Father's memory part of the elk hunting experience

Ryan Frank of Hayden wears a silver ring of elk ivory embossed along its edges with mountains and trees and a bugling bull elk in tiny relief.

It is a large, graduation style ring, but the only class it represents is the one Frank’s dad, Ron, taught at every opportunity when he stole his four sons and daughter out into the mountains of North Idaho from their home on Sunset Drive in Pinehurst.

And while his older brothers attended the graduate school of mountain lore, hunting elk and deer at every opportunity, Ryan, the youngest son, chose a different path that didn’t allow time for long autumn hikes into the hills or watching a pink sunrise spread like a gasoline slick over the Coeur d’Alene Mountains.

He played sports in high school and afterward earned a college degree, raised a family, started a business, invested for the future.

Before long his fall days were filled with his children’s sporting events instead of cow calling in a quiet glade far from the sounds of the modern world.

Every now and then he would sneak out to hunt and harvest as he once did, albeit rarely, as a kid.

“Maybe some grouse, if that,” Frank said

The scarce outings lacked the robust enthusiasm of hikes with his dad, who died last year.

As time went by, passing on his father’s hunting traditions seemed a distant and unreachable protocol.

That changed this year when Frank lost his job in medical sales and started his own company.

Being self employed opened windows of free time — unusual before — and he seized upon the chance to be outside with his older brothers who had long ago joined their dad’s enthusiasm for the woods and spent September and October in the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe mountains chasing elk.

“Being out hunting was kind of a way for us to connect with dad,” Frank said.

Earlier this month, he headed into the hills to spend time with memories of is father.

He joined his brothers at elk camp, woke up to dark, frosty mornings and helped them pack out the bull elk they shot.

And when he had a chance for meat to fill his own family’s freezer, he seized upon it.

For his first ever elk — despite living so close for much of his life to elk and fall bull bugles — Frank harvested a cow with one shot from his grandfather’s .300 Winchester Short Mag.

“It was one and done,” he said.

But it wasn’t the harvest of the cow elk that excited him as much as the prospect of joining the fraternity of hunters his father had bonded together with his enthusiasm for the outdoors.

The cow elk that Frank spotted, stalked and shot less than a half mile from his family’s elk camp — and then quartered and packed out — was butchered this week and will curb Frank’s grocery bill for a while. It is one of the benefits of living so close to a familiar hunting ground.

It was also a blessing in another way. It reconnected Frank with the backyard of mountain roads, trails and peaks his dad loved and was always willing to share.

“He was always looking at hillsides, as a kid,” Frank remembers. “He was always seeing stuff, elk and deer.”

And after his dad’s death, Frank might drive in the hills and remember.

“The last time I was here, I was with dad,” he said.

Quiet reflection remains part of the hunt and part of the tradition.

“He was always trying to make memories for us,” he said. “The hunt was my way of connecting with him. I totally felt like dad was there with me.”