Location: Quinghai province of China
Dates: March 1998
Hunting company: Sorry I do not recall.
Booked by : John Barth (in a past life)
Airlines: Singapore Air & China NW
Rifle: Browning A- Bolt in 270
Other: This was a “group” hunt organized by the booking agent. If I remember correctly, there were 7 hunters. None of us knew each other previously.
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PRIOR TO THE HUNT:

Due to meetings in NYC and Frankfurt, I took a somewhat odd route to get to China. Upon landing I looked out the window. I remember thinking that the weather was bad. At first it appeared to be rainy & foggy. However, upon further inspection, this was the polluted air of Beijing that I was seeing.

I was terrified in the airport. No one from the hunting company was there to meet us. I was waived right on through with a rifle in my hand. I am now on the streets of Beijing with no idea where I was supposed to be, how I was to get there and I had the rifle in my hand. Fortunately, I saw a face I recognized. Our contact had been delayed by the traffic in Beijing.

We spent the night at the Great Wall Sheraton. The next day we did a little sightseeing before we caught our flight. We attempted to see the Great Wall. However due to weather, we could not visit like we would have like to have done. The best we could do was seeing a little bit of it from a few hundred yards away. We also visited the Forbidden City, a lamasery and a few other more minor places before we caught our flight.

We flew to Lanzhou. We departed in cars and drove to Xining where we spent the night. We departed early the next morning, well before daylight. It was COLD. There was a lot of snow. We couldn’t see much.

We stopped in some small town, where our drivers proceeded to wake up some people that owned a restaurant. They made us breakfast. When we left, it was starting to get light outside. I could see the mountains. I was shocked. These mountains behind town were really rugged and high. We took off to make further progress on our 21 hour jeep ride to the camp.

I was absolutely fascinated by what I was seeing. Yes, there were many rugged majestic mountains. However, in our 21 hour jeep ride, we saw a wide variety of terrain. We saw high deserts complete with herds of wild camels. I would have never expected that. We went through some high passes. I remember my watch reading about 15,000 feet when we crossed one. We saw massive relatively flat agricultural areas.

Needless to say, we couldn’t make it 21 hours without a bathroom break. On one of these stops, I looked up. I saw a dog. I wondered just what the heck it was doing out there as I saw zero evidence of human habitation. I then realized it was a wolf! It was the first of many we would see.

We hit a blizzard. This forced us to stop and spend the night in Dulon, a small town. The hotel was horrible. It smelled awful. We left early the next morning to complete the rest of the drive. I immediately realized why our drivers had stopped. We got off the paved road in Dulon.

I was struck by the river we were near. It was March. The ice was 8 feet thick! Maybe I didn’t bring enough clothes.

I also noticed a few other odd things. I saw some mud huts that had clearly been machine gunned. We were on one of the roads the Chinese had used when they invaded Tibet! Fascinating.

We finally arrived at camp which was located at 12,500 feet. The camp consisted of yurts. John Barth and I were roommates. We were introduced to our guides who could speak no English. In fact there was one interpreter for the entire group. My guides were named Uncar and Mama. We unpacked, sighted the rifles and off we went.

THE HUNT:

We rode Mongolian horses into the mountains. I am not much of a horseman on the best of days. These horses were short and stout. I was not familiar with the type of saddle we were using. The bottom line to me is that I was miserable. These horses were breaking my balls literally.

We had ridden a few hundred yards when we came upon a couple of structures surrounded by a mud wall. Mama called my name. He pointed to the structures then to himself. He lived there.
We continued our climb. I looked to my left. I saw a big herd of blue sheep. Damn I was excited. My guides had not seen them. I was having a hard time getting their attention. We kept on. By now, I recon we were at 14,000 feet.

As we continued on, I spotted another herd of sheep. Maybe 75 of them. Once again, the guides had not seen them. I stopped and got off the horse. I was not able to stop the guides. Then they realized I was not behind them anymore and turned around. Using hand signals, they tried to explain to me which one to shoot. I had an incredible rest. I shot what I thought was the right sheep. Down he went. I realized by their reaction that I had not shot the right sheep. The sheep scattered. We ran to the downed sheep. Uncar put a coat over it. I thought that was weird but quickly forgot about it as we chased after the rest of the sheep. We were very high, 17,500 feet when we got on them. I saw a big one. He was trotting at about 400 yards. I hammered him with one shot. Down he went.

I stayed with the sheep while they went to get the horses. I noticed something that really caught my attention. Shortly after my shot some sort of massive eagle appeared. He wanted the sheep. I recon this is why they used the coat.

I tried to talk. The words were slow and slurred. No doubt from the altitude. I was proud of myself for climbing that high. Then my guides burst my bubble by lighting cigarettes! Then I noticed something. I could see John’s red jacket clearly on another mountain yet several thousand feet below. It is important to note that the footing was really good. It made climbing in these extreme altitudes much more bearable.

We were doing quite well with the sign language thing. I was having a big time. How could it get any better I thought? I looked over and spotted a big sheep. Clearly, this was not a blue sheep. It was an argali. I couldn’t believe it. I was really excited.

We continued on. We got close to Mama’s home. I called his name. I pointed at his home. I mimicked taking a picture. He smiled and shook his head. Off we go to visit his home.
We rode into the compound. There were some little kids barefooted. It had to be in the 20’s. They appeared to be afraid of me. I was taken inside. This was fascinating. These people are tough. There was an old man and a woman. I presume the old man was someone’s father. I presume the woman was Mama’s wife. They showed me family pictures. The wife disappears and comes back with a double arm load of dried yak dung. There is no wood. This is their fuel. No big deal. Then she comes back with 2 pots. One had water and one had yak milk. I am thinking this might not be good. She returns with a tray that had sour yak cheese and some sort of bread thing. She puts them in a bowl then pours the warm yak milk and warm water over it. I am concerned. She hands it to me. I think, oh no! I don’t want to insult them. I really don’t want to eat this but I did anyway. I thought I was going to die. I took pictures and left.

When we got back to camp, my balls felt like they were going to fall off. I could hardly walk my knees were so bad. I had a great day. At least one other sheep was taken.
The next day, I decided to hunt Tibetan gazelle. Off we go on the horses. We saw some interesting things including a really remote lamasery (basically a church). We saw many prayer flags. It was really interesting.
We carried on hunting. We saw a number of the gazelles. While the altitude here was high (around 15,000 feet) the terrain was not as mountainous compared to where we shot the sheep. Finally we saw 3 that we decided to try. We made a stalk. I took a shot at about 150 yards. The gazelles all disappeared. Then we saw 2 run by us relatively close. They were trying to run across the valley. We ran to a ridge. I could see these 2 running. Then they stopped a very long way out there. I guess 800 yards. The guides were urging me to shoot or at least that is how I interpreted the sign language they were using. What the hell I thought. There is about zero chance I will hit them. I aimed very high from a sitting position. At the shot, the gazelle collapsed! I could not believe it. The guides were happy. They were laughing.

I sat there thinking about it. There had been 3 gazelles. However, when they ran off, there had only been 2. I got the guides attention. I pointed to the ridge where we had originally shot. I held up 3 fingers. I mimicked shooting then I held up 2 fingers. I could see the guides were thinking. I used sign language to attempt to show them that I think the original shot killed a gazelle and it fell off the ridge. We walked back. Guess what? There was the first gazelle stone dead.

We recovered the gazelle much to the chagrin of the local eagles. Damn these things are massive. We made preparations to head back. I recon we were 11 miles away from camp. Neither my balls nor my knees were going to survive that. I used sign language to tell the guides that I was going to walk. You should have seen the look on their faces. Off we went.
I have to say that it was not as hard as I would have thought. While relatively level, it was a walk in the park. However, when we got to any uphill, I was instantly sucking wind badly. We carried on. I was quite proud of myself for making the walk. We got about a half mile from camp. The guides stopped. They said, “Larry horse.” I thought about it for a second or two. Perhaps it was going to be some sort of embarrassment to the guides for me to walk into camp while they rode horses. I got on the horse and rode to camp. When I got off the horse, I could hardly walk. Those horses and I didn’t get along.

I was done. I had 2 sheep and 2 gazelles in a day and a half of hunting. John was done as was one other hunter. We had 3 days left. We sat around in our yurt talking. We had seen many yaks. We had seen some massive yaks pretty high up. We all had an interest in shooting a yak even though we had relatively small caliber rifles. After much discussion, we were told that we could each take a yak for $400 each. I am thinking that I will hunt yaks for the entire rest of our hunt. Then we learned that we could not export these yaks. We all passed.

By this point, we had all gotten out animals except for one lady. She was not having a good time. The rings on her scope mounts broke. Then she came down with altitude sickness. She looked like she belonged in Night of the Living Dead. There was little doubt that she was extremely ill. Then, something interesting happened. Uncar, my guide, was a medical doctor! I had absolutely no idea. He treated her and she got better. On the last day, she went out to try to get a sheep. If I recall correctly, she used my rifle. Several people went with her. They push/pulled her up the mountain. She did finally get her sheep.

We all took sheep. Several of us took more than one. Several of us took Tibetan gazelle. We had seen many wolves. Several argalis had been seen. What an adventure!

We packed up and left early one morning for our return. The jeep ride is long. I was not eating much. The food was not good. When we got back to Beijing, I went to the Hard Rock and stuffed my face. When I got home, I was still down 10 pounds.

I have posted a few pictures below:

Larry,
That was one of the most facinating accounts I've ever read. I felt like I was hunting with you and wish I would have been.
Congratulations on a very successful hunt.

I missed my chance to hunt the blue sheep in China. I had a deposit but I re-booked a different hunt when China closed the hunting. Too bad.

Thanks again for sharing your adventure with us.

Zeke

Thanks.

I screwed up the pictures somehow. I now realize that this is not all of my pictures. I remember specific things that are not in the stack I found.

I apologize about the spacing. I type this on my laptop while traveling. it did not translate to my desk top correctly.

Great adventure, Larry.

I've given serious consideration to hunting blue sheep in Nepal.
May have to bite the bullet and go for it!

Scotty:

I hear that is REALLY tough. A sheep guide is Alaska told me he couldn't handle it.

Thank you for posting, hopefully China will open hunting one day.

GREAT photos!!!!

Wonderful story and great photos. High mountain hunting like this is the stuff of my dreams.

Thanks much for sharing.

I think we need to ban all further posts on hunting China....after seeing them I want to go so badly....lol

Hopefully it opens again one day soon.

Let me add a few more comments.

1- My memory is being refreshed by this exercise. Somewhere is another pile of China pictures with some pretty interesting stuff. If I can find them, I will post them.

2- The hunting was fantastic. I did incredibly well. I will attribute this to several factors as follows: (a) I took both is my sheep before the weather turned bad, (b) I was in great shape and (c) I am pretty hard core. The wind and cold got rough after the first day.

3- They had a number of staff that performed various tasks. One group was called " fire girls." Their job was to come into the yurt at night and fill your stove with coal. Otherwise, everything would freeze as we would later find out.

John entertained us by making suggestive comments (in English) to the fire girls. Damn it was funny! They just smiled and bowed. it would have been hysterical had one of them known English.

4- The last night in camp, they had this big celebration. They sang some Mongolian & Tibetan songs. It was pretty cool. Then they started toasting us. The significance of this was that every time they toasted one of us, that person had to down 3 shots of this Tibetan whiskey. Having been toasted several times by Uncar, Mama & the interpreter, I think I can certify that this is the same stuff China uses in it's rockets. I was hammered. Look at the pictures again. One of them is Mama toasting me. Notice the shot glasses on the tray?

5- It had turned bitter cold the night of the celebration. We went to the yurt and went to bed. I woke up hearing strange noises outside. I also noticed that I was cold as hell. The the bottom line is that most, if not all of the staff was hammered. Some of the guys were chasing the fire girls around. Several were passed out in the snow. I say this with no exaggeration. I believe that any one of us Americans that would have died had we tried this. It was that cold.

6- As a result of the events described above, the fire girls didn't come to our yurt that night. Damn near everything was frozen. My toothpaste was frozen solid.

7- China's roads are crazy. Some are massive super highways. Others are these winding mountain roads without basic safety precautions. More times than I care to remember I looked out and it was several thousand feet down that was inches away and no guard rails.

They drive like maniacs. For example, we were on some massive super highway. It was at least 8 lanes, maybe more. We needed to pass some slower vehicles. The driver crossed all the lanes going our way and then proceeded to cross all the other lanes coming from the opposite direction. It didn't seem to phase him at all that there were several lanes of cars headed our way in the opposite direction.

8- You cannot imagine how many people there are.

9- Sanitary conditions are horrible. There are ditches everywhere with anything and everything you can imagine in these. It would not shock me if there was some type of outbreak that killed millions.

10- I kept seeing these caves in the side of hills. Finally, I asked what they were. I was told that people lived in them. I thought this was BS until we got really close to one. It is a fact that people live in these caves that they have dug.

11- We kept hearing the Chinese use a word that sounded a lot like the "N" word. We were more than a bit surprised. Finally someone inquired why they kept using the "N" word . However the inquiry wasn't so polite. The Chinese were totally puzzled. It ends up that this word that sounds like the "N" word means "over there" or something like that. Damn it was funny.

Good stuff. I'm sure the memories still make you smile. Thanks for sharing.

Ski+3

Cool pic where the empty brass is on the ground beside you.

Also funny to see the pics of "Baby Barth".

GReat post of a neat hunt Larry. Thanks for sharing and here is to hoping China opens soon!