Ok, this may take a while. I had an incredible trip, including 14 days out of a backpack (without a shower!), so it just doesn't seem right to post one paragraph and a couple of pictures. Be forewarned though, I didn't do as good as Ovis did at documenting all the details. If you don't want to read the details, wait a few hours and you can skip to the end.
This trip actually started last October when I met Todd Walton of Alaska Big Game Safaris while deer hunting on Kodiak. Todd recently began his own outfitting service after guiding for Dan Montgomery of Alaska Trophy Adventures for nearly 10 years. Todd convinced me to begin putting in limited Dall sheep tag drawing in hopes of being drawn by the time I was actually ready to spend the kind of money a Dall hunt takes. Todd guides in the Tok Management Area, as well as an open area in the Alaska Range. He put me in for the Tok hunt and two Chugach State Park hunts as second and third choices (Dan's hunt area). Imagine my surprise in early February when BuzzH e-mailed me and told me I better check the draw results.
I had drawn a late Chugach tag! This meant that I would be outfitted by Dan instead of Todd, as these two still work together and sometimes trade hunts/hunters (This was all known to me prior to the draw. They do a great job of working with hunters and making sure they get exactly the hunt they are looking for.)
The summer was spent trying to get in shape. I heard that the Chugach was tough country, and didn't want my conditioning to be the reason I might not be successful. Todd kept me informed of what they found during various scouting trips in my area, and was always quick to reply by e-mail or phone to my seemingly endless questions. Dan also stayed in contact, and gave me a choice of guides to lead me on the hunt. My good friend and hunting partner Doug (who went to Kodiak with me last fall) happens to guide sheep hunters for Dan, so he was my obvious choice. By the time September arrived, I had dropped over 30 pounds and felt like I was in great shape.
I was sitting in a motel room in Denver the night before my flight to Anchorage when I got a call from Doug. He was talking a mile a minute about a ram they had just located during their final scouting trip for my hunt. A big ram...the kind of ram you might hunt your whole life for and never see. And the best part was that he was in an "easy" spot. (I learned later that "easy" has a different definition when you're talking about the Chugach Mountains.) I believe this is when I made the "excited off the charts" call to Buzz. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.
The next day (Sept. 1) I flew to Anc. and was picked up by Doug at the airport. I had a message from Ovis saying he was out of the hills with an awesome ram, so I called him to hopefully get a sneek peek at the photos. Unfortunately our schedules didn't work, as he was at dinner and I had to go an hour north and get stuff organized to leave the next day.
September 2 (three days before the opener)
Doug and I were up early and finished loading our packs with gear and food. My hunt area can be accessed only by foot, so we'd be packing in enough stuff for at least a week and a half. After a quick stop at the gun range to check my rifle, we were off to the trailhead. We hoped to make the 12-mile hike in to where the ram had been seen, relocate him, and watch him until opening morning. The state park trail system was fairly busy as we began the hike due to it being the second day of Labor Day weekend. We would have about 10 miles of relatively easy trail before before a steep climb of about 2 miles into a hanging valley.
Here's a picture of me near the trailhead that I thought was funny. I look just a little bit excited.
The weather was cool and cloudy...perfect for hiking. The scenery for the hike in was amazing. Clouds hung low over the mountaintops and everything was damp. A lot different than western Colorado.
Doug along the trail during the hike in:
We didn't have to get too far down the trail before we started seeing game. Here's a small group of goats on the hillside above the trail. LOTS of goats in this valley.
We had to make a river crossing before our ascent up to our destination valley. There was a ford about a mile upstream of where we wanted to cross, but we decided to forgo the extra hiking and make a ford of our own. In hindsight, this was a mistake. We had Wiggy's waders, which I've come to decide are crap unless you're crossing a 10 foot wide creek. Doug started across the river while I put my waders on. When I was cinching the waders to my belt with the straps on the waders tops, I pulled one of the straps off. So I had to hold one wader up while I crossed. The river was deeper and more swift than we anticipated, and once we got out into it, we had to angle upstream to keep the water below the wader tops. Doug is 9" taller than me, which made it a little easier for him. Somewhere in the middle of the river I cut a hole in the toe of my good wader. The water was so swift it was piling up on my upstream leg and began flowing over the top of the other wader. I ended up having to wade about 40 yards upstream to get across. Halfway there my legs began cramping up (it was work to fight against that current!). I finally made it, but was exhausted and had two soggy boots.
We decided to make camp along the river and tackle the climb into our valley the next morning. We looked for a cabin that was nearby, but found it occupied by a Scandinavian fellow and his (daughter?). He said he had been up hiking in "our" valley earlier that day and it was beautiful. I couldn't believe our unfortunate luck, and hoped that he hadn't spooked the ram we were looking for. We pitched the tent and made some well-earned dinner before hitting the rack.
September 3
We took our time getting around in the morning, eating breakfast and breaking down camp. We had a steep, brushy climb to do in wet boots, and neither one of us was looking forward to it. The weather was beautiful though, and I was excited to see the valley above. Our destination was the low, sunlit ridge directly above the tent:
The picture above is deceiving. That hill was steep, and the grass growing in those open areas was about nose-high on me. The fireweed was thick and seeding (Ovis's "dandelion-like" seeds), and the seeds coated my sweat-covered face. We bumped into a nice bullwinkle during the climb:
And again later on in the morning:
When we finally struggled over the top of the ridge, this is what awaited us:
We headed for the flat bench below and right of the waterfall to make camp. As we began to get the tent unpacked, two wolverines ran up out of the creek and checked us out from about 40 yards:
After getting camp situated, we headed up the valley to see if we could find any sheep, and especially the big ram. It turned out to be a disappointing trip, as there was no sign of the 7 rams or 14 ewes and lambs Doug had seen here two days earlier. We began to have a bad feeling that our Scandinavian friend had inadvertently spooked everything out of the valley. We made our way back to camp, whipped up some dinner and hit the rack, hoping we could locate the ram the next day.
This trip actually started last October when I met Todd Walton of Alaska Big Game Safaris while deer hunting on Kodiak. Todd recently began his own outfitting service after guiding for Dan Montgomery of Alaska Trophy Adventures for nearly 10 years. Todd convinced me to begin putting in limited Dall sheep tag drawing in hopes of being drawn by the time I was actually ready to spend the kind of money a Dall hunt takes. Todd guides in the Tok Management Area, as well as an open area in the Alaska Range. He put me in for the Tok hunt and two Chugach State Park hunts as second and third choices (Dan's hunt area). Imagine my surprise in early February when BuzzH e-mailed me and told me I better check the draw results.
I had drawn a late Chugach tag! This meant that I would be outfitted by Dan instead of Todd, as these two still work together and sometimes trade hunts/hunters (This was all known to me prior to the draw. They do a great job of working with hunters and making sure they get exactly the hunt they are looking for.)The summer was spent trying to get in shape. I heard that the Chugach was tough country, and didn't want my conditioning to be the reason I might not be successful. Todd kept me informed of what they found during various scouting trips in my area, and was always quick to reply by e-mail or phone to my seemingly endless questions. Dan also stayed in contact, and gave me a choice of guides to lead me on the hunt. My good friend and hunting partner Doug (who went to Kodiak with me last fall) happens to guide sheep hunters for Dan, so he was my obvious choice. By the time September arrived, I had dropped over 30 pounds and felt like I was in great shape.
I was sitting in a motel room in Denver the night before my flight to Anchorage when I got a call from Doug. He was talking a mile a minute about a ram they had just located during their final scouting trip for my hunt. A big ram...the kind of ram you might hunt your whole life for and never see. And the best part was that he was in an "easy" spot. (I learned later that "easy" has a different definition when you're talking about the Chugach Mountains.) I believe this is when I made the "excited off the charts" call to Buzz. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.
The next day (Sept. 1) I flew to Anc. and was picked up by Doug at the airport. I had a message from Ovis saying he was out of the hills with an awesome ram, so I called him to hopefully get a sneek peek at the photos. Unfortunately our schedules didn't work, as he was at dinner and I had to go an hour north and get stuff organized to leave the next day.
September 2 (three days before the opener)
Doug and I were up early and finished loading our packs with gear and food. My hunt area can be accessed only by foot, so we'd be packing in enough stuff for at least a week and a half. After a quick stop at the gun range to check my rifle, we were off to the trailhead. We hoped to make the 12-mile hike in to where the ram had been seen, relocate him, and watch him until opening morning. The state park trail system was fairly busy as we began the hike due to it being the second day of Labor Day weekend. We would have about 10 miles of relatively easy trail before before a steep climb of about 2 miles into a hanging valley.
Here's a picture of me near the trailhead that I thought was funny. I look just a little bit excited.
The weather was cool and cloudy...perfect for hiking. The scenery for the hike in was amazing. Clouds hung low over the mountaintops and everything was damp. A lot different than western Colorado.
Doug along the trail during the hike in:
We didn't have to get too far down the trail before we started seeing game. Here's a small group of goats on the hillside above the trail. LOTS of goats in this valley.
We had to make a river crossing before our ascent up to our destination valley. There was a ford about a mile upstream of where we wanted to cross, but we decided to forgo the extra hiking and make a ford of our own. In hindsight, this was a mistake. We had Wiggy's waders, which I've come to decide are crap unless you're crossing a 10 foot wide creek. Doug started across the river while I put my waders on. When I was cinching the waders to my belt with the straps on the waders tops, I pulled one of the straps off. So I had to hold one wader up while I crossed. The river was deeper and more swift than we anticipated, and once we got out into it, we had to angle upstream to keep the water below the wader tops. Doug is 9" taller than me, which made it a little easier for him. Somewhere in the middle of the river I cut a hole in the toe of my good wader. The water was so swift it was piling up on my upstream leg and began flowing over the top of the other wader. I ended up having to wade about 40 yards upstream to get across. Halfway there my legs began cramping up (it was work to fight against that current!). I finally made it, but was exhausted and had two soggy boots.
We decided to make camp along the river and tackle the climb into our valley the next morning. We looked for a cabin that was nearby, but found it occupied by a Scandinavian fellow and his (daughter?). He said he had been up hiking in "our" valley earlier that day and it was beautiful. I couldn't believe our unfortunate luck, and hoped that he hadn't spooked the ram we were looking for. We pitched the tent and made some well-earned dinner before hitting the rack.
September 3
We took our time getting around in the morning, eating breakfast and breaking down camp. We had a steep, brushy climb to do in wet boots, and neither one of us was looking forward to it. The weather was beautiful though, and I was excited to see the valley above. Our destination was the low, sunlit ridge directly above the tent:
The picture above is deceiving. That hill was steep, and the grass growing in those open areas was about nose-high on me. The fireweed was thick and seeding (Ovis's "dandelion-like" seeds), and the seeds coated my sweat-covered face. We bumped into a nice bullwinkle during the climb:
And again later on in the morning:
When we finally struggled over the top of the ridge, this is what awaited us:
We headed for the flat bench below and right of the waterfall to make camp. As we began to get the tent unpacked, two wolverines ran up out of the creek and checked us out from about 40 yards:
After getting camp situated, we headed up the valley to see if we could find any sheep, and especially the big ram. It turned out to be a disappointing trip, as there was no sign of the 7 rams or 14 ewes and lambs Doug had seen here two days earlier. We began to have a bad feeling that our Scandinavian friend had inadvertently spooked everything out of the valley. We made our way back to camp, whipped up some dinner and hit the rack, hoping we could locate the ram the next day.
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