Bambistew
Well-known member
I'm just not feeling the story writing bug at this time, but thought I share a few pictures from the trip. Got to thank Indian Larry for taking the shots, as my camera is sick and the pics turned out like crap.
I'll let him share his sheep/story, so as I don't steal his thunder... not that he needs it.
We spotted my ram on the 3rd day in a spot we had no intention of hunting due to distance from the strip. We had a dilemma... we were spiked out with only had one day of food left, and the sheep was at least 2 days away... we opted to head back to the strip, and hunt another area we hadn't hunted and were sure had rams... in doing so ran into another hunting party that had just hunted the area, so the dicisison was easy... we packed up all our stuff and made a return trip to find "my" sheep. Not a fun day, but could have been worse, 15 miles round trip with camp on our back, just to make a food run.
The following morning we spotted another ram near my ram, we packed up camp and made the half day journey across a glacier... We set hurriedly set up camp on the other side, and hiked up the hill.
After an epic battle of rock/paper/scissors, Larry had his first sheep. After some pics, and cutting/quartering, we planned to hike around the hill a couple miles and shoot mine... No luck and no sheep to be found, we ran out of day light and went back to camp.
The plan for the next day was to hike back up to where we'd seen my sheep two days in a row, shoot him, then pack both off the mountain. On the way up we spotted a few ewes, and they had us peged. We waited them out for a few hours before they finally moved on. The fog was low, and glassing was difficult.
The fog started to lift a bit, and we could see the valley below. We picked out a couple whopper caribou bulls out of the brush, and Larry spotted a sheep right at the cloud line, in the next drainage over. Upon closer examination it was the guy we were after. Problem was we had a big open drainage to cross, without being noticed, and then had to scale back up the ridge they were on and try to shoot him from above. We were pretty spent, but knew what had to be done.
About 2 hours later I was in shooting position 200 yards above. The new Kimber Montana took its second sheep in as many shots. A quick Snickers bar, some fancy knife work and we were headed off the mountain. No sooner had we strapped on the packs did a bank of fog roll in that was so thick, visability was less than 15 yards. It was pretty eerie, we had no idea if we'd get cliffed out or not, luckily we made it with out issue. We made it back to camp about 4 hours later completely soaked after bush wacking alders in a down pour.
The next day we hiked back up, picked up Larrys sheep, and made it back to camp. On the way back we noticed that the stream we'd crossed a couple days prior was completely blown out. No way were crossing it until it dropped. The sun stuck around and the creek dropped. We spent the next two days schlepping meat and gear across a glacier and back to the landing strip. We got very lucky again, if we didn't make that crossing when we did, odds are we'd still be in the mountains today...
Can't wait to go again next year.
Bio aged mine at 11 years, full curl on one side and double broomed.
I'll let him share his sheep/story, so as I don't steal his thunder... not that he needs it.
We spotted my ram on the 3rd day in a spot we had no intention of hunting due to distance from the strip. We had a dilemma... we were spiked out with only had one day of food left, and the sheep was at least 2 days away... we opted to head back to the strip, and hunt another area we hadn't hunted and were sure had rams... in doing so ran into another hunting party that had just hunted the area, so the dicisison was easy... we packed up all our stuff and made a return trip to find "my" sheep. Not a fun day, but could have been worse, 15 miles round trip with camp on our back, just to make a food run.
The following morning we spotted another ram near my ram, we packed up camp and made the half day journey across a glacier... We set hurriedly set up camp on the other side, and hiked up the hill.
After an epic battle of rock/paper/scissors, Larry had his first sheep. After some pics, and cutting/quartering, we planned to hike around the hill a couple miles and shoot mine... No luck and no sheep to be found, we ran out of day light and went back to camp.
The plan for the next day was to hike back up to where we'd seen my sheep two days in a row, shoot him, then pack both off the mountain. On the way up we spotted a few ewes, and they had us peged. We waited them out for a few hours before they finally moved on. The fog was low, and glassing was difficult.
The fog started to lift a bit, and we could see the valley below. We picked out a couple whopper caribou bulls out of the brush, and Larry spotted a sheep right at the cloud line, in the next drainage over. Upon closer examination it was the guy we were after. Problem was we had a big open drainage to cross, without being noticed, and then had to scale back up the ridge they were on and try to shoot him from above. We were pretty spent, but knew what had to be done.
About 2 hours later I was in shooting position 200 yards above. The new Kimber Montana took its second sheep in as many shots. A quick Snickers bar, some fancy knife work and we were headed off the mountain. No sooner had we strapped on the packs did a bank of fog roll in that was so thick, visability was less than 15 yards. It was pretty eerie, we had no idea if we'd get cliffed out or not, luckily we made it with out issue. We made it back to camp about 4 hours later completely soaked after bush wacking alders in a down pour.
The next day we hiked back up, picked up Larrys sheep, and made it back to camp. On the way back we noticed that the stream we'd crossed a couple days prior was completely blown out. No way were crossing it until it dropped. The sun stuck around and the creek dropped. We spent the next two days schlepping meat and gear across a glacier and back to the landing strip. We got very lucky again, if we didn't make that crossing when we did, odds are we'd still be in the mountains today...
Can't wait to go again next year.
Bio aged mine at 11 years, full curl on one side and double broomed.
