A BLACK NOVEMBER sky sprinkled with stars hung above our small, shivering party, the comfort of dawn still hours away. Astride our horses, we slogged up a steep trail, our head lamps illuminating a path littered with brush and fallen timber. The only sounds were the occasional burble of a mountain spring, the huffing of the horses and their hoofs thunking against rocks on the mountainside. In the darkness, it seemed we had all 317,784 acres of western Wyoming’s remote Gros Ventre Wilderness area to ourselves. Apart from the wolves, coyotes and grizzly bears I sensed were eyeing us, that is.  This was my first foray into hunting, and I was aiming to eye some elk for myself. After living in Jackson, Wyo., for the better part of a decade, I knew that hunting is a big part of the local culture (unlike on Long Island, where I spent my girlhood and where team sports or shopping are the preferred weekend pastimes). Many Jackson residents, including a fair number of my female friends, disappear on cold fall and winter mornings to hunt for big game like elk, bison or deer.  Another antler rack for the den wall isn’t the goal for most of these local hunters: With each elk yielding an average of 250 pounds of meat, bagging one can mean skipping the supermarket butcher’s counter for a year; I’d be able to eat some of the most organic, free-range meat you can find. Given that I spend most of my outdoor time on the ski slopes and bike trails, hunting would also be a new way for me to experience the mountains.  Succumbing to my curiosity, I asked my friend Peter Linn, a fourth-generation hunting guide, if he would take me out under the Wyoming Hunter Mentor program, which pairs first-time hunters with experienced ones to learn proper tracking and identification techniques, firearm safety and how to be respectful of animals and other hunters.  In the fall, Pete is based at the Darwin Ranch, a homestead built in the early 1900s. During the summer, trail-riding guests enjoy its remote beauty. Starting in mid-autumn, Pete brings hopeful hunters in. This season, after he’d sent his last hunting clients home, I made the 100-mile drive from Jackson to Darwin with my friend Alex, a good part of it on treacherous, wildly rutted one-lane dirt roads. I lost cell service 30 miles before reaching the ranch.  For four days I rose at 4:30 in the morning, leaving the soft bed in my cozy, wood-stove heated cabin to join Pete and Alex on horseback. Each day, we rode for a couple of hours before and after dawn to the high, isolated meadows where the elk congregate in the morning and late afternoon. For the bulk of the day, they hide in the thick forests, making themselves difficult for predators to spot.  As we rode, I periodically glanced down in slight disbelief at my lever-action Winchester rifle, securely resting in a leather saddle holster. I’d spent time on horseback and shot guns before—a Wyoming pastime—but I’d never aimed a firearm at a living thing. The thought of possibly ending the life of one of these beautiful elk, so far only glimpsed from a distance, did give me pause—but I focused on the fact that predation is part of nature and keeps the ecosystem healthy.  There was no talking: I had quickly learned that silence and endless patience are key to hunting. It was late in the elk season (which can run through the end of January in some parts of the state) and we were only permitted to kill a bull elk, assuming we could find one. “It’s the way that the Game and Fish Department manages the elk population in this area,” Pete explained. “Taking a bull really won’t affect the population right now. If we took a cow elk, we’d also be taking all the calves she’ll ever have.”  I wasn’t sure I was prepared to test my mettle on a living animal if I got the chance, aiming, as Pete had instructed, behind the left shoulder at the heart. So I was relieved that on our first two days we saw nothing but tracks and herds of elk on ridges too far away to reach before dark. Another day saw us out in freezing rain, hopelessly trying to warm up with hot coffee at lunch from a camp stove.  At sunrise on the last morning, a thick skiff of snow covered the alpine meadows and a pale sun painted the higher peaks with gold. Astride my horse, I dreamily soaked in the scenery until Pete suddenly stopped dead. Barely thirty feet away, a cow elk stared at us, motionless and alert. We stared back for a good minute. A small herd was gathered behind her, and my heart jumped into my throat in a mix of terror and excitement.  The cow turned, and the whole herd fled silently across the snow-covered meadow and into the woods. “No bulls,” said Pete.  I felt myself relax, happy to see them go. As the day wore on, we saw only the tracks of elk, wolves and a massive grizzly in the snow. On the ride back to the ranch, I wasn’t particularly disappointed to be leaving empty-handed: For now, as it turned out, hunting was rewarding enough as an excuse to see wilderness and another way of life.  Darwin Ranch is so quiet and removed from the world that it makes sleepy Jackson seem like a crazed metropolis. On my last night at the ranch, I spent a long time sweating it out in the sauna, punctuated with quick, invigorating dips in the frigid Gros Ventre River. It was both a way to say goodbye to the wilderness and to steel myself for the return to civilization.  Getting there: Several major airlines fly into the Jackson Hole Airport. A 4x4 high-clearance rental vehicle is recommended to access Darwin Ranch.  Staying there: Because of its extremely remote location, Darwin Ranch is only open in summer and fall. Its rustic cabins are heated with wood stoves and appointed with high-end bedding and amenities (from about $4,000 a week per person during hunting season; from about $2,240 a week per person from July to September; darwinranch.com). Homesteaded in 1887, Turpin Meadow Ranch, about an hour’s drive from Jackson, has newly renovated cabins done up in chic, Scandinavian style. The ranch has solitude to spare, mountain views, almost 19 miles of new cross-country trails, fat-biking and 500 miles of snowmobile trails to vroom along all winter. Turpin also offers a two-week Arctic survival class for guests who are serious about learning to tough it out in extreme winter conditions on their own (from about $295 a night; turpinmeadowranch.com).  Located in Grand Teton National Park, Triangle X Ranch is run by the fourth generation of the family that originally homesteaded the ranch in 1926. It offers a serene setting to relax, regroup and enjoy the beauty of a frozen world. The ranch maintains two- and four-mile cross-country ski trails, provides guests with snowshoes and, with the Teton Range just outside the door, offers serious mountaineering. Many guests are happy just to forget about the outside world for a bit, cozy up by the fire with a book or sit in the outdoor hot-tub and watch foxes, eagles, coyotes and winter sunsets over the mountains with a wine glass in hand (from $140 a night per person; trianglex.com).
Captivated by the wilds of Wyoming, a novice hunter ponders whether she’ll be able to pull the trigger.