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So, it’s hard to say where this all started but I guess I’ll start with saying I had been putting in for a sheep unit that had a reasonable likelihood of drawing in my hunting lifetime and that I was not focused on success or even horn size, because ultimately I want to sheep hunt, not just wish I had.

So fast forward to this May and I found out I drew while I was at a shoot and a buddy of mine pulled up his successful sheep drawing email and starts hooting and hollering. So I look, and I’ll be damned, I got one too. It’s one of those things you never really expect to draw and never really think about preparing for, but something I really wanted at some point. I’m unlikely to ever buy a sheep tag at auction, less likely to draw out of state and far less likely to pay for an outfitted sheep hunt. Colorado isn’t yet a once in a lifetime license for sheep, but effectively it is when you draw your first in your 40s, especially with the way sheep applications have exploded lately.

So here we are, I’ve got a sheep tag in a somewhat remote unit but it does have some road access and some ATV access, I’ve got pack goats, just added a horse this year too, got an ATV too, but by god this is huge f’n country. Like peaks well over 13,500 feet, not just peaks but numerous prominent ridges, spines and pinnacles way the 1,000 to 1,500 feet or more above timberline.

I had hunted near some of this country, but never with an eye for sheep. So it was back to the drawing board, researching remotely then spent the first weekend out learning the roads and access points, where I could get a trailer too and figuring out which of my modes of travel would be best.

Next scouting trip was late July and I covered over 25 miles on foot in two days, but I saw nearly 60 sheep. However they are all distant and mostly ewes and lambs. I did find a small group of rams way up one trail that would not be ATV accessible. And so figured we’d start there. Just glassing from the trails and it was intimidating as hell thinking about how to access these sheep.






Oh and I should probably mention, I’m not afraid of cliffs or heights but I have tried to keep a healthy distance from death defying falls since defying death in fall at age 18. Basically I fell off a cliff while climbing where I had no business being in the first place. I maybe only fell 20 feet then rolled maybe 60 more, losing my boots in the process. I didn’t break that many bones considering (ribs, nose, bit through tongue, lost some flesh here and there). It also snowed that night before a crew got me out the next day. It sucked, and am thankful it wasn’t worse. Point is, when I look over a cliff I’m usually a foot or two back from the edge. I did pull off a mountain goat hunt in 2019, so it’s not like I’m paralyzed by cliffs. I just don’t want to die.




To be continued , this stuff takes awhile

TAG!

Have you thought about hiring a guide? After all, this sounds like a once in a lifetime hunt and you don’t want to waste your time tending to livestock and trying to figure out how to access the hunt instead of actually hunting. A guide who is familiar with the area might be very valuable. And, I might add, a lot safer than going into a wilderness area by yourself!

big set of balls you got, go for it if you can .you been beat up like that and still go up the hill with your goats for fun . you will be fine

Damn! That was a tumble. You look like Ed Norton in Fight Club.

Congratulations on drawing a tag and best of luck on your hunt.

Pregame
Decided to go in with the pack goats and my wife for the first 4 days of season. From there I’d stay several more days and come out when ready to re energize. Decided not to bring by the horse because we weren’t sure how to best juggle her and the load carrying ability and better all terrain capability of the goats. Someone was going to have to walk anyway. And getting horse and the goats in one trip might be quite the load. I was down to just 4 goats now after putting down one earlier this year. These are all big guys and capable of handling a good load. I’ve got 4 more babies coming up but they aren’t ready for a load yet.



Had right at 100 pounds of gear for the four goats, plus about 20 pounds on me with the spitting scope, tripod, binos, rifle, sleeping and some basic gear. Wife had about 10 pounds, basically just her sleeping bag and water. Packed 8 days of food for me and 4 days for her.

100 pounds of gear and food going in allowed for a comfortable camp and still enough capacity to get sheep meat out. With the goats, and maybe the horse, as she’s new, I’d still have to carry the head anyway.

Day 1

As always, never seemed to be quite ready to go. Despite leaving the house by 7am, we made several stops on the way out of town and didn’t actually hit the trail til 3PM.

On the drive in we saw a band of ewes right off the road that had me double checking to make sure we weren’t already in the unit, not that there were any legal rams in the group anyway.



I was a little concerned about making good time with the late arrival at the trailhead (was hoping for a noon start)and my biggest goat, Ivar (mostly white one), a legit 300 pounder, was being a butthole. He’s obviously out of shape but was being particularly difficult. He’d get 100 yards behind and then cry, and if we stopped, so would he. He wouldn’t use our stops to make up distance. Eventually, halfway up the trail, I had to leash him up and damn near drag him along to keep a quick enough pace to make camp where I wanted by dark.



We made the main drainage of West Founders and things began to open up into glassable sheep country by about 6PM. The mountain to the south, Flagg, is where I’d seen large ewe groups in the summer. The mountain to the north split West Founders from Founders Creek and had lots of sheep habitat. This is where I’d seen the rams (way up the drainage)and two buddies of mine had killed rams in almost back to back years.


As things opened up at the slide lake we sat down and immediately glassed a band of ewes. I was a little thankful they were ewes as they were in some nasty stuff, nearly unapproachable from where we sat. But finding sheep immediately from bear where we’d camp kept our spirits high. The goats were on edge and we finally figured it out, there was a small bull moose in the willows below us.

Sheep were high on the mountain behind us here



As we were running low on light we decided to set camp a little lower than I had hoped. We did that hurriedly and just as we finished a couple bulls decided to light off, putting a grin on our faces.

Nope

Right on Exo !!

Love your cool photo essays !

Cool story so far😁. All that beetle killed timber is depressing. The last time I was elk hunting near timberline when we got on top, you could see for ten miles in three directions and all you could see was beetle kill.

Tag[ing along]

I really look forward to the annual photo essay with the goats.

Exbiologist, thank you for your story and pictures. I enjoyed them. Good luck.

L.W.

This is awesome, can’t wait for the rest!

Good photos and write up, as always! Looking forward to the rest.

Your photo essays are always the best!

I've owned goats and still think they are awesome.....

Enjoy your experiences. Thanks for sharing.

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.

Day 3

The bulls bugled all night and the coyotes sounded like they were right outside our tent. It was kinda distracting but still cool to hear. Was literally all night. Eventually I got up to tell the coyote outside to shut the hell up. I walked out into the meadow while it was snowing a tiny bit so where ever that dang coyote was it would see me in the pre dawn light because yelling from the tent wouldn’t shut it up. That seemed to work and the bulls kept at it. Seemed like there was at least 4 bulls surrounding my valley.



Since I was up, I tried to put myself in position to see that lone sheep from yesterday morning as soon as it was light enough.

Instead of sheep today, there were elk plastered all over the ridges above camp. One bull was visible with several dozen cows above timberline and they were strung out for a half mile.

After dawn’s glassing we ate breakfast and saddled up. This time we threw a pack frame on Gunnar too with the empty packs in Ragnar’s packs. Figured if we got into something we’d have enough capacity to get a sheep out this way.


We decided to head all the way to the top of the drainage and if we didn’t get into anything we would go over the top of the continental divide into another drainage where I had seen sheep this summer.

The pass is over the top of Ragnar’s horns here, about 12,700 feet.



On the way up, one bull elk kept bugling in the timber to the north well past when we passed him around 9:30 am. We saw a cow moose down in the willows and just as we crested the divide a bull moose came over the top right along the trail.



We saw a ton of country, but no sheep.




There was more sheep country to see, but it was a long way off. With how far we had hiked, no nap was in order today, needed to get back to where we had last seen some sheep and we were miles from there.

As we got back to our original target country just before dusk, we found a herd of 8 sheep right where all the elk were this morning. We got the scope on them and there was a ram, but just a little guy, probably a yearling with 5 ewes and two lambs. We watched them til dark as they hung out around a large boulder pile.



Camp was just around the corner so we ate dinner, listened to some elk bugle and hung around the fire.

Well, the goats were loose and feeding and apparently Ivar decided he liked our sandwiches more than the cinquefoil and high mountain grass. Fugger left me with one peanut butter and honey sandwich! I coulda killed him if I didn’t still need him.

Katie was heading home in the morning. I had enough snacks to make up for the lost sandwiches for a couple days, but not the 4-5 more days I had planned. And we hadn’t seen any rams.

Katie drove separately, so I didn’t need to pack out with her. However, I wasn’t sure I was hunting where I needed to be. The plan was now to maybe stay one or two more days in this drainage, then relocate to some lesser known options on the other side of the divide. I was gonna need food anyway…

TBC…

Yeah it ain’t pretty, but lotsa feed underneath. Good for big game, tough for hunters.

I’m trying, I’m trying! Couple more days…