Some notes from the opening of the Ferris elk season:

08:05 - We stopped in at the main camping site on Pete Creek, surprised to find it empty.

Heelers enjoyed snooping around in the woods, while I dealt with the mess left by the previous occupants.

Hides, legs and rib cages of two buck antelope, still in camp. I hate it when the slobs turn out to be hunters, but they sometimes are. And more often than the just "a few bad apples in the bunch."

A paper target duct taped to a large subalpine fir. With over 15 bullets holes in the target.

And hence bullets in the tree. Probably not fatal, but potential sources of infection, and certainly of environmental contamination.

A huge piece of particle board, and spray-painted house siding. No idea what these scraps are from, but hey, you hauled it all the way into the wilderness, why can't you haul it out?

And a huge two-foot high firering.

So, picked up the trash, piled the scraps of particle board for someone to burn, and dispersed and filled the entire firering.

08:36 - Spotted a bull elk bedded in the open, high on a slope about 3/4s the way up Pole Canyon. Peacefully enjoying the morning sun. By 08:42 he had vanished. There are small snowbanks on the shady side of trees way up there, 2000' feet higher than me. The sun probably felt good.

At this elevation, the state radio booms in. I am eavesdropping on truck to truck conversations taking place more than a hundred miles away. Some voices I recognize, others I don't.

Visit with three men in camp, two of which are hunting cows. No luck this am, saw several bulls. Two young sons are also in camp. Running and playing in the camper and the trees. Father jumps on one for not wearing his orange vest.

In camp? If someone is stupid enough to mistake you for an elk in camp, do you think an orange vest will help?

Heeler sisters are wearing their orange, as usual. And as usual, everyone thinks they're cute.

Farther east we find a Suburban hidden in the trees. Five pieces of a six-point bull elk on the luggage rack on top. Nice bull. I wipe the mud off his teeth, and guess about three years old.

Would love to pull the front two incisors for aging, but there's no one in camp to ask for permission. At the moment the hunter fired the last shot, this public wildlife became private property. Can't swipe the teeth, even if almost nobody wants them, without permission.

Notice they haven't removed the ivories yet. These modified upper canine teeth, often called buglers, are prized. Some trusting hunters have left their elk in the field with ivories intact, only to come back to find these teeth neatly removed.

When I came to work for this outfit, they were going for $20 a pair. No idea what the market is now (guess I should check eBay), but simulated elk ivories (yes, you vegan readers out there, there are such things) are $5-6 each.

The large bull ivories are the most prized, but I prefer the simple beauty of cow ivories, like the one in my hand now.

My ex-volleyball buddy has an impressive ring with one of his bull ivories in it, but he has the hands for it. A woman through the check station last weekend had a pretty choker hanging from her rearview mirror that included ivories from two of her husband's elk.

Elk is properly tagged, so I fill out a tooth envelope with all the necessary information, with a note asking the hunter to send them in. Stuff it under the windshield wiper.

With no one else camped on this drainage, the heeler sisters and I park in an empty aspen grove for lunch. Only about 30 percent of the leaves are left on the trees, the rest making a yellow carpet on the ground that is rapidly changing to yellow drifts in the wind.

The lone aspens in the conifers have apparently been more sheltered from the elements, and most are thick with bright yellow leaves. Beautiful contrast to the dark green of the spruces.

Lunch is an experiment...King Oscar Sardines in Pesto sauce. Sorry, Erik, I'm not impressed. Going back to tomato sauce (if we can find them). Also two sticks of Jack Link's beef sticks, one third of which goes to the heelers.

Dessert is M&Ms. Since my fingers are still covered with bull elk blood, these have a slightly unusual taste. Not bad, though.

Lunch ends with a mug of cafe mocha, sipped and savored in the aspens. It is dark and overcast to the north, clear and sunny on the mountains. We're in between, where battle is enjoined. Warm and sunny one moment, gray and cold the next. But the wind never lets up, sweeping yellow aspen leaves by like rain.

A quick game of hide and seek in the spruces, where the masked heeler proved it is no game at all.

The wind swept a lone, small leaf of gold onto my lap as we pulled out. It's here in my planner now.