At first I thought they were cows, however further scrutiny revealed that they were all bulls, with one looking like a big 4 by 4 or 5x5, a smaller branch antlered bull and the other looked like a spike. I sat there for 30 seconds or a minute looking at them and deciding. There were two smaller ridges between us. It was a bit difficult to determine exactly what ridge they were on by the map but I tried to use the rangefinder to get an idea. Laughably it wouldn't get a reading until I hit the closest ridge about midway up and it popped back 1780 something yards. I had set a realistic goal on this trip with no prior planning, no experience in the area (or the state for that matter), no help, and in a unit with terrible successes rates for public land, of a legal branch antlered bull. I am consciously aware of my energy level, expenditure, and knowing how hard I could push and still recover at night. I could already feel a bit fatigued from the last 2.5 days, and I had an hour and a half to drop 2,600 feet or so to the valley floor down a very steep slide, go up and over two 1,500ft or so ridges, and across at least one rock slide, and then up 2k feet or so to get to them. I figured at least one creek crossing as well, but hopefully that would be frozen. I knew that if I made it, it would be a literal sprint and I would not be able to recover from it quickly. Looking at the ridge they were on I was also aware that the shot may be long and I would be pinging full on........

At this point in talking to myself is when my real personality kicked in and I sated out load- "there is no way you are going to let this bull mock you" . No matter what, I was ruining his day.

I started stripping clothes, put out the fire using half my water to soak it, broke down the spotter and was about to take off when it occurred to me that I might want to ensure that the bull had brow tines (brow tined unit). Out came the spotter again, and in a minute or so he silhouetted himself against a spruce and I could see that he was in fact legal. Packed it back up, snapped a wide view pic of the ridge they were on and my proposed path, and down I went.

Now at this point it gets truly stupid again. I have a bit of experience in the mountains, a high level of fitness is a requirement for me, rucking is non-negotiable, and I have a few 24-96 hour extreme adventure races behind me. I say this not out of ego or arrogance, but to say that when I state I jogged, to all out ran, down the mountain up and over the ridges I am not exaggerating.

With that; I dropped down from my vantage point approx. 900 feet and came to the first steep draw, cleared that, hit blowdown hell, up and over a small finger, found a deer/elk trail and sprinted 1k yards or so down and up a couple small but steep draws and one slide. I made it with only one slip up in a blowdown as I vaulted over a tree and my foot got hung up, tweaking my knee pretty good...

As soon as I left the point where I was sitting I lost sight of the bulls, so a couple hundred feet from the bottom I side hilled on a nearly vertical slope trying to get eyes on and ensure they were still there. As well, everything looks different from the bottom and I couldn't even see the ridge they were on. So I sat down, pulled out the map, compass and my phone, compared what I could see with the pictures I took and the map and determined that I was on the right path. I quickly checked the knee, and while it was already swollen, it would hold. I didn't have enough water to drink so I stood back up and down the face I slid. Once at the bottom of this draw it was a 50 yard wide drainage with a half frozen-half slush creek running through it. How it wasn't frozen solid I have no clue. I crossed that, and then followed it down to the main valley floor, but before reaching the bottom I saw that if I could make it, I could go up to the right over the steep ridge, parallel it, and then down the back side, cutting probably three quarters of a mile off.

It was only a few hundred yards up, I found a small game trail that criss-crossed the face of it and pushed as hard as I could. I would sprint for 10 or 20 yards and then fast walk for 10 or so. Constantly pushing. I had less then an hour. Once at the top, I ran the ridge back around to the east, dropped down a very steep slop using the trees to catch me on every step, hit the bottom, crossed a frozen creek, and then up the second ridge. I followed it to the east as well and it narrowed very quickly to to nearly sheer drop offs on either side. Now I knew from the map that all the topo lines converged into one on the back side of this ridge, but I wasn't going to let a little thing like that hold me back...


Arriving at the point that I wanted to drop off I was met with a couple hundred foot straight drop. I dropped the pack grabbed some trees and leaned over. It was a true bluff, sinking back in 10 or 15 feet all the way to the bottom. I looked to the right and it was worse. To the left looked like probable suicide....

Suicide's doable. Turned around, sprinted back down the ridge a 100 yards or so and realized there was no way to go down standing. Happily there were a bunch of small trees and bushes jutting out from the rocks and two-foot deep snow. I removed the gun from the back of my pack, cinched it to my chest, collapsed the shooting sticks all the way down, sat on my butt, scooted over to line myself up with a tree 40 or 50 feet below and over the edge I went.

I slammed into the tree with my right foot, but was able to catch myself. Looked around below and saw that I needed to move about five feet to the right to line up with the next tree down. I slid the 30 or so feet down with a better impact than the first. On it went all the way to the bottom 5 or 600 feet down. By the time I got to the end I had gotten pretty good at arching my back so only the pack, my hands and feet were touching the ground, and steering myself with one leg and my hands and using the other leg as the stop to hit trees and boulders. The last 75 feet or so there were no trees or rocks and it was a bit steeper. Oh well the bottom looked nice and plushy (like a cloud... grin) and there was certainly no going back up. Off I went... I ended up going a bit faster than planned... grin

In other words I shot down that slope like a rocket and when I hit, kind of like a soft fluffy cloud.... it did somewhere between d_ck and sh_t to cushion the blow. I nearly threw up.

A couple of deep breaths and off I went down the valley floor for about a mile.

I bumped into a cow moose and her calf after crossing the bigger creek-
[Linked Image]


When I could see the tree line running up the slope that was my backstop, I moved over to some easily identifiable bushes, pulled the pack off, undid the top lid, pulled out the shoulder straps turning it into a micro pack, pulled out my water bottle and thought it was a great idea to scoop some fresh snow into it thinking the little bit of water might melt the snow (great freaking idea... or not), marked the position into the GPS, put the emergency (E&E) bag into the baby pack, checked the rifle, dropped the extra ammo into the chest pack and then looked up.......




To be cont.....