It isn't our favorite opening day.

But we began it as we always have, pulling off the Interstate onto the desert. But the desert has changed since we first started allowing hunting elk in this area, 26 years ago. We found our first hunter parked on the usual high point, by the benchmark and radio and cell phone towers.

One lone hunter, sitting by himself, looking for a cow elk. He'd never hunted this area before, but a buddy told him "Just sit by the towers and wait. The elk will eventually come running by."

Sage advice.

All the previous 25 years.

But as I pointed out to this hapless hunter, they haven't had a drilling rig sitting a half-mile away in those other hunting seasons.

Yeah, this part of the desert is getting hammered. Visiting with the hunter, I counted at least five or six new gas wells within easy sight that weren't there last year. And you were never out of sight of some service vehicle racing to each well, kicking up dust.

So yeah, the elk were not nestled down where they normally are. I had an idea where they might be, and told the hunter, but the landmark names I used meant nothing to him.

Just go north.

He didn't.

We did.

Stopped to check one of our solar wells which, not surprisingly, was frozen.

Not frozen solid, mind you. Just the top inch was ice. Which appeared to be making life extremely uncomfortable for the resident arthropods.

Yeah, I broke the ice for the one backswimmer.

After encountering a couple more trucks of elk hunters, all of whom had not seen a single elk, the heelers and I stopped by the old barn on the Outfit's place.

And found the place to be inhabited, despite (or because of) the north wall having finally fallen down.

Then it was off the high sage down into the alkali basin, where found the natural water just as frozen as the anthropogenic.

Where I found a faint trace of fall colors.

A chance glint off a windshield found us heading back up into the sage hills to meet yet another elk hunter who, after a discrete wait, I turned to follow. Within six miles I found a relatively high spot where I could sit and watch not one, not two, not three, but four vehicles of hunters trying to surround and move in on a small band of elk.

The basic rule of working an elk hunting season... find the elk, and sooner or later you'll have hunters to watch.

So I watched.

And watched.

To my surprise, the elk ended up topping out right next to us.

Before milling around and deciding they didn't really want to be that close to my truck. Or any truck. And turned back the other way. Back into the encircling vehicles.

I waited for the inevitable onslaught of gunfire.

And waited.

And waited.

No shots. And each vehicle slowly left.

This cannot be.

I watched those 39 elk relax and feed for two hours.

No one molested them. No one even tried.

And so we left, too. Passing by the upside down truck on the hill.

I have no idea how this truck came to be deposited upside down on top of the hill. For many years the rancher used it to pump water from the well for his cattle, the thing sitting out there running, connected to the well by conveyor, without any wheels.

But somehow, somewhen, someone decided to haul it up onto the hill, and flip it over for good measure.

I don't know why.

On the way out we met our first hunter, also headed back to the interstate, not surprisingly empty and discouraged. But he did see elk. Three bulls who weren't scared off by the drilling activity. But no cows.

I tried to explain where the little band was, for his next day's hunt.

But he had no idea where Ruby Knolls is.