What started as the hunt of a lifetime for Tyrone senior Dylan Eckenrode ended in ruin.
Just hours after harvesting a 600-plus-pound elk in the Rocky Mountains near Meeker, Colorado, he and his dad returned to find their camp and all of their belongings reduced to a smoldering pile of ash.
“It was a hunt we will never forget,” Eckenrode said.
The trip started uneventfully as Eckenrode, his father, Shawn Eckenrode, and family friend Matt Farbaugh left Pennsylvania on October 12, driving over 27 hours and 1,800 miles to Colorado for the hunt.
Everything was going as planned until the fifth day of their hunt. That morning at about 5:30 am, the Eckenrodes left camp and set out one way, while Farbaugh went the other, all hoping to bag an elk.
Later that morning, Dylan Eckenrode took down a large elk, and the father-son duo got to work field dressing their trophy.
Not an easy task with a 600-pound kill.
“You skin around the legs and up the side. You skin the cape back and take all the meat off of one side, and flip it over to do the same. You just leave the carcass there because it feeds the bears, coyotes, birds, mountain lions, and wildlife around there,” Dylan Eckenrode said.
It took them about an hour and a half to field dress Dylan’s elk. Then they loaded the meat and the head onto their shoulders and carried them a few hundred yards to hang them in the cool, dark timber.
Everyone was in great spirits and had no idea that things were about to take a turn for the worse.
Upon arriving back at camp around noon, the cozy camp they had left behind that morning was nothing but a smoldering pile of ash.
Everything went up in flames except for the metal skeletons of the tent and the cots.
“Oh, the camp burned down,” was his first thought, still in shock from the realization that everything they had was gone. “It took about five minutes to process. I was ahead of my dad, so I yelled back to him that the camp had burned down. There was nothing there; it was a pile of ash and soot. Just the remains of our gear,” Eckenrode said. “It was so hot that it burned the paint off the cots. All of the spare ammo was burned up.”
Eckenrode said that he lost his phone and wallet in the fire, along with thousands of dollars of gear, all of their food, and their water filtration system, which was their only source of fresh water.
“The only thing that was left was half a bottle of bourbon and a sixty-four-ounce bottle of beer from the local brewery,” Eckenrode said.
With nothing left and no shelter, the trio set out on foot to find help.
“We had to meet with the cowboys and their horses about three miles down the mountain and race back before dark because the trail was getting slippery,” Eckenrode said.
The group walked away from the ruins of their camp at 2:00 pm, and arrived at the trailhead at 5:30 pm. They were given $500 to get necessities like toiletries, food, and clothing, as well as a hotel room for the remainder of their trip.
The once-packed truck was now empty except for the small amount of items they had left, and a cooler of elk.
The entire experience was one that they will never forget.
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