Front passing, the hour after a thunderstorm, snow on the high meadows. What the wind and sky are telling you when you're stalking the East Beaver bench. Five seasons of wrangler-guide observations.
By Elk Glade Editorial6 min read
September on the south slope of Pikes Peak is the month with the most weather. Not the worst weather — that's January — but the most. The bowhunter has to read four different days inside one twenty-four-hour window.
I started wrangling at Elk Glade in 2018. I've guided seven Septembers since. Here's what I've noticed.
The front passing through
Most years we'll see two or three cold fronts in September. They move down from the Wyoming line and break over the divide. The first sign of one on this country is the wind reversing direction in mid-afternoon — usually we're a south-southwest wind, but if you feel it switch to north-northwest, a front is forty-eight hours out.
Elk read that better than we do. They get aggressive in the twelve hours before the front lands. Bulls bugle more. Cows feed harder. The herd shifts from upper bowls down to the middle benches.
Best archery hunting of the month is the forty-eight hours before a front. Watch the wind switch; cancel your nap; get on the bench at three.
The hour after a thunderstorm
Afternoon thunderstorms are common in August and roll into September. They blow up over the divide, drop a hard rain, and clear in forty-five minutes.
The hour after a thunderstorm is one of the most underrated windows of the season. The country is wet, the wind is calm, and everything that bedded through the rain is up to feed. The cows come into the open meadow first. The bull comes in last but in earshot.
If you're hunting and you hear a long roll of thunder go over you, don't pack up. Get back to the bench at the bottom of the meadow. The thirty minutes after the rain stops, an elk you wouldn't see in a normal afternoon will walk into a thirty-yard lane.
Snow on the high meadows
The first snow at nine thousand five hundred feet usually lands around September twenty-second to twenty-fifth. It doesn't reach the lodge — we're at eighty-five hundred, two thousand feet down from the upper meadows — but you can see it from camp.
That first snow shifts the herd off the upper bowls toward the middle benches within a week. By October first the bulk of the herd is at our elevation.
If you have an archery tag and you're hunting September twenty-fifth or later, hunt the transition draws — the willow draw below the cattleguard, the spring head on the south meadow, and the lower aspen north of the lodge. These are the routes elk take coming off the upper country.
Heat
Some Septembers stay hot. If midday temperatures are over seventy at the lodge, the elk are bedded by nine and won't move until five. On those days the morning window is the only window. Be on the bench at five a.m., not six. Be off the bench by ten.
When it's hot, hunt water. East Beaver Creek above the meadow has three good wallow stretches; bulls drink and roll there in early September if the days are above seventy. The willow draw on the lower bench has a seep elk hit from the upper country in heat.
Wind direction on the East Beaver bench
This is the one I tell every hunter on Day One.
The East Beaver bench has its own micro-circulation. In the morning the air drains downslope to the southeast. In the afternoon it warms and pushes upslope to the northwest. The transition is roughly nine a.m. and four p.m.
If you stalk in from below in the morning your scent is going to the elk you're stalking — wrong direction. You have to come in from the north side, over the lip of the bench, and let the morning thermal pull your scent away from the bowl.
Most blown hunts on the bench happen because the hunter ignored the morning drainage. Don't be the hunter who blew the hunt because they thought "the wind is in my face."
What to bring for the weather
A real rain jacket. Pant covers. A camo neck gaiter for the morning cold. Two extra pairs of socks. A baseball cap for sun above the upper meadows. Sunglasses — the south aspect is brutal at midday and elk see you reading the country.
For the full gear list see Andre's packing piece. For the country itself see the bull elk hunt page.
Weather is the variable. The country is the constant.
