We worked our way up the ridge through several inches of fresh snow. This was the kind of morning we hope for in early fall in the Rockies: everything clean and new, all tracks fresh, the calm after the storm. I’d spent a day with friends in Steamboat Springs, Colo., under clear blue skies. Clouds piled up in early afternoon, and the first snowflakes began hitting as I started up Rabbit Ear Pass. It was a near whiteout long before I got to the top. With almost no visibility and the road getting icy, I crawled down the pass and took it slower yet on the narrow, winding blacktop to Walden.
Although I’d never been there, I knew Walden was the epicenter of Colorado’s Shiras moose population, and that was where my moose tag was valid come opening day the next morning. I didn’t know the area, but old friend George Taulman did. It’s not a good thing to go in cold with a special tag like that, but that’s the way the dates worked. When I drew the tag, George promised to help me out, and we agreed to meet in Walden the day before the season. He didn’t expect it to be a long hunt, but it didn’t matter: Once we started, we had as long as it took. George came in from the south and beat the storm. It was well after dark before I stumbled in, snow slacking off.
We started at daybreak on a lower slope of a big ridge on public
