My near disaster hunt mentioned earlier was an early hunt in the Holy Cross wilderness, whatever unit that is. Only the wilderness area was open, and most of it was too high for deer. After my buddy scouted for a week and we hunted together for over a week, I made a big mistake. This was in pre-cell phone times, and as we were passing through a town one day, I made the mistake of using a phone booth to call home to see if anyone had died or anything. My wife was fit to be tied. Among other things, our foster indian son had gotten arrested and she had to bail him out of jail. Our kids had driven her nuts also, and she demanded that I get my butt home pronto. I told her we would hunt that evening and the next morning, and then I would head home.
That night we checked the avalanche chute, that was visible from the road, and saw nothing. In the morning, we were glassing the chute at the crack of dawn, and I spotted the 32" buck. It was a long, long ways away, but to get closer, you had to hike 1/4 mile down a steel hillside to the bottom of the canyon, cross a good sized river, and hike another 1/4 mile up the steep other side to get back up to the elevation where we were sitting. At that point, it would still be a really long shot, and it would be unlikely the buck would still be out in the open by then.
We decided to waste some lead shooting at it from where we were. We both fire off a few rounds and couldn't even hit close enough to scare the buck, but after all the noise, it walked into the pines at the side of the chute. My buddy said "well, I guess that was that". Since he was divorced and unemployed, he could still hunt a few more days to the end of the season, but I was on the hook to get home. Since my buddy has never been a team player when it comes to hunting, I suggested that we hike across the canyon, and he could work his way up along the edge of the chute, while I would circle into the pines and try to push the buck out in the open.
He agreed to that plan, since he would be the one to get the shot if anyone got one. So we hiked across the canyon, and I swung into the pines and then back toward the avalanche chute. When I popped out on the edge of the chute I was really surprised. I was still a good 400 yards below where we had seen the buck. So I circled back into the pines and came out 400 yards higher up. Just before I came to the chute I heard a deer take off. It didn't sound like a big buck, it sounded like a doe or maybe a 2-point, but it turned out it was the big boy and it came out of the timber less than 100 yards from my buddy.
He dropped it with on shot, but it bashed its antlers against some pines while it was death charging down the hill before it dropped. We had to peel the velvet and stain the antlers, but it made a pretty impressive looking mount. After we got it packed out, I had to head for home, and that was that.