Mackenzie Mountains in July

[psinclair]

About midnight the storm came in…

 

[psinclair]

40 hours straight of rain, then it turned to snow..
Snug as a bug, lots to write about in the journal.

 

[psinclair]

When it finally broke it was 18F that morning.
I’d heard later that it was over 100F for days on end back home..

 

[psinclair]

No words…..

 

[psinclair]

Russ was up next and the 2nd leg was underway…

 

[Gr8bawana]

What a beautiful ram and a great write up.
Can't wait to see how the rest of the hunt goes.

 

[psinclair]

We had a couple days of hiking to an airstrip on a tributary of the Arctic Red to get my ram flown back to base camp. Dak and Carson went above and beyond putting on 15 miles with heavy packs to meet the supercub, and brought back re-supplies as our food was running short.

 

[psinclair]

Yeah, it was pretty tasty…

 

[psinclair]

The next morning we made another push into a new basin that Al and Dak had taken rams in previous years. It was steep and rough, but this basin was a spectacular spot for rams.

 

[psinclair]

We set up here , and after the tents were up we started looking. I glanced up at the skyline to the west about 1.5 miles away and saw six rams right on top, including this one…
He actually split up with the other rams and started making his way back to the north.
This was one of those rams that only a glance will tell you all you need to know..

 

[psinclair]

We stayed put and watched the spot where he went out of view. He never showed up again after 2-3 hours of looking.
The plan was to get up and look for him early, if we didn’t get eyes on him, we’ll climb up to top, stay obscured and spend the day picking the mountain apart.

They were un disturbed. Al and Dak knew we had a good chance of finding him again..

This stalk we were about to take on was the best of the best in all of my years of mountain hunting..

 

[psinclair]

It took about three hours to reach the top, it was probably 2500’ vertical.
Dak spotted all six rams together. Apparently they all got together.
In this photo you can see two slivers of snow with a patch of green above it. They were feeding there, but working their way towards us. They were about 1500 meters away, but we were above them and waited for the right time to move in.
Staying on the back side of the spine, we were able to stay out of view and gain a lot of ground. It was loose shale and steep but we were full of adrenaline as we closed in..

 

[Grady]

Great write up Pat!

 

[psinclair]

It doesn’t get any better than this…
The rams were bedded below at 269 meters. The wind was blowing down towards them, slightly off to the right…we were good unless it shifted, and that can happen at any time at that elevation..Russ settled and didn’t waist any time..

 

[psinclair]

The moment Russ had waited for and worked for after 16 days…

 

[psinclair]

Putting your hands on your first ram is a moment frozen in time for the rest of your days… you can see it in this candid shot.. it was a precarious spot, steep and loose and we took all the photos we could before breaking him down for the decent.

 

[psinclair]

What a day..

And more fresh sheep steaks!

 

[psinclair]

Al’s #169….
No question in my mind that he is the GOAT.

 

[psinclair]

These moments never last long enough…

 

[psinclair]

Loafing the next day around camp.

No firewood above timberline, so we had to wait for the feast….