Colorado elk bowhunt proves fun, yet deflating after vandalism

As an out-of-state visitor who pays nearly 10 times more than a resident to bowhunt Colorado’s elk, you’d appreciate a little local gratitude for your $851.24 subsidy of the state’s wildlife-management program.
But you’d be pitifully naïve to expect it. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised to find no thank-you note beneath my truck’s windshield wiper Sept. 21 when returning to the trailhead near Steamboat Springs after a 15-day backpack trip into a wilderness area. Lack of appreciation is nothing new. Some Western hunters will forever complain of nonresident “crowding” each autumn, even though all U.S. citizens share equal ownership of the West’s vast federal lands.