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Day 2
We started the day glassing immediately out of camp. A couple does were browsing near camp and one cruised right by us.



As always, we saw a herd on top of Flagg, still just ewes.

We were mostly focused on the mountain to our north and we saw a lone sheep cruising straight down the mountain in a hell of a hurry. I couldn’t get the spotter on it in time. I wanted to believe it was a ram, just because it was alone but really had no idea. It seemed like it got past the slide and into the timber but not really sure as we lost it while fumble fugging with the spitting scope.



With really nothing to go off of, we had to move on and up West Founders. But after breakfast.

After topping off water and loading up Ragnar with a pack, some rain gear, snacks and lunches we set off up the trail for some more glassing vantages.




We steadily worked our way up valley and glassed four more sheep at 2 miles distant at mid morning. They all seemed the same size, so seemed plausible it could be a ram group, plus it was near the herd I saw earlier in the summer.



It was a slog, but we steadily climbed and climbed through the timber to this hanging valley with good ridges and pinnacles on both sides. It took over an hour but we made it sometime after noon. It was super elk as we climbed and then right at timberline we busted a herd of about 10 cows. They pushed off up into open and then paused, apparently they didn’t want to go up over these ridges either. They then ran back towards us and skirted around the ridge we were on.

We paused here at timberline (12,000). The sheep were now out of sight so we figured we’d wait. And eat lunch. And then we fell asleep. By about 3:30 we got restless and moved further up the side valley.

Well up above timberline now around 12,500 feet. We could finally see up to the top of this drainage as it curved a bit. There was a little snow field up there and, we were shocked to see a herd of elk bedding on it and feeding right at the top of the ridge line. This had to be over 13,000 feet. I had never imagined seeing elk up that high in late September!



There were about 8 of them with one bull, then another 8-10 arrived from over the ridge. I’m not sure how or why this happened but all the cows except one went up and over the snow field. The one cow kept running back and forth under the snow and the bull came down on top of the snow, seemingly to try to show her how to get up it or maybe was calling at her. Eventually she lost her mind and started running down valley, abandoning the herd.

That cow ran all the way down toward us. It got to within 100 yards before it started wondering what my goats were and then changed directions down valley.

Now at dusk, the sheep finally reappeared. And as I got the scope on one, it crouched to pee, unfortunately confirming that was a ewe. Glassing the other tree, two were ewes and one was a lamb.


Dammit. Head home. And back to camp for dinner.