It may seem almost too much to say that nearly every prominent scenery place in the state is contiguous to good hunting. “Over the range” is always, in certain respects at least, another world. There are numbers of men here who habitually prospect in summer and hunt in winter. There is not one of these who does not know where large game is to be found. The trouble is not so much with the place as it is with the unaccustomed man. Find your appropriate and mountain-accustomed man as guide and you will get the game—if you can hit a gray or a light brown spot four hundred yards or such a matter away. It will hardly pay to come to these mountains in order to learn, for the first time, how to shoot at a mark, or how to go hungry because it was not touched.
“Youth’s daring spirit, manhood’s fire,
Firm hand and eagle eye,
Must he acquire who would aspire
To see the gray boar die.”
The forests still cover a large portion of Colorado. Many of these lying away from other interests so far, are almost as silent as they were in the beginning. They are the natural covert for elk, deer, antelope, the mountain sheep and a variety of smaller game. Any prospector will tell one that there is nothing more common than the fresh bear track near the stream, looking like the footprint of a barefoot negro baby. All mountain men encounter droves of elk and deer. Farmers will tell you where they think they are, because they have often seen them there.
For many sportsmen, the northwestern and parts of the northern portions of the state are the best large-game hunting grounds; Routt, Grand and Garfield counties, and the region of which Estes Park is the center. Parts of this northern region are more easily reached by the Burlington’s line from Denver northwest to Lyons than by any other. The region of the foothills, the land between plain and mountain, and including both, is the natural home of the elk. It is in the more outlying regions, of course, that the big shy game now live. Once, in the days of Indian occupation, all Colorado was a hunting field, perhaps the best known. Natural fastnesses, plenty of food and a mild climate made it so. The encroachments of civilization have naturally restricted the field, but with the result that there is now more game in the places they still occupy than there was in former times. This unoccupied region is still in the aggregate, and notwithstanding all the railroad lines, as large as the entire state of New York. One would be illy occupied in prescribing given localities to an accomplished hunter under these circumstances. Every resident hunter knows, if he would always tell, of half a dozen good hunting fields.
Pike’s Peak as seen from Briarhurst, near Manitou.
In brief, it may be said that there is still game all over Colorado except on the plains, and there the jackrabbit lives in large numbers. In localities where there is fine fishing every summer, such as the Gunnison River, near Montrose or Delta, there is also fine deer hunting in the season, and that is a region largely interested in farming and grazing. Or an inquirer will be rewarded with valuable pointers about the region of the mildest climate in the state; the nooks and valleys on either side of the San Luis Park. A little inquiry developed, perhaps, after the employment of a companion or guide, who is undoubtedly necessary to a stranger, will elicit facts about the hunting grounds and their possibilities that a man might wander over the state for a year and not discover for himself. The best hunting here and elsewhere, is obtained only by him who departs deliberately out of civilization for a period, lives in a cabin, does nothing but hunt while he is thus engaged, and stays long enough to learn the country and the haunts of the beasts for whose life he thirsts. It is not now so easy as it was, even in Africa. The time is coming when it will be a lost art.