Hikers found the elk trapped in the shaft. 

It's not only people who need to be rescued in the Colorado wilderness. On April 18, a couple of hikers happened on something that, hopefully, most people will never see: a cow elk trapped in an old mineshaft. 

Chere Waters was hiking with a friend when she decided to go off the Bachelor Loop Road trail to show her companion an abandoned mine shaft she stumbled on years earlier. 

According to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW),

"Waters said she surprised herself when she walked the mile from her vehicle right up to the opening. She saw the hole from about 10 yards away and tossed a rock in, hoping to get a sense of the depth of the shaft.
 
'It’s the scariest thing, it’s at the edge of some trees so it’s hard to see,' she said.
 
But even though she sensed some danger, she decided to look in. So she 'belly crawled' on the ground and had her friend hold onto her ankles so she could peer over the edge.
 
'So I looked in and see this animal in there. I was so surprised, I couldn’t believe it,' Waters said."

The pair had found a 250-pound cow elk trapped at the bottom of the shaft. They immediately called the sheriff's department, and about an hour later, CPW officers and members of the local search and rescue arrived to assess the situation. 

“When I got the call, I was told that a deer was stuck in a hole,” Woodward said. “But they thought the shaft was only about 10 feet deep. When I got there, I could see it was an elk, and it was probably 30 feet down.”  

Officers tranquilized the elk from above, lowered a search and rescue worker into the hole to place straps around the elk, and then used a winch on a truck they were able to drive into the area to lift it out of the shaft. Once the animal was out, officers examined her and determined she'd likely been in the shaft for two or three days and was "pretty beat up." After determining she did not need further care, they took her out of sedation, and she walked away on her own.

“When she stood up, she moved a few yards, turned and looked at us for a few seconds and then turned and trotted away. It was great that we could get her out alive,” Woodward said.

Fantastic job to all involved!

You can learn more about the incident, as well as see photos of the rescue and a video of the elk coming out of sedation on the CPW website.