Bowsite.com

A friend and I booked a 2 on 1 area 24 archery hunt with this outfitter. Before, during and after booking this hunt we called the owners several times for trip clarification. We tried to gather as much information as possible including taking the head guide to lunch. While chatting with the guide we expressed our hunting interests and resumes, physical conditioning, and got his gear suggestions. From this point on communication with the outfitter was very poor. We arrived at basecamp at 8:30am when we were told to be there by 9:00am. The only greeting we got was the camp dogs. After finding ourselves a cup of coffee the owner told us how they were missing the morning hunters. Turns out it was us! We rapidly packed our gear in paniers, paid the owner, received a logo hat and jumped on horses. This was marketed as ‘a truly wilderness trophy elk hunt’ and we were told it is a remote minimal camp, and it was minimal. The camp consisted of two dome tents, stove, cots and pads, lanterns, solar shower, stove, target, and food. Not a chair or table in sight, we took turns sitting on the target. The guides had not set up the shower, which we did our second day because washing in a lake at 11,000ft elevation is very cold. There was some heat-n-eat food and a sack full of freeze dried meals in camp. This is essentially a satellite camp without a kitchen and cleaning crew. Everybody has to pull their weight to make it work. However, at one point we ran out of drinks, heat-n-eat food, and ran low on bread. The guide radioed back to maincamp for food. Request was denied and we were put on rations. Our guide was the highlight of the trip. He cooked, he called, he glassed, he hiked, he checked the wind, and maneuvered us through mountainous terrain for 6 days. He worked his butt off and was the highlight of our trip. This was a very strenuous trip that we trained for. In the 6 days of hunting my partner measured over 70 miles of hiking on his GPS, all of this over 10,000ft. As a side benefit, a week later I ran a personal best 5K run. I had two shot opportunities on legal bulls but did not take them in hopes of shooting something bigger. On the final day, my partner got close to several called in bulls and took a very long shot (mostly in frustration), but never hit a bull. We initially thought area 24 is about as remote as you can get in Colorado. We saw other hunters every day, spotted three outfitter camps, had a solo black powder hunter walk into camp, and saw one group riding in on horseback to hunt daily. When we rode out nobody greeted us at base camp. There has been no personal follow-up communications of any kind following our hunt. Overall we were disappointed with the outfitter (zero stars) and happy with our guide (4 stars).

Was the outfitter notified of problems? - NO