WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HUNTERS...
He was a young biologist from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was a college student from outside San Francisco. They met in the middle, in Idaho, on a wolf project. They fell in love, but their story from there isn’t a traditional one.
Anastasia Kampe has loved food her whole life. She loved all food that is except for meat. She was a committed vegetarian with a deep-seated aversion to killing and consuming animals. Adam Gall, on the other hand, has hunted his whole life and grew up with a deep appreciation of the relationship between the hunter, the land, its animals and what it means to harvest your own meat. So of course when Ana left school in Missoula and came to Paonia to be with Adam, the first thing she did was learn how to be a butcher. Bet you didn’t see that coming.
Ana laughs now about how, once she understood Adam’s values, she decided to meet her lifelong aversion head-on. If she was going to eat meat, she wanted to know exactly where it came from. She learned the art and trade of butchering at Homestead Market in Paonia, where her background in science and anatomy came in handy.
Adam, in the meantime, was teaching science at Hotchkiss High School and pondering how to combine his love for the outdoors, his passion for responsible hunting, and his commitment to educating others into a career and a lifestyle. He got to know several hunting guides in the North Fork Valley and began working with those whose philosophies aligned with his own. Eventually he quit teaching and devoted himself to guiding full-time.
What Ana and Adam both knew for sure: The North Fork Valley was where they wanted to do whatever they ended up doing. Their family expanded to include daughter Penelope. They bought a home and acreage on Sunshine Mesa outside Paonia, bordering BLM land. And in 2016, they launched Timber to Table.
Timber to Table Guide Service is, above all, about education. Adam and Ana focus on teaching first-time hunters the basics of animal behavior and ecology in addition to fundamental field skills. Their goal is to foster a sense of connection with public lands and to influence their clients’ personal philosophies about the food they eat and the land it comes from.
“Public land ownership is our birthright”, says Adam. “Hunting on public lands reinforces that sense of ownership and makes people feel responsible for the land.”
Ana and Adam host two or three first-time hunters for five days at a time. They keep their operation small so they can focus on quality. Guests stay in wall tents, and all meals are included. Adam starts his novice hunters on 200 acres of private land, where conditions are more easily controlled and there is a better chance of success, meaning a harvest of deer or elk. But Adam is quick to emphasize that the harvest is not the be-all and end-all.
“It’s about learning the right way to hunt”, he says. “It’s not about win or lose. Our clients experience the hunt, know their meat and where it comes from.”
Ana does the butchering on-site for guests who harvest an animal and she encourages them to participate. She has seen fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and single women proudly harvest deer and elk and marvels at the deep connection they feel to the animal and the earth.
Adam guides archery and rifle seasons, on both private and public lands. BLM Unit 521 adjoins his and Ana’s property. It’s an “over-the-counter” unit, which means that hunters can purchase hunting tags for that unit any time during the season without having to go through the state lottery process, which can sometimes take years. Starting this year, Adam and Ana have also secured permits for over-the-counter and trophy units on the Uncompahgre Plateau, which offers hunting in higher country and earlier hunting seasons.
Anastasia and Adam’s daughter Penelope, nicknamed Lolo, is four years old and has grown up knowing where her food comes from. Not long ago, Lolo took her first overnight float trip on the lower Gunnison River with her mother and father. The family camped near a newly discovered, ancient hunting camp. Ana recalls the wonder she felt as she and Lolo gazed together at weathered petroglyphs of bighorn sheep and elk on a cliff wall.
“It’s a humbling and very grounding feeling to see those etchings and it reminds me very clearly…We have always been hunters.”
Timber to Table Guide Service: timbertotableguideservice.com
He was a young biologist from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was a college student from outside San Francisco. They met in the middle, in Idaho, on a wolf project. They fell in love, but their story from there isn’t a traditional one.
Anastasia Kampe has loved food her whole life. She loved all food that is except for meat. She was a committed vegetarian with a deep-seated aversion to killing and consuming animals. Adam Gall, on the other hand, has hunted his whole life and grew up with a deep appreciation of the relationship between the hunter, the land, its animals and what it means to harvest your own meat. So of course when Ana left school in Missoula and came to Paonia to be with Adam, the first thing she did was learn how to be a butcher. Bet you didn’t see that coming.
Ana laughs now about how, once she understood Adam’s values, she decided to meet her lifelong aversion head-on. If she was going to eat meat, she wanted to know exactly where it came from. She learned the art and trade of butchering at Homestead Market in Paonia, where her background in science and anatomy came in handy.
Adam, in the meantime, was teaching science at Hotchkiss High School and pondering how to combine his love for the outdoors, his passion for responsible hunting, and his commitment to educating others into a career and a lifestyle. He got to know several hunting guides in the North Fork Valley and began working with those whose philosophies aligned with his own. Eventually he quit teaching and devoted himself to guiding full-time.
What Ana and Adam both knew for sure: The North Fork Valley was where they wanted to do whatever they ended up doing. Their family expanded to include daughter Penelope. They bought a home and acreage on Sunshine Mesa outside Paonia, bordering BLM land. And in 2016, they launched Timber to Table.
Timber to Table Guide Service is, above all, about education. Adam and Ana focus on teaching first-time hunters the basics of animal behavior and ecology in addition to fundamental field skills. Their goal is to foster a sense of connection with public lands and to influence their clients’ personal philosophies about the food they eat and the land it comes from.
“Public land ownership is our birthright”, says Adam. “Hunting on public lands reinforces that sense of ownership and makes people feel responsible for the land.”
Ana and Adam host two or three first-time hunters for five days at a time. They keep their operation small so they can focus on quality. Guests stay in wall tents, and all meals are included. Adam starts his novice hunters on 200 acres of private land, where conditions are more easily controlled and there is a better chance of success, meaning a harvest of deer or elk. But Adam is quick to emphasize that the harvest is not the be-all and end-all.
“It’s about learning the right way to hunt”, he says. “It’s not about win or lose. Our clients experience the hunt, know their meat and where it comes from.”
Ana does the butchering on-site for guests who harvest an animal and she encourages them to participate. She has seen fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and single women proudly harvest deer and elk and marvels at the deep connection they feel to the animal and the earth.
Adam guides archery and rifle seasons, on both private and public lands. BLM Unit 521 adjoins his and Ana’s property. It’s an “over-the-counter” unit, which means that hunters can purchase hunting tags for that unit any time during the season without having to go through the state lottery process, which can sometimes take years. Starting this year, Adam and Ana have also secured permits for over-the-counter and trophy units on the Uncompahgre Plateau, which offers hunting in higher country and earlier hunting seasons.
Anastasia and Adam’s daughter Penelope, nicknamed Lolo, is four years old and has grown up knowing where her food comes from. Not long ago, Lolo took her first overnight float trip on the lower Gunnison River with her mother and father. The family camped near a newly discovered, ancient hunting camp. Ana recalls the wonder she felt as she and Lolo gazed together at weathered petroglyphs of bighorn sheep and elk on a cliff wall.
“It’s a humbling and very grounding feeling to see those etchings and it reminds me very clearly…We have always been hunters.”
Timber to Table Guide Service: timbertotableguideservice.com