The hardest part is the best part.

It’s type-two fun. The kind of fun you hate. The kind of fun you dread. It’s the kind of fun that’s only fun looking back on it. The kind of fun that results in tingling feet, raw hips, and sore backs, but also a freezer full of goodness.

On Monday, Chase killed a great Arizona bull in a rugged unit over 5 miles into a walk-in area. The bull was down by 8:30 a.m., and it wasn’t until 9 p.m. that we had it out and in the coolers.

This happens to be my favorite part of the hunt. I mean, I hate it. But I love it. I love that it hurts. So much of our modern life is about convenience, ease, luxury, and status. Hauling 326 lbs. of boned-out elk meat from nowhere is the opposite of luxury and ease. Convenience is going to be the death of us. It’s made us soft as a society, as humans. And we must resist it every chance we can. We must seek out hardship and pain and be true to the capacity that the human machine evolved.