2009 Pronghorn Antelope - Day 2

***Work in progress****

Up and at it by 5:30! Late start. Headed straight down to the cut-off to National Canyon and cut over to Eight Mile Canyon. Flats were filled with hunters so decided to head up to National Mine and look down on everything. Trek was slow, but we made it to the top around 8:00. Made a short hike to the edge of the hill to glass the valley 2,000 feet below. Nothing moving except a small Horned Toad we found sneaking around the pick-up truck. Hmmm.

Decided to head up and over Windy Gap and scope out the inter-range uplands. While they are higher in altitude than the valley floor and foothills (approx 6700'), we were confident that Antelope would be up that high. Just over Windy Gap we took a ill-advised detour along an unnamed creek valley that runs parallel to the main road. It is full of Quaking Aspens that have nearly overgrown the road. These left some undesired pin-stripes along the side of my brother's truck. After exploring an abandoned hunting shack and a remote snowfall monitoring station, we came out above the No. Fork of Cabin Creek. After 20 minutes of glassing the canyon we cursed all the cattle and pressed over to NFD-531. We figured it was Sunday, what road construction crew works on Sunday?

Decided we were tired of driving and stopped at Saird Creek to hike up it. The hike was fairly easy initially as there was an old Jeep trail to follow. After about a mile I saw movement ahead about 120 yards. We froze and I put binocular to face. A Muley doe with her fawn had wandered into the valley from a small watershed. She had rounded a small knoll and didn't even notice us. They were walking slowly, foraging as they went. When they got to about 80 yards from us the doe perked up and started scanning the direction her nose led her. I'm still convinced she didn't see us, even though we were in plain sight. They flollowed the small creek bed past us and up over a hill, never really paying much heed to us.