We started out on a Friday afternoon from Eastern Pennsylvania embarking on our second trip to the west. This time the estimated amount of time it would take was at 36 hours of straight driving. We’d be passing right through the spot we had hunted the year before and continuing on for another 9 hours after that. We crossed the Idaho-Montana line in the early morning hours of Sunday. The plan was to make it to the airport parking lot, get a few hours of shut eye in the truck before loading up in the bush plane and heading out.

Exhausted from the drive, we rolled into town at around 2 am and decided it would be really nice to get a hotel room and at least get a few hours of good sleep before heading out at daylight. We arrived at the airport at 7 am, the office was just opening up. The whole process wasn’t what I had expected. I never flew out of a small airport before, so I had a lot of questions about how things were done. We talked to the office clerk when we first walked in, an elderly woman, who had probably been doing this sort of thing for decades. She let us know they were talking to their other airport on the other side of the back country about 100 miles away. They were bringing a pilot over from McCall to fly us out of Salmon. The local weather channel was up, and she informed us it wasn’t looking good. A storm system was rolling in from the northwest and coming right through the center of the state, “The pilots can’t fly in that type of weather” she said. There was a little hope that it could clear out by afternoon and while we’d be pressed for time, he may be able to get us in before dark. We hung out at the office for most of the morning, pacing around, walking to the deck out back where the pilots load passengers and refuel their planes. On the picnic table out back there was a smaller 6 point bull, the skull wrapped in plastic. I asked the clerk where that bull was taken and she explained it was only a few miles from the air strip we were planning on being dropped off at. There was a private ranch nearby, it’s one of only a few in the back country, they offer horseback hunts and their party that week took the bull. This put our excitement at a whole new level. Just knowing someone had the opportunity on an elk near where we were going had the impatience setting in heavy.

A small mule deer buck roamed around inside the airport fence area so we passed the time by watching him through our binos while he fed on grass at the edges of the nearby buildings. The staff took notice to our incessant pacing around the office area, in and out of the back door, they suggested we go get some lunch and that they would call us if the weather had improved. We headed into town to find a place to eat. It seemed as though there was no shortage of mule deer in the area, groups of does were intertwined throughout neighborhoods and feeding on the sides of the roads. It felt good to be seeing game. We ate lunch, then took a long drive down some back roads, looking for places to explore and to get a better understanding of the terrain we’d be in. We headed back to the airport a few hours later just to be told that it was a not going to happen that day, we should get a hotel for the night and be ready first thing in the morning to leave. We headed back in to town got a room for the night, hopeful that we’d have a plane ready for us in the morning.