Seven miles in to our do-it-yourself wilderness elk hunt, I was growing discouraged with the number of hunters my buddies and I were seeing. Then, at about the 13-mile mark, camps began to dwindle. Leading our pack string of horses five more miles, we found the isolation we desired. That night – two days before opening day of Wyoming's archery season – the mountains were alive with bugling bulls. On opening morning, the three of us hiked four more miles, to over 9,000 feet in elevation. By 9 a.m., two of us had big bulls down, with the third member...