To finish this up... I didn't take any more pictures, from this point forward, mostly because it was all work from here on out.
We took a quick nap, knowing that it was going to get hot that day. We figured we better get back up to those sheep ASAP to get the capes off the heads, and the rest of the meat boned and packed off the mountain. We started our journey back around 11 or so, knowing that the sun would hit the hill side the sheep were on around 2-3 that afternoon. The night before, we stashed the meat in a pile of boulders, and tucked the heads/capes under a rock in the shade. It was cold that night, around freezing, so I wasn't worried about the meat so much as I was about the flies on the capes during the heat of the day.
We opted to take the same route as the morning before, this time avoiding the lair of ankle bitters, but still needing to skirt the nasty slide where I fell. We made it back up and around with no incident, however still felt that we would take the moraine back to camp with the heavy load. Everything was in place when we returned to the kill site; we finished cutting and caping and made it back to camp late in the day. As we approached camp, I noticed that the first bag of meat I'd packed the night before was no longer hanging off the boulder how I'd left it, it was on the ground. I saw a small black blur galloping up a ridge just 30 yards from camp. I yelled, it stopped and looked at me. Dam wolverine had got into our meat stash! He dropped the chunk of meat he had in his mouth, ran about 10 yards and stopped to look back at me. Wolverines are funny to watch run, they kind of hop as they run, and when they stop, they’re bow legged, with their elbows pointing out rather than in. Their posture is like a line backer ready to blow you over.
Realizing that I was 200 yards away, he ran back, grabbed the meat and took off for the rockslide/boulder pile up over the next ridge.
That little devil... We must have caught him just as he started working on the meat. The only thing missing was a shot up front shoulder... if a back strap or hind was gone, I'd have gone on a wolverine hunt!!! The game bag had a hole chewed through it, and some of the other pieces of meat were on the ground. They were a bit dirty, but a little tundra spice doesn’t hurt anything. I was able to make a knot in the bag to seal it up. I thought to myself, "at least the pack will be a bit lighter." The meat off Tanya's ram weighed about 10lbs more than mine, now they were about equaled out at 60 lbs.
We didn't think the wolverine would be back, but to take a precaution, we rigged up a burglar alarm with some spare cordage, rocks, and metal pans. I also made a couple scare crows out of plastic bags. Hopefully the system would to scare one away if they were come back to rob us again.
We packed up camp the following morning, making the decision to try to get everything back to our main camp about 4 miles away, most of which would be on the glacier. We opted to “leap frog” gear, taking one load a ways, going back for the other, by passing the first load by twice as far, dropping that load and returning for the first. Doing so took a bit longer, but would allow us to recover a bit as we returned for the prior load. Everything was going swimmingly along, until about 2/3rds of the way across the glacier. We’d finally made it to the main ice, and had taken the first load across, and dropped it. As we were resting, I noticed a bear about a mile and a half away. It was a sow with 3 little cubs in tow, bounding and rolling along in the grass. They were directly in a cross wind of us, and paralleling the glacier. She had her head high in the air smelling, and seemed to be on a mission. Looking back I’m sure she could smell the sheep carcasses about 2-3 miles away, she would have been dead down wind at that point.
We watched her for about 5 minutes until she dropped out of site, at least a mile away. Thinking nothing more of her, we started for the last load of meat across the ice. The trip was maybe 500 yards and would take maybe 20 minutes to navigate the folds, and small streams running over the ice. Up to this point we hadn’t seen any bear sign, much less any animal sign on the glacier, it seemed like a barren wasteland, Tanya remarked that it was like Mars.
As we approached the edge of the ice, we dropped off the main body to a small shelf washed out by the water next to the rock piles. A small stream was running over the ice here. Just as I dropped into this small depression, I look to my left and there’s a BEAR! Holy shit! She only 15 yards away, maybe She stands up on her hind legs and looks right at me. I could see the white in her eyes she was that close. I could hear her popping her jaws, and growling. I start yelling, “get away, get away”, waving my hands. She dropped back on all for, and started circling down wind. This is not good, Tanya is down wind about 10 yards behind, all I have is an empty back pack and a couple trekking poles. This is one sword fight I don’t want to get in.
Tanya happened to be up a bit higher than me, away from the sound of the running water. She heard the bear scrapping her claws on the ice before I saw the beast. She knew what it was before we saw her.
As the bear circled, towards Tanya, I started yelling louder. The bear appeared agitated, and her posture was not of any bear that I’ve encountered at close range. This one was pissed! She galloped a few steps in Tanya’s direction. At this point I hear Tanya yell “GET THE GUN, GET THE GUN!” The rifle was sitting next to our last stash about 20 yards in front of me across the small stream on the rocks, and opposite the bear. All I could think, was this bear was going to attack Tanya, the only hope we have is for me to get to the rifle.
I made a mad sprint for the rifle, loosing my footing and scraping my knee and hand badly on the ice. Pretty sure I could have beat Carl Lewis in a 20 yard dash however… I snatched up the rifle, noting that the bolt was open, yet it was loaded. Quickly, I cycled a round and spun around to see the bear. She was right where I had been standing moments before, but had swapped ends and was high tailing it out of dodge. I’m sure she realized I had a rifle and didn’t want to get shot.
I fired a round over her head to speed up her departure.
I yelled for Tanya, she responded… “Are you alright?”. “I’m fine,” “are you ok?” I noted that she was up on the rocks about 20 yards to my left. Wondering how the hell she got there, she replied that her little legs levitated her body across the ice, not missing a step. She had to clear about a 6 foot crevice where the stream and rock met.
Realizing that we had just come very close to serious injury or possibly death, we were overcome with emotions from all the adrenalin in our system. We sat for about 30 minutes coming down off our high, and assessing the situation. I noted a couple large piles of green bear shit on the ice, assuming she’d smelled us and decided it wasn’t worth the fight.
Talk about excitement! This trip was packed with it, pretty sure we got the full “Alaska Experience” and definitely our moneys’ worth.
We finished packing the meat back to camp, and spent the rest of the next day getting further burnt by the sun as we trudged the last 5 miles back to the strip. We again leap frogged our way back, finally getting picked up around 4 that afternoon.
What a fantastic trip, and one I’ll never forget. As mentioned, killing the sheep was just a small part of the trip. I can’t wait for August 10th to get her again! You’ll find us back in the same area chasing sheep again, that is unless one of us gets eaten by a brown bear next month. Speaking of which I better head to the range and make sure the muzzle loader is dialed.
Thanks for following along, and well wishes. I love every moment of my life here in Alaska, and am thankful that my wife and I get to spend every second of it together. I couldn't ask for a more able hunting/fishing partner to spend time with.
