I reviewed the trip itinerary for the umpteenth time to make sure that all of the important details were in order for our group.

We were on our way to Colorado for the opening of elk season. Quite a few Pennsylvanians head across North America for outdoors adventures, and this year was our turn.

As far as outdoors adventures were concerned, it was a fine fall for many of my friends and neighbors.

A neighbor, Mike Snyder, had the good fortune to harvest a fine bull moose near the end of his trip to Newfoundland, which proves that perseverance pays off. His mother had plenty of pictures to share as we socialized after church, and it was a good way to start us off on our own quests for big game animals.

As it turned out, Beaver Boy and one of his buddies had pulled two elk tags for a remote area of Colorado that would require them to hike 5 or 6 miles into the wilderness. He had prepared for the trip by hiking with a heavy backpack all summer. At last estimate the pack weighed more than 60 pounds and he was carrying his .270 as well.

That will be one arduous hike, but it's one that my friend will welcome as a challenge and an adventure. He'll be getting close to nature and perhaps close to a trophy elk as well.

My journey wasn't as well planned because it came together on a last-minute phone call. An acquaintance of one of my cronies, Uncle Fuzzy, reported that if we acted quickly we could obtain some elk tags for the area that he liked to hunt with his family.

This would be a different kind of hunt on thousands of acres of public land near Rifle Colo. Normally, I wouldn't be enthused by an impromptu decision for a hunting trip, but it was with locals and they had hunted this area for years.

Our travels would take us from Pittsburgh to Denver to Grand Junction, Colo., by air, then by car to Rifle, which would be our base camp for a week. One member of our group was not flying and, in fact, left ahead of us with all of our hunting gear in a truck-and-trailer package.

The flight from Pittsburgh to Denver is only 3½ hours and we would arrive in the mid-morning. I was excited to see the Rockies in the light of day and then head west over them even farther.

To get to Rifle, we had to take a commuter plane into Grand Junction airport. Fortunately, we bypassed all the trouble of transporting our rifles and gear by air when we sent them ahead by ground. I shudder to think of my scoped rifle getting bounced by the luggage handlers or not making the transfer flights.

The Remington SPS 30-06 rifle I chose was shooting the new Fusion 150-grain cartridges with excellent accuracy. The rifle was sighted in for 300 yards, as I learned from my last Colorado trip that the west has some wide-open spaces and you're not in the woodlots of Pennsylvania anymore.

My one and only bull elk that I harvested was several hundred yards away and jogging at a fast pace when I brought it down. An elk can carry the mail at a fast clip and you don't even realize how much ground they can cover with the easy lope that they use.

We would meet our western hosts in the morning and scout hunting areas for the opening day, as well as take in the hospitality of the area. I'd be wearing my Steelers cap in the land of cowboy hats and Broncos fans as the second part of our journey to Elk Country was about to begin.

Jay E. Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.