EP 294: Epic Survival - Stranded During the Colorado 2nd Season Mule Deer Hunt With Justin Finch

Anything to do with Western big game.

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Wyatt, Cash, and John, how y'all doing? Good. Good. Just hanging out. Good for being a Friday and in the office, how about that? Yeah, one of our first Fridays back. Yeah, how do you like working Fridays? Kind of unusual, but hey, the normal working folk do that. Wyatt, how do you feel? Yeah, getting back into the swing of it for sure. It's been a good fall, so it's about time. Yeah, it actually feels good, doesn't it? It does. Yeah, that's what I want to hear. It feels good to be in the Epic office. Cash, do you agree or no? I agree. Of course, you don't dare say no, but anyway. John? Yeah, doing good, doing good. Yeah, it's been good. Everybody's been out in the hills a ton. Of course, we're working four tens usually up to the hunts, and then who knows after that.

We just try to come and go and clean the office up and clean our desks up here and there as best we can, but we're supposed to be in the hills. We're paid to be in the hills. That's part of it. So anyway, John, we mounted a scope for you today. You guess that's good timing, huh? You're going to leave for a hunt here in about four or five days, probably ought to have a scope on your gun. Yep, got to go sight it in.

Kind of time to do that. But this is actually backup gun, so. Oh, that's good. Or it might, depending on how it shoots, it might be the primary. I haven't shot it yet. So this particular rifle, it's a fierce 7PRC shooting factory ammo, and mine, we took it out just for a good time and got it all dialed, and it's unbelievable. Cash, you were there. Yeah, man, it's a tack driver. It's unbelievable. With factory ammo. Yeah, so I let the boys have it out there on the General Utah, and they're out doing their thing. And, of course, they want all dad's wazoo, you know, products that I never had at their age, and so smart range finders and pretty crazy guns. And so anyway, I let them, I'm like, okay, you can take this fierce out, you know. Hadn't killed anything yet with it. And the 175 grain ELDX factory ammo, but it's just unbelievable. Anyway, they take it out, and I show them.

There's a smart range finder, right? You get the range. It tells you how to dial. It's dialed in mills. So, you know, it's like 14 layers deep for kids. I showed them how to dial, and they're out there. They don't find a buck they want. They're kind of passing some smaller bucks and stuff. Anyway, Sean calls me, dad, dad, dad. We had a dog out there at 900 yards, and I'm like, oh, boy. He doesn't call me unless he's pretty darn excited that way. But anyway, I guess he got down on a pack, and they probably, I don't know. I usually don't shoot coyotes in my honey holes. Do you guys? No. No. Steer clear of it. Okay. But hey, I have when I was younger. So here they are. They just get, they got to make something die. And so anyway, they get on the pack and hit the range finder. Justin's on it. Justin can't quite get him found in the scope. Can't get him found.

And Sean's like, move over, move over. I got him, you know. So anyway, Sean gets on the scope. Dial, adjust the dial slightly. And anyway, ended up touching it off, and it's 900 yards. A coyote at 900 yards. How big is the kill zone on a dog, you guys? Like eight inches. Yeah. Square or maybe? Tiny. Maybe. And if you hit him somewhere with a big enough bullet, maybe he'll end up being done for. So anyway, touches it off. Looks at Justin while Justin's looking through the scope. And about two seconds later, you hit it. I can't believe you got it. Anyway, sends me the video. I say, go up there and take photos. Prove it. Anyway, there's blood everywhere. So pretty impressive. First shot they have ever shot out of that rifle. And nails it. At 900 yards with a smart range finder. And anyway, it's amazing what the gear has done for people. So now it's their gun, right? Yeah. Hey, da, da, da.

We'll put this in our truck. So anyway, they've been packing it nonstop. I did reacquire it. It's now in my safe. And we'll see. I'm going to work up some. Justin and I are going to work up some loads for his Remington out of the box gun. And, you know, they're great guns. And you can still, you know, use a bullet app and a normal range finder and plug in your, you know, average elevation temperature and whatnot. And really be close and be awesome. And that's what's going to happen in Colorado. So anyway. Speaking of killing a coyote in your honey hole, we just released a video. Devin on a Nevada mule deer hunt. And he shoots a coyote, like, yards from a bed of deer. And the deer didn't move at all. The coyote goes to die and tries to go where the deer is, turns around, and then, you know. I contend. So go watch that. Devin finds dumb deer. That's how he's killing them.

Devin hunts dumb deer. Well, it's like all animals are dumbed down around him. The coyotes come right up. The turkeys. I mean, everything comes right up to him. How about the owl looking into his soul? Yeah, the owl. He's like, yeah, the owl's circling around him in his camp looking into my soul. No, owls don't look into your soul.

It's some kind of special connection he has. I leave every hunt going, man, that animal is brilliant. Devin. Yeah, I can't find a single thing. Devin, they're tracking him down.

Must be the little chicken nugget. A little furry chicken nugget running around. I don't know. Owls are meat eaters, man. I wouldn't want one staring into my soul. Anyway, kind of interesting, but it's kind of fun. Of course, we've worked over some loads. Devin and whatnot. Everybody here has pretty much done some range time. Cash, you've got a great shooting rifle. Cash, I want to save your story for just a minute because we do got to call a guest. But you've had some success and I want to hear all about it. I also want to hear about your rifle and whatnot. So anyway, we do have a guy we want to give a holler to. It's Justin Finch. Quite a great story. Wyatt saw this on social media. I saw it but didn't realize the gravity of it all because Instagram didn't have as much information as Facebook, it seems like. But Wyatt, you put me on to it.

Kind of give a quick rundown of what you've heard. Yeah. So from what I've heard, he was in Colorado on a mule deer hunt out there. Not sure of the unit, but I know he was above 11,000 feet and had a snowstorm come in. Yeah. And it sounds like things got pretty sketchy from there. Had a couple of llamas. Anyway, killed a great buck and then it was spiraled straight down from there. Yeah. Probably let him tell the rest of that story. Yeah. But very aggressive. Kudos to him. I mean, usually on second, people are trying to be on the winter range and hitting the bucks as they appear on the winter range. Because the winter range is generally easier to access and has good road access usually. And you're hunting some BLM, either the BLM or the BLM forest boundaries and stuff. So, and, you know, flirting around private and whatever.

So, anyway, but he went straight to the top and there's bucks that will push snow up there chest deep. And so if he finds a great buck, we'll kind of let him talk about it. But interesting. And this just happened. So the second season is still in process right now. And he's home now safe. But all of this happened the first part of the second season. Yeah, I believe this last weekend. Yeah, kind of crazy. All right, let's give him a call and kind of hear something crazy here. Hello, it's Justin. Justin, Jason, and Wyatt, Cash, and John here. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Good. It's good to hear your voice. You know, it's good to be heard. It is good to be heard. For sure. Yeah, for sure. Well, I guess to start this off, we sure appreciate you spending some time with us. And kind of to start it off, just give us a little of your background and then some of your experience.

Because you're an experienced woodsman. You've hunted a grundle. Maybe even some of your Colorado experience. And then dive into what your plans were for this year and how it all developed. Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm 32 years old, born and raised right here in Utah.

You know, I've been hunting since I was a little kid. You know, since I was eight years old, I've been hunting with my dad. As I got older, you know, I really got into like the backcountry type style hunting. Just trying to get away, trying to find that, you know, next age class of deer. And I'm mainly a deer hunter. I do a little bit of elk hunting. In fact, I had an elk tag this year and quickly realized that apparently my arrows are muley arrows and they're not elk arrows. I like the muley arrows. You know, like the muley arrows, like they find the mark with that elk hunt this year in September. Man, I just, I got the fever so bad. And it's just a totally different experience. But, yeah, so I'm mainly a mule deer hunter. I've been hunting specifically Colorado for, I think, the last probably 10 years.

I always try to do like an early season hunt there, whether it's archer or muzzleloader. Looking forward to just like a zero point unit that I can hunt every single year. Really learn the area. This year, being different, I knew I was going to draw an elk tag. An archery elk tag. So, I was like, you know what? I cannot live with myself if I don't hunt Colorado. That's the way everybody feels it goes there. Oh, yeah. No matter the state of the deer herd or not, you still will never quit going. Oh, for sure. Right? Like, you'll do anything you can to get a tag. And typically, I usually hunt alone. And the reason for that, you know, and I don't advise that. I love hunting with friends. It's just, you know, me and my friends, we're in a different state of life. I have three kids. Some of them don't have any kids.

And sometimes I got to go out, you know, Friday late after work, drive through the night, which I don't advise either. Yeah. But, you know, get to the trailhead at three in the morning, then you hunt till Sunday late, and then you might have to drive back for work. So, you know, I just, I hate putting people out. And so, and that's how it was this year. So, I put in for a second season mule deer tag in Colorado in a unit that I've never been to before. I've hunted all around the area before. It's in central Colorado. Big wilderness area. So, I knew the surrounding units had some good deer in it. So, I was, anyways, I was able to get this tag with zero points.

After my elk hunt was unsuccessful, unfortunately, I was looking forward to this hunt. And typically every year, I used to hunt a lot more before I was married, like all of us, I'm sure. So, I've kind of not, she doesn't limit me at all. My wife's amazing. But I usually do three hunts. I do Utah, Colorado, Idaho. Those are, I do those three every single year because you can basically get those every year if you want. And then, obviously, if you draw an extra tag, then now you're going to Wyoming. Now you're going to Nevada. So, it's usually between three and five hunts. So, going into this hunt, I felt, I guess I should say, you know, I'm stubborn. You know, nothing's going to stop you from going where you want to go. Right. Because why would it? Like, if you're 20 miles in, like, you're going to get out. No matter what you're going to do, you're going to go. Yeah. And you're 32.

You're fit. You're 32. You have the gear. Yeah. We have electronics. We feel safe. We have electronics. We can call out. Like, we're good. Yeah. Like, there's no reason to ever worry. And even my wife, I mean, she's gotten to the point where she doesn't worry about me. She knows I'm fine. And what's funny is, and I know I'm kind of jumping all around, but the previous week before going out on this hunt. So, the hunt starts on the 20, I believe it was the 28th. It was the last Saturday of October this year. Yeah. And just to give some backstory, because this will come into play as I kind of get into this story. The weekend before, I took my kids camping on the Idaho's deer hunt. And we had a good time. We had these great big oversized sleeping bags that they sleep in. And, you know, and I had given them some hand warmers when we were camping. And I didn't think anything of it, you know.

So, just remember that as I get into this story later on. Because it comes into play pretty big. The hand warmers. Yeah. The hand warmers is key here. So, leading up to the hunt, I'm looking at weather forecast. And my dad was originally planning on coming with me. And he calls me. He's like, hey, you see the weather forecast? And I said, yeah, what's up? He said, I ain't going.

So, I'm just like, hey, I don't blame you. You know, he's getting older. Ever since he's, in the last couple years, he's gotten to the point. He's always hunted with me. So, I've started taking llamas recently. And one of the main reasons for that is, you know, I like hunting with my dad when I can. And the only way he can get back in there is not having gear on his back, you know. Is he 60-ish or whatever? Yeah, he's 50. High 50s. Yeah, high 50s. Okay. And honestly, he's selfish. Like, it's great. If you guys have used llamas or even horses before, like, they're just getting that weight off the back. I'm just afraid to get – I'm afraid of getting spit on. That's all. Oh, that definitely happens. That definitely happens. Does it? Does it really happen? Oh, yeah. I haven't been spit on, but I've been in the crossfire.

For sure. They're ignorant. They're just ignorant. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and they're not like a horse. Like a horse, I feel like you have that kind of companionship where you can, you know, kind of pet them. Yeah. You go to pet a llama, and they just, like, back up, look at you. Like, what the hell are you looking at? They're not – they don't want to be petted. Yeah. What kind of animal does that? Just load me down. Oh, yeah. Totally. But, yeah. How much weight – before we leave that, like, how much weight are you putting on a llama, like, roughly? Yeah. So, going in – okay. So, max capacity, and this probably depends on the llama, but I use – it's Wasatch Front Llamas Mason. And his llamas are very trained. Okay. Coming out, he doesn't like you to have more than about 90 pounds on llamas. Okay. And that obviously depends if you're going straight downhill or if it's more flat.

But 90 pounds is kind of that general idea. Okay. Still a fair amount of weight. That's a llama still. Yeah. No, and it's like – especially when you're – yeah, and especially when you're solo. I mean, I'm – so, going into this hunt, I brought so much gear. Yeah. Because, you know, technically I have – I'm okay packing. I can put the gear on my back. So, technically – You got 60. You got 60 or 70. They got 90 a piece or 85, 80, whatever. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. You're loaded. Yeah. So, like, gear was an issue, like, saving weight. So, I just brought – I brought everything on this hunt.

The weather forecast was supposed to be 10 to 15 inches, which, like you guys know, like, I hear that, and I'm like, that's gear killing weather, baby. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to – You know, like – Smash one. Yep. Oh, yeah. For sure. You know, and I was probably going a little too high in elevation, but that's just my style. I, you know, I figured I'd start high and maybe work my way low once I could get visibility. And I figured I'd be fogged in for the first two days. And then – and I had Friday – I was going in Friday morning, and I was going to have to be home by Halloween. You know, I got three kids, and the wife made it pretty clear that, you know, as long as you're home for Halloween, you know, I can go back out after. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, the weather was supposed to clear up Monday, but, unfortunately, it was supposed to be super cold.

I think it was projected to be, like, negative three Sunday night. so I knew what I was getting myself into um well apparently not thought you did um yeah so so I leave Thursday night to central Colorado I get the trailhead middle of the night sleep up the trailhead wake up early um I load llamas up um and I hike in and as I'm loading the llamas up um I've actually brought two sleeping bags I brought my regular mommy bag that everyone knows like they're never fun to sleep in and so oh absolutely and then I have this oversized bag from when I took my kids camping and so I'm looking at my gear I'm like well my dad was supposed to come but now he's not so I mean I have so much extra weight on these llamas so I'm like you know I am going to throw in that exercise oversized bag that'll be nice and comfy so I

throw that bag on and I head in there um I and I had told my my I always tell my wife and my dad like where I'll be camping and I go in and it was six and a half miles about 2400 feet of vertical um over the six and a half so not too bad um and then I I that's where I was planning on camping I get there about noon about three and a half four hour hike and when I get I take the all the gear off the llamas and before I set up camp I I run to the top of the ridge I glass you can just see like these two huge beautiful basins um and I'm looking about two and a half miles as the crow flies you know and of course the farthest flipping ridge you can see I see this deer and at that distance even with the spotting scope you know all you can see is barely a frame um and so I'm thinking well you know and it by the way there's no snow there it is it is clear blue skies dry ground um dry ground

on the north facing there was like old snow that was maybe like 10 inches on only north facing what elevation have you made it to at this point I'm at 11.2 11.2 so 2400 gain but your your trailhead was fairly high too so yeah trailhead was fairly high yeah exactly so I'm at 11,200 um and which is about as high as I was planning on going um and so I'm I'm I'm looking at this uh at this deer and I'm thinking well judged by his frame like I wasn't gonna be super picky anyways just being solo and kind of limited on time so I'm like well I'm not gonna camp here what am I gonna do and and I hope no one's offended by this but like me and my buddies we always call it like the next ridge syndrome where you just go like especially being solo it gives you the flexibility to just do your own thing and I don't have to answer to anybody so like no I know my abilities where you know if I'm with

my dad we're gonna camp there regard this and he might sit at camp and glass for me but sure and you'll just hike over there and hike back or whatever exactly exactly wouldn't be bad so I load the llamas back up and we drop and I have to drop about 800 feet into that basin and then go into the next basin and drop like 200 more feet to find a flat camping spot um which is ultimately going to be my demise it's coming out of that isn't easy um so I go into their set of camp by about 4 p.m. um then I run up the ridge to get eyes on that buck and when I see him you know I was thinking he was gonna be like a 50 60 buck but he was a little bit better than I thought um so I was like yeah I'm gonna try to kill that sucker tomorrow um so I put him to bed watch him feeding on the south facing ridge run back down to camp and get back down to camp at I don't know it's dark at like 6 30 so

6 45 or so I'm at camp and uh go to bed I wake up to just a blizzard and it's it's only snowed maybe six inches or so um so I'm there to hunt so I just get out of my bag and I know with a little he's in this little finger canyon and I figure maybe that snow had him has him just sit in bed and waiting for me you know what do you what do you uh what do you use for a tent when you're in with a llama yes yeah so typically I I have um it depends on the hunt um I ran I usually just have like a a king's two-person backpacking tent um for this hunt specifically I knew it was gonna be super cold and usually I'm hunting the bow hunt or the muzzleloader hunt so I actually borrowed a tent from my good buddy Jared uh one of those Argali four-person uh stove tents so I mean I had a nice stove going inside my tent I had a bunch of dry wood sitting in my tent um like to be honest I feel like I had

the right gear gear going into this yeah um so and and honestly I feel like a teepee tent does pretty well in the snow um just obviously the shape of it without it collapsing and okay yeah so so I leave at first light Saturday morning um hike up this ridge and I can't take the llamas with me just because it's you know Colorado it's it's pretty steep and now there's snow on it I just didn't want to risk them slipping and falling so I leave them at camp and I around this ridge and I'm trying to glass you can only see like two three hundred yards and and then it clears up for a bit and that's when I'm like okay this buck's got to be here and I'm at this point like like an idiot I'm just skylined standing there like sometimes you just don't even think and I'm looking across canyon and all of a sudden I look straight below me and there's that buck just like bedded under this pine tree kind of

weathering the storm and he's looking straight up at me and I'm like oh snap and typically I love to film my hunts um I try to as much as I can and in that situation I couldn't get the kill shot because he's looking at me and I'm thinking he's gonna go so I just lay down um lay down prone shooting straight kind of I don't know two three hundred feet in elevation down below me um and I just put right on him and bedded down it was one of those where I shot and you know he didn't even move his head just drops perfect yeah just dead and that's where it sucks hunting solo because you don't have nobody to celebrate with you know yeah you let out a little hoop and then you look around for a weird I've done it yep yeah exactly you're like oh yeah now it's just work yeah now it's just work and I'm like oh that would have been

nice to have llamas up here but and I didn't you guys know this probably is better than I do those bodies on those Colorado deer I don't know what it is but they are just huge they are they're made for the weather you're gonna endure yeah exactly yep so so I go over there get some pictures um I and I always I always uh bone out my animals just you know based on how far in I am yeah and that obviously that takes a few hours um and then I put it on my pack take it back to camp I get to camp at about 4 p.m Saturday night and at this point there's there's about a foot of snow nothing to even worry about um and being solo I have nothing else to do so I crawl my tent get that little stove going in in that our golly tent um and then I I ate dinner but the problem was you know when you physically

exert yourself you're just not hungry yeah like you can't at least I am I can't eat a lot really and so I double or triple what you normally yeah exactly it's like you got to force it down so are you on mountain house dinners or what do you yeah so I usually do peak so uh two of my two of my best friends work over there at peak and so okay um so but same thing you're using backpacking food no matter yeah yeah no matter what right using backpacking food um um well actually the night before on Friday I actually packed in two big old New York strip steaks yeah that's what I was okay you're my kind of people oh yeah oh yeah I told my dad that because I was trying to convince him to come with me I was like hey I'm bringing a pan you know we're gonna eat if you'll come pretty good yeah exactly so I think

I was still full on that from the night before or something but I think I had like a Snickers bar and then a swig of water and then I was just tired so I went to bed like way early so my last food was 4 30 at p.m same as my last drink and the plan was I'm gonna wake up early and at that point I'm ready to go home see my kids yeah so I wait I wake up at in the dark maybe at six in the morning um and I wake up when I wake up and this is where things just start going south I wake up in the morning to my tent covered in white feathers completely covered in feathers I'm like what in the world I opened my tent and what happened I woke up to three feet of snow and in that little tent it like compressed the the the teepee and I went to bed with the stove going and I have a down jacket and it like pushed my down jacket into the stove oh and just melted my coat and you slept through all

that oh yeah I was out man so you can imagine waking up and there's just feathers everywhere I'm like what in the world flamingo around here oh yeah oh geez so um and I had brought I think two outfits or something the outfit before was obviously soaking wet from the day before being out with my deer and hiking back and and those are just like solid rock you know just because they were wet and so I so luckily I had I had a long sleeve shirt I had a light hoodie and then I had a rain uh uh just a like vortex rain jacket yeah yeah yeah um so that's what I was wearing out and I at this point you're not even worried because you're gonna I'm making it back um I'm I'm about nine miles by the way nine miles from the truck at this point is where base camp was um so I start getting all my stuff um oh and then we I keep missing

details I apologize um I was going to start a fire that morning and I don't know what it is and I've never had this issue with my lighters I had three lighters I brought three of them and I you know and I'll talk about the at the end I wanted to like just highlight some things I've learned leave them in a package like I leave my lighters in a package a hard package so they can't get depressed accidentally or whatever yeah and I think that's what happened I don't know if it was a combination of elevation it can't just be elevation because I've never had problems with lighters but I think it was the extreme cold as well nothing would light like I couldn't get my lighters to work at all like the lighter wouldn't light the butane or whatever like yeah like spark was not lighting the light yeah this exactly so I'm not sure why but um I think it was a combination of them being a

little wet extremely cold so maybe it was the butane doesn't work at that elevation when it's that cold just little things like that where I couldn't start a fire so I was like well I'll just get hiking that's that that's why I started so early in the morning um so I load up all my stuff and um you know I have a ton of water there I think came in with like 300 ounces of water and what do I do dump it out leaving so oh yeah you dump it out right like dump it out and I leave 100 ounces because in my in my mind I'm like you know I'll be out in six hours you always think I can just eat snow on the way or whatever like yeah you'll be you'll be fine so I put 100 ounces in the panyards and then um my I put a day's worth of food in the panyard as well get hiking and um I'm a little worried about the the north face uh like the sum of this mountain that I got a crest over where I

originally was going to camp where I glassed that buck from because I knew I had to gain you know 800 feet of elevation and now there's three plus feet of snow plus on that side the wind the wind and it was all it already had you know 10 inches of snow being on the north face well I get hiking and I made it to that face which is about two miles which should have taken me should take anyone less than an hour I mean it was five hours getting there whoa just just pushing I mean you know it's like in between your waist and your belly button and with the llamas they just sink and so like I have to just you take a step and I have to take like a couple side steps and make this trail through the snow for them well I'm wearing rain gear um and like you guys know at least my rain gear it's not meant to

be super breathable it doesn't breathe so I know so I am soaking wet so soaking wet with sweat and it's free at this point in the day I think they said it was like five degrees so still it wasn't like in the negatives but it was super cold um snow still coming down I think and if end up at like three and a half feet plus on top of whatever was there and uh so I'm I'm dying of thirst I reached back at about noon to get a drink and I last drink I had was last night at 4 4 30 and my friends my dad they always give me crap because I'm like a camel I'll just you just get something in your mind like oh I'm going and then you forget to take a drink you know it just happens and I go to get a drink and my water's gone I'm like what in the look my food food's gone what had happened is that snow was so deep and it was pushing the panyards up and I had put it in the front pockets where

they're kind of open and pushed everything out yeah and it just pushed them out so they're lost somewhere in the last two miles in snow like there's no way you're finding them so here I am haven't had a drink in whatever 18 hours can't start anything to melt can't eat enough snow to matter yeah it's so like this is all just like a trickle effect of like how I got to where I was and but still even then I'm the thought of like oh I'm screwed never comes to your mind you just like well that's fine I'll just keep going yeah whatever never had problems before I still have self-service whatever yep well so yeah and I never did have self-service okay yep so um not and typically I usually do um and I should mention that at the beginning um my dad had got me one of those garmin in reaches back in uh before my my elk hunt he had it was his he had it for a couple years I love

those and then he oh yeah and he never used it um because he was always just hunting with me and so he gave to me he's like and I didn't use it but then I finally in September so just you know a month and a half ago I I got a membership um like 10 texts or something a month and then 50 cents for every text after that but I never I've never used it like I I bring it and it's in the bottom of my pack and it's one of those things where it's like three days into a hunt I'll be like oh I should probably let my wife know I'm alive yeah yeah so I never have it in my pocket or anything um so that that's ultimately what saved my life but um so I'm going anyways I'm going up this north face and I can't go straight up it so I kind of have to side heal it and as I'm side healing it I'd make about 20 yards and anybody familiar with that's been around livestock like they at least llamas

when they slip off the trail they can't get back on the trail because the snow's so dang deep that I had to just go back down to the bottom of the basin and then get on the trail again and then try it again um and so I I was just plowing away through and I'm trying to get to this mountain pass because in my mind if I get there then it's slightly downhill for six and a half seven miles to the truck yeah um so I think oh I just got to get that pass and I get another like good we can make it after that yeah yeah which is laughable because later on I realized how much snow there was like that wasn't yeah gonna happen but um I do this two or three times and on the third try like when they slipped off it just slipped into this like I mean it they sunk to like the middle of their neck of snow um and they just look at you yeah they just look at me and I'm like pulling

on the rope like come on you know like what are you and I was just so physically this is at uh about 3 p.m now been hiking since about 6 30 in the morning and I'm just I don't feel good at all like lack of food water no energy man you have no gas in the tank yeah yeah no gas in the tank and this is where like my decisions and people ask like why don't you do this why don't you do that like I was already so gone mentally that like you don't think straight and that's I can't stress enough like you can't wait till you're at that point it's too late yeah um so I'm I I was done like I couldn't dig them out again because multiple I mean there was probably 20 times I had to dig their feet out so that way they wouldn't dare to like take another jump so I made the decision like I got to get out of here um you know I'll go to get the trailhead and then from there I'll call Mason who owns the llamas

and we'll get some horses or something we'll figure it out to get his llamas out in my gear so I leave them and I just go and then what did you take with you um I took so I'm trying to think I had a little dry bag I grabbed um oh I took my sleeping bag off just in case because I this is where it doesn't make like I wasn't thinking straight left your sleeping bags with the llama no the llama so the sleeping bags on top and that's basically what I took it was this like soaking wet sleeping bag which like what the heck are you doesn't even make sense um and all of my gear was like buried with these llamas basically and so that's why like I didn't even think like I could it would take so much energy to dig these out you weren't it was a possibility to dig out more gear yeah I mean yeah and like in hindsight yeah obviously I should have in hindsight at this point an hour ago I should

have been like you know what I'm over this ain't gonna be possible I'm over I should have went down to the bottom of the basin set up my camp got my sleeping bag and then it would have been like calling for help would like oh if you can't be here for a day or two take your time I'm chilling you know like yeah it would have been a different story but so did you take the mummy bag or is the mummy bag stuffed down in and you took the big sleeping bag I I took the big sleeping bag um I left yeah the trailhead I decided you know I'm gonna I'm gonna take the big one the one that my kids used so I start hiking and man I made it 20 yards I go 20 yards and I just sink up to like my just past my belly button and I'm standing there on this it's like a third you know super steep 30 degree type angle slope side heeling worst avalanche spot you could think of like right in this avalanche shoot

there's like a cliff band below me so at this point I can't just like go downhill I'd have to like backtrack a ways um and so I'm standing there stuck and I go to take another step and both hip flexors in every single muscle in my legs completely just not know if you guys are crampers they cramp yeah oh yeah I got that from my dad yeah like I physically could not move and I sat there forever just like trying to like get unstuck and like take another step and I'm just like in excruciating pain and that's when like I sat back and I'm just like laying in the snow and I'm like wait what am I doing and like my hands are just uncontrollably shaking I can't hold still and that's when I realized I was screwed yeah you're in trouble that's when I realized I was in trouble yep um so it took me a minute to

like try to get myself unstuck my sleeping back's just back behind me a little ways just sitting in the snow like it doesn't make sense what I was even thinking yeah and the first thing I think of is like I need to get in and get try to get warm I need that tent set up yeah before I need my lighters to work I need that tent set up yep and so what do I do when your mind's not working I lay my sleeping bag down no ground pad right on the snow like I don't know if that's the worst decision you could ever make and you got in it and I got in it and and it's wet this is the wet one yeah oh yeah and it's just yeah it's just wet like I'm soaking wet sleeping bags wet and it's just one of those cotton flannel yeah comfy you know one of the comfy ones oh yeah your mummy bag is probably warm wet like the

mummy bags when they get wet they're you know yeah they hold they hold their value yeah yeah for sure so I'm laying on the sill side um kind of on the path that I had made and I just lay in there and it took all I could do to be like do I like I don't I'm not gonna be able to I'm like I'm I don't know what to do because I know I brought a Garmin inReach but it's somewhere in those bags in the saddles that are buried and I don't know how I don't know how you feel but I have like what point do you think I have no pride anymore I am hitting the SOS button like I'm yeah I've got a lot of pride like I'm I I could die before I hit that button maybe first for sure and if you ask any of my friends I'm the most stubborn yeah person that they probably know because I was that that thought never even reached my mind it doesn't even come to your mind yeah because that's not how I work yeah

um in that moment I can't move and I'm literally like already hypothermic to the point I came think straight that that's when I'm like oh where and I'm like looking for my phone even though I don't have service and I reach my pocket and there's my phone and I'm laying in the sleeping bag and next to my phone and you can believe in miracles or whatnot and my GPS unit the inReach is literally in my pocket next to my phone wow and I think what what happened is when I was cleaning up camp that morning um I had seen it laying down and I put it in my pocket I was like oh I'm gonna put it in that pannier and I just forgot and it was just in my pocket wow so I pull that thing out and you have to it's like a three-step process where you have like push the button swipe and then like confirm and I'm sitting there just like shaking I really yeah I'm like do I really push this like there ain't

no going back you know and then I just there was I physically couldn't move and I knew how cold it was supposed to be that night um and how hypothermic already was so I pushed that button um and right after I pushed the button um I'm using my phone I don't if you got anybody that has their earthmate it's the earthmate app yeah the earthmate app yep so so so I set the the unit just outside my seat bag just like in the snow and then I'm I have the seat back all over my head and I'm just like literally uncontrollably shaking as I'm texting my wife to say I didn't want to freak her out but but I wanted her to know that like hey I just sent an sos it is serious like it's not a this is no joke if they call you yeah yeah so typically when you click that what they do is they they immediately call my wife and my dad those are my two emergency contacts and they ask them

hey if this if he were to push the button like how serious is he yeah my wife knows me you know I've been doing this my whole life and I kind of go pretty hard in the paint and so she she knew she was like if he's pushing that you need to get your ass there like you got to go now he wouldn't he would not do that so I'm laying there um and sos basically messages back and says what's your condition um and they let me know like et based on where my position was they can't get a helicopter there because they're afraid apparently I'm in an ava bad avalanche dangerous dangerous so I either need to move or they need to bring someone in to extract me to the ridge and me moving wasn't an option like at this point yeah you're it's hard it's already done that that's why I'm pushing this button like yeah exactly like I

I can't move even if I tried like I'd yeah there's no way so um they let me know that help is on the way they got a team of three guys they're gonna have to backcountry ski into there um and at first it was like this is 3 p.m they're like hey we're gonna be there by 9 I'm like I don't know if I have till nine based I my body I did I I just said I don't think I have more than a couple hours just and I've been cold before like I've been on a lot of cold cold hunts yeah this was different it was it wasn't good yeah and so I just wanted to stress like I need help ASAP well then it was like hey we're into more difficulties um they couldn't get to the trailhead so now they got to find snowmobiles to just get to the trailhead yeah anyways end up being hey we're gonna get there at 11 30 and they didn't realize the microburst of storm that was there because I think in town they only have like

a foot and a half yeah and so um I'm thinking they're gonna get there at 11 30 I'm kind of texting my wife I text some of my close friends basically like hey this situation man like love you guys um you know I'm not gonna go like I'm gonna get out of this like I love you guys and I sat there in that seating bag just shaking uncontrollably shivering um and then at about 11 45 comes around they don't show up and at this point I'm thinking your mind's just racing because I'm just like well they forgot about me like they ain't gonna come and now I'm not shivering it was the weirdest thing like I'm just like oh I feel good like and apparently that's not good yeah it's not good like you hear about people like that like now you're not even protecting your core you're not even in a fetal position you're just oh exactly yeah you yeah you're spread out

yeah and so I'm like you hear these stories of people that like take their clothes off and then what were you doing and like yeah you'd get the point where you're just like oh yeah I'm good um so um between they so they ended up finding me at 4 30 in the morning the hours between 12 and 4 were were dark times they were it was no longer thinking about family it was and I don't know if there's studies that have been on this or you know I don't know but I honestly felt if I didn't have something to live for I could have just died I know it sounds really weird um but you're laying there and like half my brain's like hey you're good just go with it like why are you fighting it and so I kind of like let my body like not sleep it was like it kind of felt like sleep but it was like I knew I was gonna die if I let go and so I kind of like let my body just just kind of start

going and then I'd be like no I gotta fight for the kids I gotta I and I kept thinking of my I have an eight six and two-year-old I kept thinking of my two-year-old boy my he ain't gonna remember me you know it was like this super mental battle just trying to stay alive and um the one thing that kept me going that gave me a glimmer of hope is just after midnight I had been hearing this rustling sound down in my sleeping bag and and mind you I there's lots of I'm laying on the slope and multiple times like you know snow was would roll over me and so like it's it's hard to hear anything but I kept hearing like a wrapper in my sleeping bag and you know I've been laying in that sleeping bag now for eight hours and I finally like get the energy to like reach down the bag and I grab this thing and I kid you not there's four unopened hand warmers sitting in my sleeping bag so I freaking

open those up I put one under each armpit the other in both hands I just sit there and that's it was like the when the darkest moment all of a sudden these hand warmers it like gave me a glimmer of hope if that makes sense okay uh so yeah I mean it came down to like my my kids don't even realize like do you realize you like saved my life like the fact you left those hand warmers in there from the week before camping trip like and I've never used this sleeping bag in my life on a backpacking trip so it's just so many weird little miracles like that that ultimately I feel like saved my life but uh so anyways I'm laying there and all of a sudden my phone would go off this you know maybe two in the morning and I'd hear my phone go off and I grab it like oh my wife Kate texts text me and I'd look

and it'd be like 45 minutes ago I'd be like what that's just that and all of a sudden my phone would go off again I'd look and my dad texted me it'd be an hour and a half ago and I'd be like like I was just lethargic man like so slow to process things so I'm laying there and uh all of a sudden I just here and I'm having this mental battle and I hear Justin Justin and I'm thinking it's my mind and I'm like am I dead and it keeps getting louder and louder and finally like I roll my head back and it falls out of the top of my sleeping bag and there's this this light right in my face and it's search and rescue and the guy's like Justin Justin and my wife talked to search and rescue after and because I can't remember this but that my apparently my uh the guy asked me this this was my response and he says Justin do you know where you are and I was like too far from the road

I am now road I am now road hunter for the rest of my life yeah exactly apparently you can be out of it and still be a smart ass and then he and then he says uh do you know what time it is and I'm like too late like I just I was just out and uh the best moment ever though was and apparently because I'm in an avalanche danger and maybe you guys know us but I guess it's protocol they can only do one at a time um that way apparently only one of us dies while somebody else can save us you know from an avalanche so the the other two guys are back like getting uh supplies ready and they're up on the ridge yeah and one guy goes down in to you yeah okay yeah exactly okay yeah I don't know nothing I'm I'm gonna stay I'm gonna stay in the desert for the rest of my life that's the way to do it for sure but uh so that this guy's down there it took about 45 minutes to get me sit up right um because my

body's just completely shut down um and the best moment of my life is he pulls out this 32 ounce thermos of hot chocolate gives it to me and I'm you know I hate to admit this but I'm I'm sobbing and just bawling as I'm as I'm chugging this 32 ounce thing of hot chocolate and man my sugar it's got sugar it's got heat it's got water yep it was like life was coming back to me so he gives me that he's giving me like little little things to eat and man you I mean that state like you have to force it down like you're not hungry I mean I should be hungry but you don't feel hungry and and as I'm doing this he's going through my stuff and he's just like bare essentials only you know like what do you have and I point to where my gear is he goes and like uncovers it you know he grabs like they brought a

tent but when he found out I had a tent with stove he grabbed that and this is where like you don't think straight apparently I had like warm thermals or not warm but dry thermals in that bag and I had a dry hoodie so he grabs that um and that's where just your mind's gone you're not even thinking straight how did he get down did he ski was he did he oh yeah he ski yeah so they yeah have you heard of skin boarding it's just it's it's skiing but it's basically it's cross-country skis that they have this skin on the bottom like grip tape okay um and so what they did they had to get on snowmobiles to the trailhead and from trailhead they cross-country skied in and then when they go downhill they can just take the skins off it just helps them to climb up the hills better and then you can actually connect it

like a snowboard wow um so these yeah so um oh and they make it very apparent which I'm totally fine with where they're like we we know that your feet are cold and you might lose your your feet but we're here to save your life which which I totally get but in the moment I'm just like oh damn you don't have any warm socks what kind of search what kind of lightweight operation is this exactly I'm like come on guys so that was that was uh I thought that was funny but I totally get it their their mission is to save your life you know we need to bring your core temperature up so well and they physically brought themselves up 2400 feet from oh yeah you you had llamas on dry ground I mean you you know it's amazing they're these must be some pretty physical dudes yeah hardcore oh totally totally physical like honestly my hat's off to search and rescue like yeah they are some bad-ass

dudes well search and rescue here versus search and rescue in the you know in the middle of colorado and those 14ers yeah you know what I mean oh totally yeah yep so but yeah so he uh he brought snowshoes and uh ski poles for me or trekking poles for me and that's another thing I always have trekking poles and of course I when I got to the trailhead it's one of those moments where I'm like gosh dang I knew I forgot something yeah I didn't have trekking poles all the time that just helps so much with yeah it does muscle stability and extra legs is what they are yep so he asked me he says hey do you think with my help that you can manage to hobble to this it's about 300 yards to this ridge line where we can get a helicopter and at this point it's been like over an hour I have food in me hot chocolate

and I'm like yeah like I'll do whatever it takes I'm ready now leave yeah and this is where it blew my mind did he put the warm thermals on you yet or no no no not yet so um he was gonna wait till we got to the ridge line with those other guys so I'm still soaking wet but at least I have some hot chocolate in me and some food and he like puts on the snowshoes for me and he just kind of basically guides me 300 yards and it's still dark it guides me to this ridge line um and that blew my mind like had I had snowshoes little and they make I've got a pair they're little and they could go on them llamas no problem and you they're not they're not like giant like you guys normally think you know yeah and they don't they don't weigh a lot either like they weigh nothing and so that blew my mind immediately

I'm like where do I buy these why did I not yeah but then again I thought it was only be 10 inches of snow or maybe 15 was like the worst forecast I could find and you can hike in 15 inches like more problem where were you getting the forecast was that for down low at the town both yeah yeah or do they forecast 11,000 foot snow so there's a ski town uh and I think the elevation at the base of that ski town is like nine something and that's the forecast that that said was going to be 15 inches okay because I was like that's probably most accurate because it's it's like 15 miles away and it's similar elevation kind of so I wish I would have had snowshoes because I this llamas would have been stuck regardless but I could have easily got got out of there in snowshoes um and then I wouldn't be

physically dead either from pushing snow so it would have been a game changer so anyways I get to this uh ridge line and when I get there um put on the they basically put on the dry stuff and then they had four mountain houses sitting there cooking they gave me one and then I'm sitting there and they just shoved the other three up my up my shirt and then zipped up my jacket so I'm just like covered in this these this hot mountain house meals yeah and that just heats your core up so fast yeah um and at this point I'm feeling like obviously I'm gonna live and um they get the shelter set up and right as we're about to get into shelter and also get my stove going someone comes on the radio and they say hey look at the coordinates they look at the coordinates they're like oh yeah it's 400 yards

down this ridge and they said all right we're gonna have a chopper there in 30 minutes so they're like we gotta go go and so it takes forever but we we make our way to this semi-landing spot in these um little opening in these pines what time roughly it right now it's eight in the morning okay so okay yeah found you at 4 30 you're there for an hour takes another hour to get to the ridge like whatever any anyway a little yeah now we're at eight now we're at eight yeah now we're at eight in the morning um helicopter supposed to come and man there is so much red tape when it comes to choppers they'd get back on the radio and say hey they haven't done their daily routine maintenance it's going to be an hour delay and then they'd get on and it was like some other there was like a some other accent and because i'm like stable now they were like they're this other accent now

lifelight has to like go and get them and so before you know it's like it's uh it's about noon and still no chopper and then finally uh then uh a different helicopter so they were going to come and this whole time by the way the only thing i took that i could take of mine is i because it's easy i just threw my rifle over my back and i had to leave everything else and when this helicopter was coming the search and rescue said hey by the way you can't take a rifle on on the helicopter which i i guess i understand because i mean i guess you could be like a terrorist or something that's pretending to get picked up and it's a good excuse to get a new gun you know yeah exactly exactly so he's like he's like you got to stash it and so i'm like trying to find a place to stash this i'm like i already have i don't know i have thousands of dollars i've left on this mountain already i'm

like son of a gun so i start stashing it and then all of a sudden the guy gets on the radio and says hey that one can't make it national guard with a black hawk is on their way and then the guy looks at me says national guard you can take a gun i was like yes i was like oh thank goodness i'm like i'm i am so glad that our national guard has their head on straight and i just i mean they obviously don't care because they show up and they have i mean what's my rifle going to do against their guns that they got you know yeah so uh they end up coming at i believe it was like 115 or 130 ish and man i don't know if you guys have been under a black hawk but they're way more powerful than like a regular helicopter and the guy was the search and rescue guys were trying to brace me they're like you need to control your breathing you need to and everyone has to lay on their packs

and i can send you guys a video a facebook video of the the search and rescue guy videoed it as it's coming man they it was like a the snowstorm you can't breathe you know you're you're laying there and you're just like hyperventilating because it's like 70 mile an hour winds in a snowstorm oh yeah yeah and like the trees are going crazy so i'm laying there and the you can't even tell the helicopters down and they kind of semi-landed like with like half the skis down yeah um and then all of a sudden this army dude you know in full cat full camo comes over picks me up and he's like justin let's go go go and he like points to the chopper and like i held on to his back to like his arm army guard stuff and we just ran to this helicopter throws me in this another army guy like pushed me back puts the four point harness on me and then all the other

search guys jump on and you know everybody gets right fingers everyone gets right out and then we go up and at that point i was like oh my gosh like i couldn't say thank you enough to all the all the people on there and and we turn and and we go basically along the same uh heading straight south um and so i can look down and see the trail that i had to even if i would have made that mountain pass where i had to go to get the trailhead and i just laughed i'm like yeah even if i would have made it to that uh over that mountain pass there was no way no way no way i'm making out of there no yeah snowshoes you're getting out of there for sure like no but without snowshoes and every steps up to your waist there's just no way so i i get down and my wife my brother-in-law my wife and my mom are sitting there waiting at the helipad i land and yeah that was a good time of giving my wife and mom a

big hug and and then immediately you know you got to get an ambulance um check all your vitals and i may or may not have lied about a couple things in the ambulance because they make it they basically say you know if there's anything wrong we gotta take you to the hospital you don't want to and my family's right there and i'm like i just want to see my family yeah so he's asking about he's asking about like hey what what color is your like what color is your pee if it's orange at all we need to look into it because i wish i remember what it was he named three things um i can't remember what it was like your liver shutting down and yeah and i'm not gonna lie like it was like a dark orange you were dehydrated that's what all dehydrated people pee yeah exactly so that's why i'm just like oh it was a little yellow because i'm just like i want to go see my

family i'm just yeah let me out of it let me out of here so um they look at my feet and uh luckily i don't don't have any crazy frostbite which is a miracle and i attribute that to my feet were dry um you know i i wear those crispy boots with uh um with some gators and had my feet been wet i would have been screwed but um unfortunately like the i guess the nerves in the bottom of my feet especially my left foot uh he said it could be years or never that yeah so they're like it could be years might be never but i can feel pressure but now it's like if you like if my wife like tickles my foot thank you i couldn't are they tingling are they like a constant tingle all day long yeah constant tingle all day long which you know and i've had before in my toes but it's still so weird have it like all over my foot you know so that sucks but it's it is what it is like the fact i

made it out with all my limbs is a miracle um and then i so i get out of the ambulance sitting there with my family and then the president of search and rescue comes over and he and this is really cool and you guys probably knew this and i don't know you know the full legality of it but he comes over and says hey we're you were deer hunting right and i said yeah he says come i see your license um and when he asked me this let me rewind uh when the search and rescue guy came he sees my deer with all the meat sitting there and i get it i totally understand but he says you obviously we can't take that deer but just know you will be getting a ticket for uh for wanton waste of that of that animal and so i'm i i'm looking at him i'm like it's gonna freeze solid i might eat it this yeah exactly exactly so i tell him i just laugh i'm like i if i gotta pay a ticket let's get out

here like i get it he was just i think he was just telling me letting me know like hey when we land you're probably gonna get a ticket from from sheriff for this yeah but i'm just like okay in in back of my mind i'm thinking excuse my language i'm like if there's if someone's that big of an asshole to do like i will take that to court to show i did everything i freaking yeah yeah um so when this it's not wasted yet exactly so the fact he said that was weird but i get he's doing his job um super nice guy nothing bad about him at all um but when when this the president of search and rescue is talking to me and he asked for my deer tag that's what i'm thinking he's standing there with the sheriff i'm like oh my hell if they're really gonna do this so he comes over he takes a picture of my deer tag and he said and i was like can i ask why you're doing that he's like oh so

in the state of the reason i do that and he's talking with me and my family he's like um in the state of colorado because you have a hunting license any damages and costs occurred to this is uh we refer to this that your colorado id you won't even get a bill for any of this it's that search and rescue fee on your license yeah yeah exactly 25 cents i think it's a quarter or something you always see that on your license oh yep i'm glad it finally went to good use so because like in the moment you don't think about that at all right like you're not thinking price because when you're pushing that button like your life you think you're 20k 30k 40k into this thing oh yeah at least i mean i know people that fly their baby to the you know to the nICU just down the road and it's like 80k sometimes so um who knows what a you know black hawk search and rescue

national guard and all this would have cost but so i thought that was that would just felt really good to my family because um but yeah so all is all is good um and then to top off the story as of um this was last night uh the very next day um nason who owns the lums he got with his buddy and i can't remember what type it was their hat they had three horses they're half clydestale half something just those giant horses half draft and they yeah and so they they took them up there and he said uh that last mile getting up to the top he said they'd go like 10 feet and the horse would just stop and pant pant then they just like be breaking the snow and it took them forever to break the snow to get in in there they couldn't make it to the llamas but they made it through that top pass and then they brought shovels and for over a day they sat there and shoveled a

four foot wide four foot deep trail from that pass to the llamas and all my gear and that cool part of the story is uh they ended up getting the llamas out they were severely dehydrated the llamas were um but they're doing fine now um they were able to get all my my deer out my gear um so everything's back um as of last night and all is well in the world wow no ticket you got your deer meat you're no ticket got my deer meat like no ticket so i'm just like heck yeah so yeah i i feel lucky to to be alive and it's there's just so many it's weird how things can go from the hunt can go from just you know regular hunt uh oh this is kind of bad to immediately i'm i'm screwed um but and i i've been i've been you know thinking back on the experience and some of the things i learned and one of the reasons i i you know i wanted to have this call with you is just i wanted

to share just things that maybe somebody else can learn and so they're not in the same situation so like when i think back like the number one thing i would say is if i could change anything is like assess your surroundings and situation like don't be stubborn um about getting out um like had i stopped an hour before that and just actually thought rather than just put my nose to the grindstone and just like go and go and go until it's too late i should have stopped and assessed and said okay even if i make it to that pass then what there's no way i'm getting out of here you know and then then i would have just i wouldn't have been so hypothermic i would have just set up my tent in the bottom and then called lifelight and if that would have been two days who who cares like but you might not have pushed that button for another till you really another couple

days for sure right so you're yeah exactly oh maybe the clydesdale's come in instead of searching i don't know you know yeah yeah and or yeah i probably would have like texted an outfitter or some someone with that could get close to me yeah so so just like assessing your surrounding situation and then obviously like the better fire starter i'm not sure why not a single one of my lighters were working a mix of extremely oh to end up being negative nine that night i was laying on that snow wow um it was like the coldest day they've had and i'm like of course it would be yeah of all the days and how many days have gone by since you since they flew you out to today we're talking like um yeah i got out yeah four four days ago let's say friday yeah four days i got home monday like midnight yeah yep um and then obviously if there's if there's snow man snowshoes it's what

it'd be their weight and goal just having snowshoes um number three that i would have to say would be like stay hydrated force yourself to eat um don't be like me and just be like going and going and all of a sudden you don't feel good and it's too late you just man i just and i've always been a cramper too like my friends always make fun of me there well we were bear hunting this spring in in idaho and every like hour and a half they'd be back like all right have you taken vitamins just just like giving me crap do you have your mustard packets i just have always been a cramper yeah throw a punch of mustard packets in that'll help yeah um and then obviously uh um just expect having that uh the garmin in reach i mean if if anybody does any type of hunting far away from a road man without that thing i'm not here today there's

there's no way so having to get yourself a garmin in reach obviously and uh and then just expectations with it right like you can't wait till it's the last second i mean i and i get it like i never and you're the same jason like you're not going to push that until it is last second but you just need to have the expectation that like you push this you might have to survive for a minute 15 hours you know like don't don't just be to be careful that way and um and then it's end with the family you know every time you go just let your family know where you're going which i never do i just i mean i do they know roughly but yep it's just like you pushed it to the next ridge or whatever like you just you know what i mean yeah yep exactly like like i got there my my family knew kind of where i was going to camp but now when you see that muley over there yeah you go like you don't even think

about like never in my life do what i think like nothing's going to stop you and i and that's just how stubborn i am i guess and it's a good looking deer what was the what did the what the deer end up going you said you thought he was in the 1960s when you initially and then you realized he was yeah i i still haven't taped him i um he's just over 26 wide 17 inch twos so he'll be mid 70s high 70s maybe awesome i'm just just based off his width and his twos yeah um but yeah just a solid deer um especially you know that's what's cool about colorado as you guys know you don't need a lot of points to to really find a unit to to make things happen and i hate to say that publicly because i love you but um yeah it yeah so i'm not super pumped if you have to do it again i mean you're you're in there again llamas and all this just oh yeah smarter like that's whatever and

chalk up to a freak storm that was a little heavier than expected yeah um because honestly i feel like i had the right gear going in i would go in with um more of an emergency fire starter instead of just the the lighters matches yeah like some emergency matches or something in case i needed it and then uh yeah i honestly like there's nothing i i'd be doing it again it's just i wouldn't put myself so far gone i would set up camp and then if you have camp set up it might take you a couple days but i could have dug my way out um or if you were camped on that ridge you could have done you could have probably pulled your way it's because it's slightly downhill all the way yeah exactly and that's that's and that's what i was telling my dad like had i not seen that deer i would i would have camped there

and i would have been fine i mean it would have sucked it totally would have sucked but i would have got out but it's just that climb 800 feet in that amount of snow that kills you man so and i'm not saying i'm in the best of shape i like to think i'm in good shape but that killed me that was brutal so yeah i kind of feel dumb for pushing the button um but at the same time i had no other option i you never think it'll you never think it's going to be you um and then when it is you're like okay i can see well the crazy add up yeah we've talked about it a little bit here and there but the crazy thing is now in this day of an age with a lot of cell service and electronics i mean most people don't even have a compass in their pack anymore a manual compass you have your phone and there's a compass on your phone and and you don't even you know we have on x or

one of these other mapping apps and so you never even you know you feel invincible exactly ever feel like you're gonna get lost do you ever feel like you're gonna get lost but but yet you could lose your phone and you'd be totally lost yeah you know so i'd be nobody feels anything anymore like nobody we're not even it's amazing i mean you had to eat and so you need to start a stove and stuff but i mean a lot of people i would venture to bet on day day hiking or just you know their random day day pack don't even have a lighter you're right i'm not gonna get lost i don't know for sure don't even know anybody's gotten lost in the last 14 years you know for as an example it doesn't happen yeah so yeah yeah it's funny people i get home and people are like talking to my wife like i heard your husband got lost and i'm just like that is that is such an insult i knew where it was the entire

time yeah i could have got out there with my eyes closed if i had the strength gosh dang it but just showing you how far we've come as a society with technology and stuff you know i'm just illustrating the getting lost with that is is you just don't think of some of these the the real necessities anymore as you know fire food water you know what i mean so you're more prepared than what most guys would be in this day and age it seems yeah it feels right that way yeah no for sure and eat the llama if you had to like you know what i mean i mean oh yeah and honestly and this may sound morbid but like climb inside i was yeah i this and this is where like it doesn't make sense because i'm 20 yards from these llamas the whole time i'm just like oh i i i would have shot one for sure yeah and like you know and get to you got it and climbed up inside yeah but like in that moment when you're

already so stiff in your bag like that 20 yards seemed like it was miles like it doesn't it doesn't make sense at all that's just gonna show like how far gone i was because it would take me two seconds to get up walk over there and that would have helped immensely but like it just wasn't even an option which that's why i look back at this and i'm like man how did my mind get so gone you could even gone over there and hugged one of the ornery suckers yeah exactly i should have like you know yeah yeah i should have laid my seat back like hug a llama between them yeah um this is this is actually funny and i forgot this is i was saying it um and i thought i was delusional but then we confirmed it when we were hiking out i'm laying in my tent and i never see black bears right like i you rarely see bears um i'm laying there and i keep hearing snow because like little snow things would

like fall onto my sleeping bag and honestly it probably helped insulate me the more i think about it um but just because i was on that steep hillside and so i'd hear the snow falling and i'd kind of brace myself and like i'd kind of get hit a little bit and i hear this snow like this like and i'm like what the this is like at 7 p.m so it's dark but up there in that high country with the snow you can basically see like it's daytime you know yeah and uh i put my head out of my sleeping bag and out coming from that mountain pass there's this bear that's just and he's not coming to this where it's funny with your wife's probably the same but you know i found this out she's like oh my gosh there was a bear i'm like it wasn't coming at me like it was just coming down the ridge no and it looked like it was swimming because it was just the snow so deep and it's

going straight down downhill so it looked like it was like freestyle swimming and uh apparently i i texted my wife i was just like hey i just saw a bear swim by so she was like he's dying guys he is gone yeah he is not himself but like in the moment like i didn't even mean to say that to her like it was just like i don't know what the heck i was thinking but as we were going out with a search and rescue it looked like a bowling ball had like been rolled down the mountain just like his track like you can like his whole body track so i was like wait i think that really happened so who the heck knows dude if i was delusional or if it actually happened but like that so i thought that was kind of funny i can laugh about it now so funny but well all right we're glad you're safe congratulations on the buck and congratulations on getting out and i i appreciate i already have plans for uh i have a

little so it's just going to be a euro map but you know i got my hand warmers yeah put the hand warmers on the pedestal do something make us make it special do that and maybe a couple of them chintzy lighters yeah exactly you know some of that like that oh yeah raw and real and i'll be there for 30 years from now like it's awesome yep exactly so yeah i'm happy to be here and i appreciate you guys taking the time to listen to the story and so good just know you know we're not invincible even though i still kind of feel that way but be smarter yeah well good stuff sure appreciate you taking the time man and uh yeah glad everything's good and keep pounding colorado you know will do will do hope there's a lot more hunts to go this uh you know yeah late late season hunts to go so all right that's right good luck to all you guys and appreciate all you guys do okay all right sure

appreciate you justin yep thank you guys appreciate it you betcha take care all right bye wow what a crazy story holy where do you go from here yeah man not gonna lie when he said he was telling people he loved him i kind of i got a little watery there for a sec yeah i did too i'm like oh you get to that point i mean it's all heavy jeez can't even imagine having something like that yeah you know the delusional thing i think you think you're prepared but you hear that on you know all the like mount everest stories things like that that people just they can't their brain doesn't work anymore so that's i think even if you are prepared it's kind of gets scary then work yourself to the point of exhaustion they're just trying to get out trying to get those animals out and your gear i mean it's gotta be a hard choice to to leave everything back in my

college days i had something like that happen but i don't really want to talk about it at the moment wasn't like it was just you know back prior pre pre even cell phone bricks you know so anyway well uh okay let's see that brings us to we're not going to be much longer that was that was uh it took up a lot of time and but well worth it i can't thank justin enough and congratulations on everything um everybody's out the second season still going cash you came back from the second i did you want to give us a quick rundown oh man i didn't have nearly the adventure justin had but man between bent a arms on the side by side broken windshield um yeah all kinds of stuff we ended up uh we got back monday yeah monday or tuesday um killed a buck i had my father-in-law and his brother and my buddy dylan uh they're with me um they're trying to get back for halloween

had just a couple hours left in the morning and decided to smash a buck yeah and good buck not really nice four point dude no he's he's okay just a just a buck and first gun first uh blood you've drawn with that gun yeah that was yeah that was one thing i really wanted to do on this hunt was was to kill a buck with that gun yeah and with the rifle i haven't killed a buck with a rifle for nine years nine years i was like it's your kind of time yeah i was like it's it's fun to smash one with a rifle once in a while yeah i really wanted to poke one at like six seven hundred yards yeah but it was like 200 yeah you can spook it yeah hey hey run run run across the ridge over there let me reach out well your rifle's definitely capable of yeah pretty dang good shot i can't believe how well that thing shoots it was fun yeah i really wanted to just to kind of test it you know

banging steel that 700 is a lot different than than smashing a deer so i really wanted to see if you know things are really you know legit and if i could really do it after nine years you know and you know i can hit steel but having a deer or something else and there's a little difference so really want to do that didn't do it but uh i might go back next year for vengeance on the unit it was a tough hunt but a little dry full moon things like that weren't great but it's second season second you know it can either be incredible best season of the year or the toughest season right right all this weather people kind of thought that it would be incredible and it's been overall pretty tough but i think a lot of it is just you know the people are coming to you know reality setting in that the age class is a little different it was 10 years ago yeah you know what

i mean and but you didn't have the weather as much no i was actually pretty dry we got one day of rain and i just made stuff made real greasy is about it but nothing it didn't do anything to the deer tell us a windshield story oh man how does a guy just break a windshield well i actually broke with my father-in-law's head okay and we didn't get in a fight i promise no we were going up this wash there was a onyx marked uh well it is a road it used to be a road it probably hasn't been used for a long time so it's kind of a disappearing road it goes up this canyon i was looking at it and would zoom in i could see the road clear up this canyon and it came up on this plateau and i figured well if we can get to there that's the quickest way from camp to get to this area where we want to hunt tomorrow or whichever and so we kind of ventured up there and the road

kind of starts to dissipate a ways after after a while and get through some really tight spots like well we might be through the worst of it and so we'll see how this next section is till it goes up that plateau we're really close to it and so we're probably 100 yards from it and i'm going like four miles an hour like barely moving yeah i'm just trying to keep keep an eye on the road and whatnot and uh i glance down at onyx to make sure whether it's going to cross the wash or stay on this side and i glance down and i go to hand it to my father-in-law as i'm looking back up i look back up and there's this little two foot wide by two foot deep a little wash that that had come about we've all hit in our lives yeah we've all hit one and then you sell the vehicle the next day right exactly and i i see it i'm not going fast i smash on my brakes right as i like enter into it front tires

whack down into it and bolt i mean the back end of the side by side goes up we smash the front and i look over big old spider web right in front of my father-in-law's side and i'm like what happened he's like i think i hit it with my head i was like what because i smashed the top our knees smashed i mean the the glove box i mean that was all smashed in came off whatever and so jeez yeah yeah it was like we might have been going faster than four maybe like no more than like seven come on dude not that photo you can't even see through the spider web let me guys show let me show you guys this stuff yeah it's pretty bad i'm just like what and so it hits one it's a polaris's lock and ride system so it's just clamps on the back so it just squeezes the bar and it pushes the windshield into the bars and then squeezes on the back i don't know how but the windshield's broken and

everything else looks intact nothing bent and that windshield will push out like an inch and a half and just like wobble we're like how is it what is it doing nothing looks bent or anything can't figure it out but found out a couple days later that we didn't even know but the steering was kind of messed up whatever and then we got looking and of course it is one of the one of the a-arms has been at like a 45 when it should be straight look at this it's pretty bad uh my phone's i think i've got it right here too freezing oh wow yeah so yeah yeah that was fun so we decided after that we're like yeah we're just gonna flip around you know that's our evening i guess so we'll go hunting elsewhere in the morning there we go but anyway good experience overall yeah it was good it was it was good i wish looking back i wish i

wouldn't have smashed that buck and i wish i would have kept hunting really i had a couple days i mean you would have just they would have left went home and you'd have been by yeah i would have been solo and we had another buck that i kind of had just in my back pocket in a different area but we i would have moved camp completely and it was like two hours to do it yeah like an hour and a half drive and then half hour whatever i could have went and smashed this other buck most likely depending on how far he'd moved yeah but he was still just a decent buck yeah better than the one i killed but i would have seen something different too yeah and there was there was a couple a couple different deer that had moved in a little bit but not not substantial kind of crazy well wyatt you spent some time on the pontsagon here in utah yeah crushed it lots and lots of deer yeah good year over there so

i mean a lot of deer just started rotting right there at the end it was it was fun mostly helping uh you know some clients and guys that had tags and so just being just being out and did you see anything crazy or anything i know you guys smashed a really heavy deer really good yeah no no nothing nothing too crazy or out of the ordinary just you know a lot of a lot of good bucks and just a good time you know that country really well like that's your one of your favorite times of year yeah it's a hard hard hunt to pass up it's just a fun time to be out and you know when that migration's going and the deer moving off really good it it's pretty awesome there's nothing like it yeah yeah all right well anyway i think that kind of brings i want to talk i guess just really quickly about muleys matter uh the muleys matter has its own little sub website or website uh it's linked to

epicoutdoors.com go check it out we've got a fax page of you know frequently asked questions but fax page and you can go kind of read through it and any questions you got on there you need to register it and then send in your unpunched tag if you didn't kill one um and you know on that page on the muleys matter page is a list of the states and tags and different things there's limited draw tags there's general tags that we'll take for just you know people that are hunting general type units um you know and then uh and then obviously doe tags and so if you had a doe tag and uh you didn't fill it you saved a doe which now you've uh you know fostered deer populations by twins multiple years hereafter and and exponentially and so it's pretty awesome that's kind of what we're trying to do is is just

uh do do our part to a degree i mean we don't we don't get to choose all the rules regulations and we can obviously have a say a small say um you know as sportsmen but uh you know tag quotas and things like that and overall management um you know it's decided by by people bigger than us and so at times you know you just feel like well if we if we don't kill deer just to say we killed one and we and we save a young buck or a doe or whatever then uh then maybe that's the smallest thing you know one of the things that we can do one of the things that we can actually do to to make a difference the way we see it needs to be made personally as sportsmen yeah i'd like to give a shout out to the sponsors um we kind of tallied up what we have and uh there's been over fifty thousand dollars in prizes donated wow yeah there's over fifty thousand dollars in prizes we're we've got

quite a few people register uh you know registered and so tags are coming in daily um we're going to run this drawing as close to december one as we can it's going to take a minute to get it ready uh segregate the prizes into the different bins um and so anyway so there's a a proportionate amount of of prizes given to limited draw tags general tags and doe tags and whatnot and then just get everything ready in the bin segregate them out into the different categories and then be able to actually run that draw take it's this is no joke it's like very uh time consuming and and more than you would think to put it on do the website make up all these uh you know the fact sheet and whatnot um but it's awesome and it's kind of fun to watch it all come together we can't tell our the donors uh how much we appreciate them enough it's uh wouldn't happen without you and and then also the the

public uh support is off the charts it's incredible we even have uh utah division of wildlife uh employees submitting uh unused unpunched tags these guys don't just a lot of them don't necessarily make the rules either and they actually like the program and uh and so anyway those are coming in we appreciate them we feel like we have a good working relationship with them although we you know oftentimes don't agree on on things there's plenty of ways to skin cats and uh there's plenty of different management techniques and and um theories and ideas and plans and what and proposals and whatnot and so anyway uh voice your opinion get involved in the process and that's what we've done we've definitely done that in in other areas of game management but and this is good this mealy's matter type um program is just something

something more we can do that we can actually do we can actually make a difference here and we're not telling people not to kill stuff like if you want to if you want it and you're proud of it then you should absolutely shoot it but don't maybe just don't shoot one last day just just to shoot one just if you know a two by two or two by three or whatever like maybe you let it live if you don't have to have it yeah or need the meat or whatever but uh yeah one of the things that is covered on the on the frequently asked questions is you do not have to be a member of epic outdoors to uh to uh participate in this and yeah there's no stipulation on anything like that it's a free entry you have to put a stamp on an envelope to get your tag here you have to go take a minute on on the website and some and select the prizes in the order that you would like to receive because

when you pull pull a name out of the hat there's going to be certain prizes that are um taken and and what uh you know we got to go to the next one and then there's some people that may not want a tattoo and there's a tattoo in there right like i don't know there's just just for a quick example some people may not like whatever prize or may not be able to utilize a certain maybe they already have a uh you know an elon must satellite system or whatever like i don't know right so anyway get on there and select those prizes that's all that's asked for this yep you choose which prizes you want to be in the drawings for so yeah yeah kind of cool you guys have anything to add on that no it's a it's a very unique opportunity and you don't see it every year no you know and it's a it's a time where the deer need it yeah you know after all these drought years and coming to a good wet year

the deer need it yeah and so it's a it's a good thing yeah on top of you know in some parts of the country we're dealing with drought here and that's on our mind but you're also dealing with winter kills and things abnormal abnormal drought abnormal winter kill it's kind of interesting it's kind of kind of crazy and so anyway uh that's kind of the scoop uh there is a dedicated hunter program here in utah we're not including the dedicated hunter program in the mealy's matter one of those three tags you get in a three-year period has to be unpunched it can't be punched it's part of the program and so to manage all that and deal with that and and then also you got to return your tags uh to show that you didn't harvest and things like that so there's there's some stipulations there we just don't want

to complicate it and be the police policing have a policing issue there of dealing with that and so we did have uh the dwr uh come in the office and visit about that a little bit and and uh they felt the same way when i do have one anecdotal story um someone called me and said their son passed on uh small two by three and i killed a deer before but this year passed on that and wanted to you know donate his tag if it wasn't exactly what he wanted so purposely did it got some satisfaction out of passing a deer might get a rifle out of it might win something special bow who knows yep so anybody can can be put in to this except for epic employees so y'all can't submit your stuff and uh but anybody else if you want to call it competitor out there any competing businesses i mean we actually get along

with all all the industry like we have no no issues so anybody out there can submit these and uh you know if you have unpunched tags i'd like to see you in the bin it's gonna be fun rolling that bin with all the colored tags and all the different state tags pretty fun has to be an original state tag um cannot be an e-tag how do you do that you're gonna put a piece of paper in there and then people question the viability of the draw it's just not it's going to be an original paper tag and that's part of it and uh so that's kind of the the end of it and what we're going to do there we're kind of we're really excited about it actually it's it's coming to a head this is the month of november december one's the deadline get them in if we get tags in past december one we haven't run the draw yet we are

going to put you in the bin where anybody any tags that we get when we run the draw can't tell you exactly we're going to we're going to run it within seven days of december one but it takes a minute to get everything finalized i'm sure there's going to be a lot of mail at the end of the month and so we'll just do the absolute best we can and uh it's going to be awesome it's kind of fun kind of excited for it actually and then we'll also go through on the next few podcasts we'll talk about um the donors and uh absolutely want their businesses to do better because they're supporting the initiative like this i want everybody listening to support these businesses they're supporting us they're supporting you we should support them and uh that's the way i feel about it so anyway you guys have anything else

nope i think we're good it's friday it's friday wyatt you've got dad duty coming up i do so let's talk about the dad duty for a bit you look like you got some bags under your eyes i'm just wondering how the night's sleep been going things have been good my wife's taking care of most of it so okay she's a good one yeah yeah she's taking care of a lot of it but i do you know have had some sleepless nights but i can't complain because i've also been hunting a lot lately too yeah you're not make this clear yeah she's carly he is not complaining yeah she's been home handling he's very tired but he's not complaining but it is my first night alone with the kid or i guess first night yeah tonight you are going to be taking care of the kid yeah okay so if you need help like janna's good with kids yeah and john

your wife's offered as well too i know yeah we're gonna power through it well hit that sos button if you need to you hit that button we're gonna have our ringers on okay all right all right everybody we wish you the best out there as these seasons are coming to a close we got some late elk hunts late deer hunts a lot of a lot of the rifle hunters are just getting ready to get going over there in colorado and head over there of course we got arizona rifle deer hunts and even a few left in nevada and a few things like that a few here in utah some late season stuff up in idaho we just love to see your your successes and uh and hear stories even if you're not successful if you see a giant of course we want to know about it uh it's nice to know there's a few of them out there and i know there's been some guys

doing really well deer elk sheep things like that and well so anyway best of luck to you all and if you do need any help give us a holler epic outdoors 435-263-0777 435-263-0777 www.epicoutdoors.com and uh i guess we'll go from there you got anything else john john you got to go sight in a rifle i do you got a hunt coming up it's time to put it on paper boss all right get out there we'd like to thank all of our sponsors here at epic outdoors for top of the line hunting clothing and apparel in every environment visit underarmor.com we'd like to thank under armor for being our title sponsor and making this podcast happen visit our website epicoutdoors.com for discount codes to under armor hunting apparel handcrafted quality precision rifles from start to finish red rock precision is one of our sponsors

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