Day 3
We decided to take it easy today. Even though we’re only 3 days into this hunt, we’ve hit it hard everyday, and now we had 2 big goats to flesh and cape off the head. After the capes were fleshed and salted and the meat was cleaned up, Leif and I headed to a nearby lake to call for moose and look for bears, while Molak and Seth stayed around camp glassing the mountains around us for sheep. No moose, and no sheep, but I did piss more blood. I’m not as worried anymore. I know something is wrong with me, but I feel good.
Day 4
We stayed in the same area today, but we went deep. Seth had told me about a bowl on the other side of the mountain, the one we killed our goats on, where he saw a bunch of fresh bear scat and a big herd of caribou. As soon as we got to the top of the mountain the weather turned to hell, ripping cold wind mixed with a driving icy rain, the kind of stuff that feels like needles against your skin. We had no option but to wait it out and hope it cleared. It’d be a death wish to try to get back down the loose rock face we climbed to get there.
We all found our own little nooks where we could get a break from the wind, cinched up our rain gear, and spent the next four hours waiting it out. Most people hate days like this, but I’m one of the weird guys that finds beauty in misery.
The weather finally broke and that last hour of the day was beautiful. We watched a herd of young caribou bulls come out of thick timber 1,000 yards away and work their way to within 50 yards of us. These are the kind of days that define the north country; nasty weather, misery, and boredom, quickly turned into a beautiful evening in incredible country, watching animals that no other human has ever seen before. Today was perfect.
Days 5 & 6
For the sake of time and your attention I’m going to skim through these days so we can get to the bulk of this hunt. Day 5 we trailed a nasty ten hours through boggy, wet, then rocky country that I didn’t think would ever end. We planned on going another eight hours but it took our string longer than we hoped so we made camp in a valley and left the last eight miles for tomorrow.
Day 6 was more of the same until we hit a pass that went from brutally nasty country to the most beautiful valley I’ve ever seen. Other than a bluff charge from a sow Grizzly with a cub, our horses were the only living animals we’d seen in the past two days.
As soon as we crossed the pass, we started seeing caribou in the valley and sheep on the mountains above us. Right before dark we saw a really good looking ancient bull about 900 yards in front of us feeding. We bailed off the horses and made a move to get Molak into position on the big bull. After a perfect stalk and a great shot, we ate caribou for dinner, once we finally made camp at 1:30am.