“It’s going to be a big old-fashioned horse race,” Hunter Whitney said as he lounged in his makeshift camp Wednesday at the Teton County Fairgrounds, waiting for the opening of shed-antler hunting season.
Camp stoves, backpacks, folding chairs and even a cornhole set surrounded the Star Valley resident as he catnapped among picnic tables at his sidewalk quarters. A long-cold fried egg lay abandoned in a skillet, a pair of sturdy boots aired out on the concrete.
Through a lottery arranged by the Jackson Police Department, Whitney won a coveted spot close to the front of the “Shed Hunt Motorcade.” The hundreds of police-escorted pickups and horse trailers would snake through town to be turned loose on nearby public land at 6 a.m. Thursday. That’s the official Wyoming Game and Fish Department time when antler hunting starts and big game winter range opens in the western and southwestern parts of the state.
Male elk shed hundreds of antlers in the spring, dropping some of them on national forest land beyond the National Elk Refuge — home to some 7,000 elk each winter. The refuge itself is closed to antler gathering except for the local Boy Scout troop, which collects them for an annual auction.
Last year, bidders paid an average of more than $26 a pound. A skull and antlers from a winter-kill elk can bring thousands of dollars, depending on size and condition.
The lottery and motorcade replaced the mayhem of various helter-skelter mass starts that marked iterations of the antler rush in years past.
Mike Jackson, No. 265, drove up from Lyman for his first-ever hunt. He and his family arrived at a prescribed time to park in their place in line.
For a day and a night, the fairgrounds became a community of campers with a common goal. For $20 a head, they could corral their mounts in various nearby rodeo pens.
The Jacksons were going to a restaurant before cozying up in their horse trailer to sleep.
They planned to get up at 5 a.m., saddle their steeds, load them in the trailer and join the 5:45 a.m. procession to the city limits and open range beyond.
The lottery drew 513 applications, each costing $20, for a designated motorcade spot. By Wednesday afternoon, some 400 vehicles had lined up along Snow King Avenue in a queue that snaked into and around the fairgrounds.
Dubois resident Ty Finley drew No. 2. He was pleased. The No. 1 pickup ahead of him towed a horse trailer that carried only ATVs. Those aren’t allowed off dirt roads, so Finley was pretty sure he would be leading the charge.
After drawing his coveted spot, “I was trying to make sure none of my friends found out about it,” he joked. In fact, he showed up with many friends — Boedeckers, Hankinns, Cragoes, Hadleys and Eastburns — seemingly half the town of Dubois.
File under “Only in America.”
Nice photos.