Sheep Hunt

Subtitled: A very long post about a very cool trip.


Dani usually has the reins here on the blog (thank goodness, her posts are always awesome). My turn this time, to document a trip I waited a long time for. Chasing Dall sheep, 2014.

My brother-in-law, Jed Weight has been hunting sheep for years now (and quite successfully). I've always wanted to make it work out to get out with him and/or some of my other studly brothers-in-law or good friends up in AK. It looked like it was going to pull together last summer and Jed and I had talked a lot about it, but my work schedule converged into a perfect storm that prevented me from making it up to Alaska at all, let alone making a trip like that (Dani and kids had to go up for our annual summer trip without me, and it was painful...).

With my family out of town, late one of those nights last summer-- after getting burned out with teaching and prepping for interviews and seminars-- I sat home alone watching some lame redbox rentals and vowed to make it up this year once the dissertation, job market travels, graduation, and moving to who-knows-where at that point were all over and done with. Around that time I'd also been making some plans to do some hiking with Davis, and dreaming of both those trips got me through some long days. With the bruising loss of my brother and the year this turned out to be, I ended up needing this trip more than ever.

Prep began this winter and early spring, planning out where to go, how to handle logistics, reserving a flight out of the backcountry, and nailing down dates. I also had to update some gear, so I started a slow burn of finding good deals online and overusing my share of REI member 20%-off coupons. Once spring wore on, I waited for the really rainy days to walk the 2 miles to work with kettle-bells in my backpack. On lunch breaks, I'd run every stair in the U of Maryland's Cole Fieldhouse (their old bball arena) with that pack on. Even got kicked out of the gym (more than once) for having the pack on while using their stair-steppers. As summer wore on, I started eating more lunches and dinners that only consisted of protein bars and dried fruit to, you know, limit digestive surprises on the trail. The kids and I spent time at the range, firing at Liam-drawn targets.

After a week in Eagle River with all the family, I hopped on a small flight north to get to Jed's place. The night before leaving, Jed and I grabbed and packed food, went to the range to check sights, blew up the raft to make sure it'd float (thanks, Melissa, for hooking us up with some odds and ends that helped us rig our well-worn pump to cooperate better), and went over gear lists one last time. We thought for a moment we might have one other join us (which would have been great), but it was officially going to just be the two of us.

Before going further, I have to explain that given how awesome and unknown the place we headed to is, we both made promises to each other to not disclose the location. So to keep that promise, I'm keeping place names out. As it turns out, the reality of getting into where we went might be enough to keep people out even if we gave them exact GPS locations...

Our plan was to raft about 45 river miles to where we'd stash our raft and a bag of exit gear, hike in to our hunting spot, and then raft another 65 miles out to where we'd get picked up by a bush plane and hauled back home.

Day 1: Finally at the put-in spot, we use a foot pump to blow up the raft. Jed's in the front left, I'm in the back right, paddles in hand. Fishing pole for grayling. The river's really big with the heavy rains a few weeks ago. Rest of the day floating under gorgeous weather.

Day 2: More floating. Great weather again. Terrain changes from rolling tundra and taiga as we get into gorgeous peaks. Late at night, we find what we expected to be our easy-out raft stash location and entry point for our hiking is actually along a part of the river with an 8-foot bank and crowded with thick windfalls, dense woods, and loads of bear sign. Deflate the raft, hang a bear pinata (aka a bear-bag), put on our bog-stomper overboot waders, and began the trudge up and over into the promised land. Hike just 30 minutes or so before stumbling onto a surprisingly dry spot, figure it's the only dry place we'll see for a while, and set up camp.

Day 3: Hiking into our hunting grounds. The misery poured out upon us by walking through that 10 miles of tundra swamp made me forget I had a camera, so I never documented it. Tussocks (or hassocks) of foot high grass mounds clumped tightly together, with sludgy mud and standing water anywhere from 3 inches to 3 feet deep between them. If you took a billion kickballs, tied them loosely to the ground so they were each tight against each other but wiggled around when you stepped on/around them, then poured a foot or two of muck and swamp water over the top of them and covered them all in slippery grass, you'd have the right idea. Walk on top of them to stay out of the unknown muck, and you can see where you're going but might roll an ankle or wear yourself out balancing. Walk between them, which was the better choice, and you couldn't see where your foot was actually going. Each step was either a 4-inch-long careful foot placement or a really long jump-step up and over several foot-high hurdles, followed by sucking your leg back up out of the mud. Once we'd gone half-way and had gained some elevation, we thought it'd dissipate into normal low-bush tundra, but it got worse with boggy ponds and slithering streams and quicksandy muck everywhere. Everywhere. The only thing that made it better was walking over moose, bear, and wolf prints the whole way, knowing they had to deal with this junk too. This is what must have inspired Carroll's poem The Jabberwocky. Miles of slithy toves, and I was gyring and gimbling in the wabe. Mome raths totally outgrabing. Maybe I could galumph back if I ever slew my Jabberwocky...

Nearly done, we butt-slide down a steep shale slide, bushwhack through thick brush, cross a river, and finally make it to our designated camp spot, which is a glorious spot much better than the prior trail. Beautiful view of the mountains we'd hunt. Two or three sheep on the mountain tonight! I can't get much proper food down after that draining slog through the bog, so I chomp on as much trail mix as I can stomach and down a Snickers.

Day 4: Opening day for the hunt: rams are now legal. Set up the scope at camp, and there's a huddle of 10-12 rams on a gravel slide fairly low on the mountain (2-3 miles off). Eat breakfast while watching rams head-butting and shoving each other around. Awesome. Jed's scope is a thing of beauty. Two-mile hike back to where we think we'll see sheep, we follow game trails, crossing creeks 3-4 times. The trail is pretty nice back here, on spongy moss. We're up out of the valley up against the mountains but low in the trees. We start walking quietly. Rams are down in the trees, 40 yards to our left! Way down the mountain. We stalk up on one, rifle-scoped at 100 yards. He and a buddy watch us, even moving closer to us. Too small. See maybe 10 more between 100 and 800 yards throughout the day, all rams but all just a touch too small. Set up most of the day on two different low rises that are fairly clear of trees, letting us see up a gulley and across multiple faces of the mountain. Hiding in the shade of little spruce trees, behind our backpacks with binoculars and scope out. So cool to be right up on them. They're low in the morning, and clamber up into the rocks up the mountain in the afternoon to rest and chew cud. After watching all day, we head back to camp for dinner and planning.

Day 5: Head back into where we were in the sheep yesterday. Nothing. Push further north up the valley to see a new bowl of the mountain. Nothing. Did we scare them all out? Should we climb up and gain elevation to see if we can find them hiding on the backside of the rock faces protruding all over the face of the mountain? Maybe we head back to where we were watching yesterday, maybe we go even further north. Let's just watch a few more minutes here while we finish a protein bar. White in the trees. Two rams, a little one, and one maybe a little bigger. Watch more carefully. 500 yards out. "Big one- he's legal!", whispers Jed who's manning the scope. We watch the big one and his little brother, who's in front, move across the mountain in front of us. The little one trots off and over the curve of the mountain. Maybe he saw us and didn't like it. The bigger one starts to follow. Dang. Oh wait, he's angled back this way. He looks really good, but now we can't quite tell. Biggest we've seen so far, for sure. He's up above the tree line, angling between two big rock palisades. Rubs his back on the rocks, slowly making his way. "Please lay down, please lay down, please lay down..." He gets to the top of his rock fortress, kicks away a bit of dirt, and lays down eying the valley below. "Think he's big enough to climb for?" "Let's get closer and see." Drink some water, down a few handfuls of nuts. Work through the trees, going straight up, aiming to pop out on his left. 900 foot climb. Not sure we're high enough. Did we go too far left? Are we still underneath him? Hey, those big rocks look familiar. Army crawl behind a rock, Jed in front. He turns around, eyes wide. "He's right there!" Peak over the rocks, see the tops of his horns curving seductively. Well under 100 yards. We're maybe 20 yards above him on the mountain, distance probably 50-75 yards. He sees us, and just sits, hasn't moved since we saw him below, in his same bed.

Jed gives me the shot. He was ahead of me on the climb, which was exhausting, and half way up I told him he could take it since he'd be first up. Like a champion, he gives the option back to me once we're up. Does he still look good? Definitely. He looks big, and he's got what looks like a full curl on at least one side. Hard to tell, because although he's laying broad side, he's looking straight at us, making it hard to tell where those curls actually stop. I creep up ahead of Jed behind a rock, a nice anchor point for a shot. The rock-rest is no good, bad angle on the ram, would force a high back shot. I back up a bit, squatting against the steep slope in a sitting/kneeling position. "Shoot him. He looks good." "Yeah, he looks nice, looks good through the scope," I reply. Catching my breath, finger on the trigger, aiming right behind his left shoulder. Realize that a lot of work is about to come to fruition, and have to take two more breaths. Steady my aim once more. Slowly squeeze the trigger.

Boom.

Looking up, I don't see him. There he is, now, prancing away to the left. How did I miss!?!?! Did my scope get bumped? Was I nervous and pull that badly? I'm up and running across the mountain, reloading as I go, scanning for him. Can't see him anywhere. Did he make the corner and split that fast? I'm doing what feels like sprinting, but may have been just a fast walk. How could I have ruined our whole day that quickly. I can't believe I missed. Run a little further, don't see him. Sit down, face palm myself. Maybe we can hop further up the mountain and find him again, maybe he didn't make it too far and settled down again. Take a few deep breaths for another lunge up the mountain. Corner of my eye, I see white. Gain focus, it's him, somersaulting down the mountain, finally coming to a slumped stop again a tree. Woo!!! Sheep down! I flop backwards onto the mountain, spread eagle, gun raised. Jed's shouting happily, running over. High fives. Instant relief, satisfaction, flood of emotion and adrenaline.We walk back over to where we dropped our packs. A quick text via satellite phone broadcasting our success to a few back home. Happiness. Unbelievable view across the valley from this vantage point.

I wander over to see his bed. No blood. Jed's down at the sheep, whose roll was stopped by a little bitty tree. "First impression, he looks great! We're going to have no problems with this guy". After the rush, it's a little nerve-wracking after a shot on a sheep, even a big one, as determining legality can be tricky even on big guys. Legal is: a) full-curl on the horn, which can be tricky to determine because the angle of view matters, or b) 8 years old, which can be determined based on growth rings on the horn but which can be hard to do even when it's in your hands let alone through a scope, or c) if both sides of the horns are clipped off or 'broomed' (when they get too long, the sheep will chip them off against rock to maintain their field of view). The sheep in this area routinely have smaller horns than some other ranges (genetics), making it extra hard to tell legality, but this guy is at least 8 years old (turns out to be 9) and is clearly full curl on at least one side (on the other side the horn arcs lower, making the curl less full than the other side). We had glassed long and hard, and I'd stared intently before firing so we were confident when I took the shot, but on closer inspection he's legal twice over, bringing extra relief. More high fives, maybe a hug. A quick retelling the stalk and chase, soaking it in. Team effort all the way. Time to get to work.

I took the sheep with my bro-in-law Jared's Ruger .338 with one of his 250-grain self-loaded bullets. It definitely did the trick. The exit wound was basically the same size as the entrance-- with a shot that high-powered at pretty close range, the bullet didn't do much shock trauma, which helps explain no blood in his bed and him hopping right off. Thanks again, Jared.

Takes a while to process the sheep. He's kind of in an awkward spot. We'd lost our knife sharpener (primarily my fault. I know, I know. I also lost our duct tape...), and the saw broke. We're tired. We cape him out, take the whole head (broken saw means we can't just take the horns), and all the meat. It's really hot, and we're just about out of water, a few ounces each. Beautiful day, but it looks like rain is headed our way fast. Time to go. Straight down, then 3 miles back home. The fresh meat on our tired legs is heavy. Stop to drink from the marsh we crossed through, and again at the river. Water tastes so good, but still thirsty. Heels are bloody, packs are heavier every step. Jed has the head strapped to his pack- that pack has never looked so burly and awesome. Under heavy rain clouds (but they never burst) at the base of the mountain, we hear what sounds exactly like a rifle shot echo out on the rocks above us. We freeze in our tracks; we thought we were all alone. Looking back, we're convinced there was nobody else anywhere around for miles and miles all week long- must have been either an eerie thunder clap or a brutal ram head-butt. At the time, though, it makes us even gladder for the timing of our shot.

Back at base camp, we're fairly well spent so we hang the meat and just have a Mountain House for dinner (again. So far every day it's been protein powder-enriched oatmeal for breakfast, some trail mix, jerky, and protein bar for lunch, and Mountain House for dinner). Too tired to stoke a fire. Our sheep feast will have to wait until tomorrow.

Day 6: Lazy day at base camp, recuperating, feasting on fire-roasted sheep-kabobs (backstrap. I brought in two packets of Arby's sauce that were like gold). Good fire, more beautiful weather, finished off cleaning the cape and getting the horns off. Lots of water, with bellies full of fresh mountain-grown protein.

Day 7: Back to our spot up the valley searching for another sheep. Getting out of the valley doubled-up on sheep will be a killer chore, and Jed's taken more than a few rams before, so we're looking for a big guy. See a lot of ewes and lambs, no rams at all. Spend most of the day perched back in the shade of a tree, watching the clouds float by under a blue sky as we skim the mountainside for sheep. A short nap feels heavenly. Move to a few different stake-out spots, still no rams. As we get back to camp that night, two rams (not legal, but close), trot right across the mountain strip we'd staked out most of the day. Sneaky little buggers. A few more peek out momentarily further up the valley. Oh well. None of them are big enough anyway. Good to know we hadn't spooked them completely, and that they were co-habitating with the ewes and lambs we'd been seeing (they often stay separate, so we'd thought maybe all the rams had vacated).

Day 8: Time to get out. We'd initially budgeted today to hunt, but to pull two rams out of here (if we could find another), it would be hard going to hike back, hunt, process, and then get out with the remaining time left, so we decide it's best to leave now and spend the extra time hunting the river (black bear, caribou, and wolves are legal... for the wolf lovers, there's a major issue in this area with over-predation, so bear and wolves are highly targeted by the state fish and game dept.). Another beautiful clear day. Jed begins to draw on a black bear we see on our way out, but it's got an itty-bitty baby cub, making it off limits. We watch them scramble out of our way up and over a hill, the little guy struggling to keep up. I can relate, little one!

Day 9 Onward: It took two nights to get out. It rained hard on us, making going even slower. I'd thought that trail would be impossible to get wetter, but I was very wrong. The last night on the trail we're thirsty and away from good water, but set our pack covers up to catch liters of water to drink.

We weren't sure if we'd find the raft and our bear-bag intact, but they both were as we'd left them. After getting set up and back in the river, our float out begins. Slow and rainy. Bad weather. Lots of bugs at night trapping us even further in the tent than the weather already was. One night, after spending hours killing all the bugs in our tent, as we're falling asleep we hear what sounds like the mountain caving into the river-- turns out to be a black bear cannon-balling into the river, checking out our meat-soaked raft pulled up on the bank. We're able to watch him for a little while, but he saunters off into the rain-drenched, midnight twilight before we can get a clean shot. Saw a few other bears on the river earlier that day, too. No good shots.

The last of the float is through gorgeous scenery. Lots of waiting for the plane ride out, hanging out in the tent at the cut-out strip which is nothing more than a gravel bed left by a river that changed course many years ago. The plane finally shows up, piloted by a grizzled veteran landing into the wind. We haven't seen another person since way way back on the river after putting in.

Being out in the wild without seeing any other humans for so long was glorious. I had an incredible hunting partner, gorgeous terrain, and lots of time for reflection and peace, which would have made it a successful trip on its own. We'd accomplished some hard things along the way. It was a beautiful thing. Tonight we went out for a celebratory prime rib dinner, already talking about how to do it better next time. 

***
Also- thanks to Justin for hooking us up with new and improved waders, Richard for the raft(!) and other goodies, Shane for helping out with the meat processing, and our wives and kids for letting us trek out for so long.