Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Thanks Montana (solo backpack elk) and 2013 season

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

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. (OPs words)


To hunt sheep in high country you need to be able to cover 1500 ft vertical in an hour. Some, I guess can cover 2600 down, 1500 up, 1500 down (first ridge- one mile away),1500 up, 1500 down (second ridge -2 miles away) (as the crow flies), and 2000 up to get close when they have an hour and a half. So like 4-6 miles in rough, steep snow covered country to make by dark in 1 1/2 hours because some elk on a ridge 5 miles away were mocking him? Who was going to get them before the next am or pm? No hunters that far back in. Three more weeks to pull it off, right? Oh yeah, just for fun.