I haven't posted much here in a while... Thought you guys might like to read one of my latest adventures.

Where to start… This trip was likely the hardest physically, most eventful hunt that I’ve been on, and for sure the most for Tanya. To start the trip, we left home two days before sheep season opened. The plan was to fly in early to beat the “locals” and spend a day scouting the area looking for legal rams.

We were once again hunting the Western Alaska Range, parts of which are some of the most rugged and glacial in the state. The area we planned to hunt was both. We would be flown into sheep country in a small 2-seater Super Cub, one at a time with essential gear. The round trip between town and the bush strip was about 2.5-3 hours. The flight in was pleasant with many moose spotted from the air along the way and countless caribou sheds. Our destination would be a large glacial delta fan smooth enough for the tundra tires to touch down safely. I flew in first, and set up base camp and awaited my bride to show some time later. After a couple hours, no plane had shown, I was starting to wonder, but wasn’t worried. The weather was overcast with low clouds, I assumed that maybe fog or low clouds had rolled in on the other side of the ridge which I couldn’t see, and they were grounded for a while, and possibly until the following day. I was prepared, and had all the gear I needed to stay.

Roughly 4 hours later, I heard a plane in the distance, as it approached I realized it was a different plane, but recognized it. Turns out the first plane had minor mechanical problems, and they returned to home base after getting about half way to camp.

During the time I was waiting, I prepared camp, and surveyed the area, comparing maps to my surroundings. I made a quick stalk on an unsuspecting caribou bull, got to within about 30 yards, all while wearing “loud” rain gear. I probably could have saddled him up and rode him into sheep country if I was wearing Sitka gear…



I set up camp on an old gravel bar; taking care to make sure it wasn’t an active channel. Later we realized that it must have been cool for the last week or so before we were there, and the glaciers were not active and melting, upon return to the strip, water was running all across the delta, luckily camp was still dry. The area we would be hunting was a large glacial drainage, with more drainages than we could hunt in a week of walking. We planned to hunt close to the strip and work our way out from there until we found rams.



The day before the season opened, we hiked up the small drainage where we had landed, hopefully to find a legal ram or two. I'd never been to this drainage, and had only looked at it on maps. Maps are great, but it’s hard to see exactly what the terrain (crags/cliffs) and vegetation looks like without ground-truthing it. To make matters worse, the clouds and fog were low, obscuring most of the mountain where the sheep would hang. We made our way up as far as we dare without walking into what we figured was their bedroom. We spotted a few rams and ewes on our side and another possible shooter across the canyon, but he was in the clouds and difficult to judge. We spent most of the day in the rain and fog, formulating a plan for opening day. No full curl rams were found that day, but we were hopeful, given the amount of sheep we'd seen that we’d turn one up.


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Opening day we made our way up the same drainage. The clouds and fog had lifted and revealed most of the mountain. The view was breathtaking, the mountains absolutely towered overhead, with the valley floor at 5000, and peaks reaching 10,000+’ in some instances at a sheer cliffs 1000’s of feet high! We got to the sheep haunt early that morning, and stayed all day. We were able to maneuver around and see pretty much every nook and cranny a ram could hide. All we could turn up was a dozen sub-legal rams and a band of ewes and lambs.




 

We weighed our options, and decided that we’d probably seen about everything there was to see in this valley. We decided to head back to camp, pack up supplies for about 6-7 days and head up the main drainage. I figured we could hunt the main drainage in 5-6 days, and if we didn’t turn up a ram or two up there, we’d come back to the strip and head down the canyon and hunt out the rest of our trip there.

We marched up the main canyon about 4 miles to the next major drainage. Setup camp, and took in our surroundings. Again the clouds were low, but most of the sheepy looking country was visible. We climbed a small knoll and started glassing up sheep in all directions. The drainage where we were camped held a small band of sheep, but no big rams. A mountain about 3 miles away held a lot of sheep, and upon closer inspection… held a lot of RAMS! Two lone rams were spotted in separate locations, but they were too far away to verify if they were legal or not. Generally lone sheep are an indication of an older sheep, but not necessarily a legal ram.

Now we have a dilemma… To get to the rams, we’d have to cross a couple glaciers. Neither one of us had crossed a glacier, and had no idea what to expect. We didn’t have crampons, and were unsure how the footing would be on the ice in all the folds and crevices. It turned out the rocky moraine surrounding the ice was 10 times harder to navigate than the ice itself. The mounds of boulders, loose rock, and sand/gravel covered ice, were like a maze from hell. The mounds were 20-50’ high, and what would be found on the other side was anyone’s guess until you saw it. Solid ground was impossible to find, every step resulted in a slip, slide, or rolled cankle. Those 3 miles across would take us approximately 6 hours to navigate.

We stashed some gear, and food at the second camp, and packed enough food and provisions to make it for 3-4 days. We went in as light as possible, with hopes of coming back heavily loaded with meat and horns! The area where the rams were was a small mountain surrounded by glaciers, and sheer cliffs. We could hunt most of it in a day, so taking extra provisions was useless. If we couldn’t get it done in a few days, or find legal sheep, we’d come back and head elsewhere.

We established camp in a small ravine, which gave us the ability to move in and out of camp undetected if sheep happened to show up close by.



The first evening we hiked around to the far side of the mountain. We got to within about 100 yards of about 18 small rams and one of the single rams. None of them were legal age/length, but still fun to get that close to so many animals. Unfortunately, we dropped our packs to make the last leg of the stalk, so I didn’t get any pictures. Satisfied that we’d seen all the sheep in this group, we headed back to camp. On the way back we ran into a few groups of ptarmigan. We have 3 different types of ptarmigan here, some are dumber than others, but none are much smarter than a rock… Using their stupidity to our advantage, we managed to kill a couple with rocks, like cavemen, at fairly close range! Ptarmigan... it’s what’s for dinner.

The following morning, we hunted the opposite direction as the night before. I’d spotted a group of 4 rams a couple days before just at the edge of the moraine, but didn’t get a good look at them before they moved out of sight and up a side canyon. I was unsure if we could get around this section of mountain, due to the glacier/permafrost melting away below the cliffs.

We left camp moving up a small cut in the hill, this cut was strewn with large boulders, and short vegetation around it, looking similar to a manicured lawn. The marmots, and ground squirrels were keeping a tidy ship. Moving a long I caught movement ahead of me about 50 yards, it was much larger than the marmots, but maybe 3x as big. It dawned on me that it was a wolverine! He was moving away from me, but I thought I could catch up for a picture. I dropped my pack, and wrestled for my camera. While doing so, I noticed another one about 25 yards away peaking at me from behind a rock. I’ve seen a handful of wolverines in the last couple years, and they were always hauling ass to get away. I wasn’t worried that this one would attack… for some reason. I motioned Tanya to come a bit closer so she could see the little dude looking back at me. About that time a third one popped up about 10 yards away and was coming right for us. Oh shit! I grab the rifle, and my pack and scamper up a small ridge a few yards away to get the “high ground”. The little devil dove under a rock right next to where we were just sitting! I look down and all my gear that was in the same pocket as my camera had fallen out in the fray. We needed this to continue on our hunt… We sat on the ridge about 15 yards away pondering our situation. We didn’t think they were aggressive, but we were outnumbered. Was one of them mama? Was this their home, or did we just interrupt their morning hunt? Either way, the gps, extra ammo, cameras, knives, etc, where strewn about the lawn and we needed to retrieve them.



I told Tanya to take point and cover me as I went in to retrieve the gear, however she felt it would better if I was doing the shooting in case things got hairy. We managed to scrape up most of the gear using a trekking pole, however the camera had fallen down between some rocks, about 5 yards from their lair. Tanya pulled out her combat knife (a 4” folding Bench Made) and grabbed a pole to fish out the camera. It was tense, but she managed to pull the camera free while under my cover. Looking back neither of us was really that scared of the little guys, we think they lived in those rocks, and were young pups just trying to hide out.

The majority of the hike around the mountain was easy, with a little scree and rocks to navigate; the last part was pretty hairy. We had to climb about 200’ of shale rockslide to skirt around a section of slope that was sloughing into the glacier moraine. We carefully made our way to the top, and started back down.



About half way down, I lost footing and flipped on my back. In doing so, I dislocated my shoulder in the fall… The pain was about a 7 out of 10, I wasn’t pissing my pants, but was close. I managed to relax my muscles, and pop it back in place. The pain instantly subsided to soreness. I moved my shoulder around a bit, and it popped back out! I thought this isn’t good. We’re hella of a long ways from help, but at least I can still walk… Again I relaxed and got it back into socket. I laid there for a moment deciding what we should do. It’s not a life threatening injury, but if I can’t pack weight, we might as well go home. I rolled my shoulder around and everything seemed like it was ok, time to buck up buttercup…

We continued around the mountain until we reached yet another glacier basin. We’d seen a really nice sheep from our latest camp across this glacier, we called him Big Bill. He was nearly full curl with a lot of horn missing on both sides. The problem with Bill, is he was WAY high on a cliffy ridge, and needed to come down lower to give us a shot. Turns out the glacier would be pretty easy to cross, but getting up the opposite side moraine would be challenging. The ram had moved up into the rocks about 2000’ above the valley floor. He’d need to come down at least 1/3 of the way for us to have a chance at him, due to the benches and steep terrain We watched him for a bit, and dreamt of the possibility of taking the old broomed warrior. I asked Tanya how we would decide who got to shoot him, a game of rock/paper/scissors perhaps? No… she said he was hers because I could go hunting again in the next few weeks if I wanted. Fair enough, I was hoping she’s say that.


By now it was closing in on lunch time, we continued up the small glacier basin another ½ mile or so, and spotted a ram feeding on a knife ridge cliff. We pulled out the spotter, and verified that it was a nice ram, broomed on both sides, and legal. We continued watching for a bit, and another ram materialized, this one was maybe 7, but not quite full curl, he was just too close to call, and not worth risking a fine if sub-legal. They were maybe 300 yards away straight uphill within shooting distance, the problem was the cliffs they were feeding amongst. If we were to take the shot, the ram would surely get hung up, and no way to retrieve him without risking life and limb.



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In our haste to make him legal, we were spotted by the bigger ram. He got a bit nervous and moved up the hill about 2-300 yards and lay down. We thought it best to slowly back out, take a nap and come back that evening with hopes they’d move down the hill a ways.

 

We started our return about 7-8 hours later. To our delight I spotted a ram about mid way up the knife ridge we’d seen the rams that morning. A quick glance and he was out of site, I was unsure what ram it was, but the good news, is he was in a spot we could get to him if we could get a shot. We crept closer, taking a few steps at a time while keeping a vigilant watch in his general direction. About a minute after I spotted the first ram, I spotted a sheep below the knife ridge. This surprised me a bit, because I didn’t think the first sheep I spotted would have moved that far that fast. Now I was sure we were looking at multiple sheep in a spot we could take them. We moved a bit further until we could see the sheep at the base of the cliff. He was maybe 450 yards away at this point. I put the spotter on him to verify, and determined that he was a younger ram, maybe 7-8 at most, but definitely not full curl. He had a big drop to his horns, and was fairly heavy, but I couldn’t count more than 7 rings on his horn. He will be a dandy in a few years… He spotted us, or sensed us and was moving up the edge of the cliff. Not really alarmed, but concerned of where we were.

Once the young ram was out of sight, we continued our way up the edge of the moraine in hopes of seeing the second ram. We cautiously moved up 10-20 yards at a time until I spotted a ram bedded on the cliff above. He was unaware of our presence; we instantly noted that his head gear was much bigger than the last ram, and that he appeared to be the same double broomed ram we’d seen that morning. Using the spotter, we determined that he was in fact double broomed, and carried a lot of mass to the end. The problem was he was laying down, and didn’t offer us a clear shot, the good news he didn’t know we were there. I hit him with the range finder, 275 yards. At the angle we’d be shooting the range would be closer to 200… D E A D.

We waited for probably 10 minutes for him to stand. During that time another ram fed out on the cliff. We noted that it was the same small ram that was with the big guy that morning. During our moving around we were spotted by the big ram and he was locked onto us staring intently. We were afraid to move, figuring if he saw us move he’d stand and move up further. Our legs fell asleep as we crouch in an uncomfortable position for what seemed like hours, probably more like 15 minutes. Finally the big ram looked away and relaxed. Slowly I swung the spotter around on the tripod so Tanya could use it for a rest. She inched over and got set up for the shot. Now it was a matter of waiting the ram out. We waited, and waited and waited some more. It was starting to get dark, and we figured we had two options, make something happen or come back the next day.

Both have risks, we may never see this ram again, or if we push it, we may not get a shot. We decided to see if we could make him nervous enough to stand up and then give us a shot. We figured if I got up and walked that he’d sand up. Tanya stayed on the rifle, ready to shoot, I stood and walked about 20 yards parallel to him. He continued to stare, and didn’t stand.

I walked a bit further, and the shooting angle was better, showing more of the ridge. A second shot if needed would be much better. Tanya moved up closer to me and settled in. Finally he stood. Tanya dropped the hammer, the ram lunged and went out of sight, down a small draw and up on a little cliff about 30 yards to his right. He showed himself and she fired again. This one took him down for the count. About this time I noticed that a third ram had been feeding a bit closer to us, but was hiding in some rocks, he seemed to have come out of nowhere and was standing just below where Tanya’s had been lying. Through the binos, I instantly noticed he was also a double broomer. I snagged the rifle away, lined up using the spotter/tripod for a rest fired. My ram stretched out his hind end and stood still. Tanya yelled to shoot again, I think you missed. His body language said otherwise, however, I put a second shot in him and he fell about where he stood. This was not good… He was about 40-50’ up on a cliff, and we weren’t sure if we could get to him. After about 5 seconds he kicked, and down the cliff he came. Landing near the bottom, but in a spot I could get to.

All this happened in a matter of seconds I’m sure. Once we realized both rams where down, that we’d just smoked a couple double broomers, we were exstatic.


















We spent the rest of the evening and through the night cutting, capping and boning. We made our way back to camp at first light, this time avoiding the slide area where I’d dislocated my shoulder, by dropping down to the glacier moraine. The return sucked, and took about 2 hours to go less than a mile. We finally made it back to camp approximately 26 hours from when we started, victorious. We knew it was going to be hot, but also knew we needed some sleep.





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. 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.

EXCELLENT!!! Pictures,story, and your hunt,,you gotta love those glacier hunts!!

Thanks for the pics and the hunt report.

Great report!

The more dallsheep reports i read on Ar the more i want to hunt one myself. Thx for sharing.

Truly Numinous... Thanks..

Great report, and 2 beautiful rams, gets no better. Big congrats to you and your wife, so glad
you get to live your dreams.... watch those friggin bears! Butch

Great report of an exciting hunt. Congrats and well done.

Incredible hunt, thanks for posting.

great story!

gREAT REPOPRT AND PICTURES

Excellent story and pics, Congratulations to both of you that was the hunt of a lifetime.

Awesome!!!!! Congratulations!!!!!



Doug

Outstanding adventure and result!

Now that's a sheep hunt !!!!!!!!!!

What an adventure to share with your wife. Beautiful rams. Great report and photo, thank you for sharing.

A great hunt that took me back 60 years, and proved again that your best buddy is your spouse! I truly appreciated your story.

SUPER COOL!!!! thanks and well done to you both i need to do this before the sand runs out in the hour glass

CONGRATULATIONS to and your wife on a great adventure and hunt.

Congratulations on a fantastic trip and two wonderful rams.

Unless you've done a trip like this it is very hard to truly comprehend the challenges involved and the feeling of satisfaction after this type of hunt. Sheep hunting is addicting for very good reasons.
Thanks for the great pictures and wonderful story.
Bill

WONDERFUL!!!

What an amazing hunting experience. I admire you and your wife's spirit and sense of adventure. A well deserved congratulations.

Reading that report and closing my eyes it was almost like I was there. Thanks for sharing it. Congrats to you both.

Man i cant wait to visit the high country again. Thanks for taking us along for the ride.

Great pics thank for sharing.

Really and truly awesome all the way around. Thanks for sharing.

Well earned as sheep tend to be. Fantastic!

Great story, great write up, great rams!

Great story. Thanks for sharing....

Fantastic story........and with your wife along too!

Great Sheep!

Great post. Congratulations on your wife's and your success. You are living my dream. Best to you and your wife of what life has to offer.

Congrats on a wonderful adventure! The rams are the icing

Great story and photos

tim

Terrific story and amazing photos. I really need to go hunt Dalls!

What a report.....
I have been dreaming to hunt in Alaska, but never got around it due to several factors, such as outfitters, best areas and all that, but this report and photos are making me dreaming again.
Well done to both of you.
Roberto

Please let me add my thanks for your report and photos. spectaclular. Thanks for sharing. Paul

Great story, great pictures, great hunt! Thanks for sharing that!

Fantastic photos & hunt report. I think I know the valley you were in. Extremely rugged so you two definitely earned your sheep. Congratulations and thanks for letting the rest of read your story.

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