded in the taller sage, a good four miles from the mountains. If it wasn't for the brown sage being covered with a dusting of white snow, I don't think they would have stood out at all. We circle several times, trying to get a good count. Eventually the elk move out, and bunch up. More passes as I try to get good photos with the telephoto.

And then another pass, a test of the digital camera for this type of work. Realize immediately it probably won't work. Takes too long between shots as the camera records the first image to the memory card. With film, I take several overlapping shots as we pass each group, but with the digital camera, we're well past the herd before the camera is reset for the second shot.

Still, with a little patience and another loop or two, I have something useful:

We continue west and north, moving farther from the mountain ranges. Finding three smaller herds down low in the sage:

All is white and empty as we turn south again, checking the buttes as we head to Bear Mountain. Usually a few small bull herds hanging out on Bear, but after the tough 2000-01 winter, they have apparently taken to wintering farther west with the Ferris bulls. We find nothing on sandy Bear Mountain except trees and snow:

As we cross over to the Ferrises, you can see how white and barren the winter range is:

We would eventually find the bulk of the elk in one herd down by those distant, dark rocky hills (which are 12 miles distant).

But first we check out Jimmy's Rocks, the usual winter hangout for the Ferris bulls. And find roughly 50 of them, spread out on a snow-covered ridge just a little west of the rocks. Each still sporting their polished antlers.

Finding no more elk or tracks on the northeast slopes, we head down to the rocks and Beef Acre. And find the 128 elk some of you have been putting dots on in recent days.

Several passes through the area near the rocks fails to find any more elk or tracks

so we head back towards the mountains. Checking all the main drainages without finding any more elk, or tracks of elk. Just snow and trees:

As we pass over Whiskey Gap, and Nine Buttons' winter home

we hit the only turbulence of the whole flight. Pretty remarkable, when you consider our normal weather. The sun is preparing to set behind some low clouds

We head southwest into the desert, looking for elk in an area that the warden had not been able to cover in his flight earlier that day. En route, we pass over another resident of this country, none too happy with the weather:

As well as some human residents, hard at work on their rig in the oil patch:

Almost as soon as we reach the divide (no, not the Continental) we find animals. First a herd of deer, clear at the top, presumably avoiding the cold air masses settled in the basin below. And then elk. First four bulls by themselves, and then these 38 elk

scattered on a snowy slope. Flying just off the divide, we find a few more horses and deer

but no more elk.

Our sunlight is almost gone, so we head back to the barn, flying home with the Haystack Mountains again, more distantly on our left. With the little red light on our left wing glowing in the dim dusk.

We follow the highway most of the way in, giving me plenty of time to play tourist, picking out a few more natural patterns

And as much as my stomach does not like to fly, I love it. The chance to see things from a totally new perspective, like

semis,

ranches,

corrals,

our community,

and, of course, "Heeler Heaven"

as we made our banking turn in to land.