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

Don't weaken now, finish the story.

Great read so far.

I turned around and went home when I seen the pic of snow.....

Balls...

You got em haha

Dang, this sounds like a lot of work.

Well, I'm going to bed. I'll have to catch the rest of the story tomorrow. If there is a "rest of the story".

Maybe he fell off a cliff this time and can't finish the story. Talk about your cliff hangers.......


Sorry.

Boy, talk about an adventure! This kid has got some "true grit" to do this. The nurse is probably changing his bandages.
I look for a great ending.

Pins and needles here. C'mon man!

I was young and dumb once, but not that crazy. Great story. Good luck.

Good way to start my day

I see nothing happened overnight.

Left us with a suspenseful "cliffhanger"..... grin

Sweet journal of a hardcore... Keep it up! Can't wait to see how this turns out!

Loved the BGG target/equip list!

Notice you forgot to put beer on your list, tho...

Eagerly awaiting the third act. Give us some particulars on your shooting gear as well, please. Must be a tough scope.

Alright, here's the deal. Next time you go off having an adventure like this, make sure your re-telling of the story is complete before posting any of it, capiche?

For those of us stuck at the office this hunting season, we needs you to finish telling the story. No more leaving us hanging. Got it?

Okay, carry on.

I was in a conundrum: on the one hand as I was on top where I wanted to be, on the other there was literally zero cover or anywhere to get out of the wind. It was almost a mile of barren mountaintop in both directions with drop offs on both sides. My only option was to go back down below the saddle. Fortunately, earlier that day before I had started up, I realized that I was probably going to be repeating this back and forth through the big drainage the whole time, and left extra gear down in the bottom so I wouldn't have to go back out. With that I decided that to save time, I would cache most of my gear in a clump of bushes just below the spine of the ridge, knowing that I would move faster in the morning coming back up without a heavy pack. I pulled out my emergency bag, took off my puffy jacket and pants, rolled a water bottle and the Jetboil into them, and stuffed it into the pack.

Even though the snow was knee high to almost waist high in places I cruised down the mountain, relatively speaking in comparison to coming up and made it down to the other gear in about two and a half hours. Mostly because I was able to sit on my butt and slide down long patches at a time. I got to the gear, pulled out the bag and went straight to sleep.

1:30 am came way to early and the temperature had plummeted. I rolled the gear up, ate a snickers, filled the water bottle, and headed up. It did indeed go faster.... by about an hour. Once I reached the first saddle the wind had picked up to over 30 mph, and it was in the single digits. By the time I turned to go up to the ridge from the saddle I could no longer feel my feet at all, and my hands were barely hanging in there. The last 500 or 600 yards tested me. I was having conversations with myself. It seemed so silly that I could see my pack, yet it was taking forever to get to. I tried walking in my footsteps from the day before but the wind had all but covered them, and the snow had that awful crust on top so that every step you think it'll hold, and then as you lift the back foot it collapses and you sink past your knees. It got to the point that I had to take a step and pause. Take a step and pause. On the steeper parts I was having to kick toe holds into the slope for each step. It took three and a half hours to reach the pack, my water had frozen totally solid, and I had lost total feeling in my feet for over two. I needed to get warm and now.

Even though I put on the puff man suit the wind was smoking coming over the backside of the ridge and cutting right through it. I pulled the pack out of the cubbyhole in the bushes and started digging. In about 20 minutes I had built half a snow cave with the front open that I could sit in. I laid my vest on the snow and sat down. Wrapped myself in the bivy around the Jetboil and fired it up. I basically created a tent with the snow packed down on the back and sides blocking the wind and the bivy around the front and the stove as a heater. Took my boots off and laid my feet close to the stove until feeling started coming back. By now the sun had popped up and I took a look around.

Within ten minutes this started rolling in-


I was keenly aware that going solo, especially in this kind of weather means that you are afforded less margin of error, no room for mistakes and that you are your backup plan. There was no cell service whatsoever, I could see for miles (at least until the weather rolled in) with no one in sight. I was at a minimum 5 hours of hustle from the bottom, with another two to the trailhead, had barely any feeling in my feet, and once the weather came in my "BINGO" point had been reached and the decision for me to go back to the nearest spot to get out of the wind, build a small fire and get everything back in control was made for me.

It took a bit over an hour to find a finger jutting out from the ridge with a big downed tree that was partially burned out. Of course the feeling was gone in my extremities again, my gloves had frozen solid, and it was rough trying to gather tender that was dry enough to burn. After two or three tries I finally got it going-


There really is no describing what a fire will do for your mental stae in crappy situations.

What you can't see is that I had to dig down 18 inches or so in the snow to reach bare ground for the fire, I really wasn't out of the wind, and the heat from the fire warmed my boots up enough that as soon as I moved them and they touched snow it would melt and then a sheet a ice formed completely around them in less then a minute.

I sat there for 30 minutes or so deciding what to do. On the top I could see for 3+ miles on the back side and there were no elk. Heading east along the ridge ran into one of the biggest peaks in the entire range. West and south dropped into bare wasteland looking slopes, so really the drainage to the south that I was working in was it. I knew that there wasn't 100+ elk in there, but it was a big valley and I did know that there were some elk. I saw that if I continued down the finger for a half mile or so it met up with another one and made some broken ground with a few cedars/spruces and should offer at least a little protection from the wind. I gathered my stuff, put the fire out, making sure to move all of the very few small coals away from the burned out log, and started out. With some feeling returned to my feet and going downhill it only took about 30 minutes to make it to the trees. From there I had a good vantage point to glass most of the valley, and three "smaller" ridges.

It was very steep, so I dropped the gear and made my way over a couple of hundred yards to a cedar that must have broken in the storm a few days before. Back and forth I went carrying boughs to make a small platform to sit on. I gathered enough that I could build a small flat on so I wouldn't slide, and made a small fire to finish drying out my gloves and boots. Pulled out a snack and had to melt snow in the stove because my water was still frozen.

With that done, and the sun finally warming a bit I started glassing. A couple hours passed and a few deer fed out on a south facing slope below me-




A bit later a mile or so away-



Pretty solid buck-




An hour and a half before dark I see some lighter colored suspicious shapes 2+ miles out. Oddly to me three elk had fed out on a south facing slope in daylight-







to be cont.......

Man...this is an awesome thread!

You sir...are a stud.

Glad to see somebody's out there living life. best I can do is sit here and read this from my desk at work.

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-



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.....

Don't make it sound too easy now, EVERYONE will show up...

Great stuff. I'm getting zero work done until you finish this. It would be great if you could also do a review of your gear - packs, clothing, boots, glass, etc. At least the main stuff.