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The story begins with my son's grandfather donating his cow elk tag to him. Grades have always been an " issue" with Ethan, so I made him earn all A's and B's the earn the hunt. Worked like a charm.. The first day we hike and glassed for hours. We got after one herd of about 12 head, but the bull just kept pushing the herd. No shot. Around lunch time E was talking about going to camp for lunch, but I wanted to try one more thing before we ate. We drove the ranger to a steep mountain where I knew from the archery hunt that elk bed during the day. We walked up to the beds and sure enough we jumped 6 more cows.. No shot; it takes a 12 year-old some time to set up! That evening we called in a bull to 80 yards, but he had no cows. Saturday morning we glassed up a herd about a mile away.... The chase was on. We hiked in and set up cross canyon from the elk, but never got a shot before they bedded in a thick. Ethan wanted to walk them up, but we decided to back out and try later. At this point Ethan was pretty wiped out. (13 miles toal). We decided to make " a lil loop" then sit a water hole. Ethan pointed out " Dad, your lil loops always end up big loops! Sorry kid! We found zero elk Sat. Afternoon. Sunday morning found Ethan completely wiped out. We had hiked a total of 13.9 miles combined in the last two days, and he was shot. Needless to say it took some prodding to get him out of the rack at 5 a.m. A short 1.5 mile walk in in the dark and it was all worth it... A perfectly placed shot with to .270 wsm at 150 yards and he had harvested his first big game Animal! It was starting to be a competition in our family because his brother has killed two good coues deer... So I am extra glad that he could get it done.. I think the smile says it all Whitey