Wes Coffey

Cole killed his first bull elk when he was 14.

I killed mine at 16.

By the time we were in our 20s, we were going into the backcountry every October, just the two of us.

Tents, horses when we could borrow them, rifles, and about 40 pounds each of food and gear.

We weren't weekend warriors.

I want to make that clear.

Cole was a wildland firefighter for 10 years.

I was in the Marines from 2011 to 2015.

We knew how to read terrain.

We knew how to move quiet.

We knew what the woods sound like when they're normal and what they sound like when they're not.

This was October 9th, 2019, Bob Marshall Wilderness, about 11 miles in from the benchmark trailhead.

I'm going to tell you what happened.

I'm not going to try to explain it because I can't.

I've thought about it every single day for six and a half years.

I still can't explain it.

Cole scouted the area in August.

He came back with a notebook full of wallows and rubs and game trails, and he had a spot he wanted to hunt, a basin about 3,000 feet above the south fork of the Sun River.

He said there was elk sign everywhere and almost no human sign.

I asked him if he'd seen any other hunters up there.