It was getting later in the day, rain clouds were moving in and it was windy now. We were almost full summit when I spotted a caribou below us. We all sat down and I started yelling "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo" I wish I could post the video so the sound was right. But the caribou came within 40ish yards. C-man or my brother say it in the video. But once it caught wind and realized we weren't other bouskis it made some serious ground headed down the mountain.
We carried on and went up and over to come over in the basin we glassed for a whole day. There was a good billy out on a flat. My brother said "I'm going after that goat"
Now I like his gumption and it was indeed a very good goat. We were limited on daylight. He would have to cross a 300m wide shale slide that ran to the bottom probably 500 feet down, just to get to the flat outcrop the goat was on. I told him to hold off and we'll watch him until dark as we were camping up here no matter what. The goat ended up going vertical and bedding on the ridge top until just before dark then made it's way down the ridge and off to another valley. So even if my brother did go after the goat, he wouldn't have got it. My brother was pissed at me first for not going after it, but once he realized the goat would have been gone before even getting close to him, he calmed down a little.
we ended up setting up a cowboy camp. It was cold and windy that night. If I wore my rain gear to keep the wind off, I'd sweat then get cold... if I didn't wear my rain gear, the wind would hammer me and I'd get cold.
The next morning was a rough one. We stayed and glassed to see if the goat would show up again. Or maybe because we were wiped. We spotted another camp in another valley(one I wanted to go up in) couple more goats and some caribou. It was late morning before we headed back towards camp. On the way back we made a run down to the lake to grab some more food. By the end of the day we had made it back to camp 3, completing the full circle of the mountain.
We spent the next few days hunting from camp 3. Before our last day we moved back to camp 1. The feeling of "I don't want to leave yet, I haven't even hunted yet" started to sink in. Woke me up in the middle of the night. I got out of the tent and there was an awesome dry lighting show going on. But at the same time, I heard a crash that I thought was thunder... nope, just big ass rocks rolling close to camp.
The next morning we had to be at the lake as our ride was suppose to be showing up at 9ish. It was pretty foggy out and it didn't look like we were leaving that day. None the less our pilot found us after missing the lake once or twice. We figured that we could probably get out in one plane. We did have less food by now. We loaded up and the pilot went screaming down the lake and it wasn't happening. He figured that it wasn't that we were too heavy, just we needed to take gear out of the tail and put it in the floats.
After gear was re-adjusted, we hauled ass down the lake again. No go... The pilot figured we could make it out the other direction and wouldn't have a tailwind. We spun around on the lake and throttled up. We were pointed towards the end of the valley. The pilot was trying to bounce his floats off the water. We were running out of lake and the pilot was talking nice and calm, not even looking at the throttle. All of a sudden we were off, maybe 50 feet above the trees at the end of the lake. The pilot was tipping his wings side to side trying to grab altitude before banking left and turning back towards the direction we needed to go.
We made it back to the lodge, got all our gear sorted and headed straight in for burgers and beer.
When we got back for burgers and beer, John was out and there was other... Tahltan people working there... that had been into the burgers and beer already... well maybe not the burgers.
Anyways, I use to really dislike the movie Training Day because how could that much happen in one day? well...
We started out with C-man trying to find smokes, my brother coppenhagen and the resort manager needing buns. So the 2 Tahltan people escorted us to a store in Iskut to grab said buns and nicotine products for C-man and my brother. They stopped by their place and grabbed some beer, we headed back to the resort to dry gear out. We were hanging out with the Tahltan people at the cabins, joking, making fun of each other, having some drinks. I snuck away, 6 beer after a month of no liquor and being dehydrated... I needed a nap.
My brother and C-man went looking for other legal products to be overcharged for. They got back to Iskut and found out that the two people we were hanging out with, we shouldn't be hanging out with. So my brother and C-man rushed back to the resort knowing I was alone passed out around a couple of people that shouldn't be trusted. By the time they got back I was up and about but the two we were hanging out with had disappeared. They told me the story and I guess it got pretty intense up in Iskut. I don't know, I wasn't there or they could have been funking with me.
So we head back up to the lodge for something to eat. John had fresh salmon burgers and erdzinger beer on the menu. Sounded good enough to us. We got to talking to some other guy at the table next to us. He as in a Catholic Priest in 6 different countries and knew 8 languages. The dude he was with was from Italy and hooked us up with a bottle of red wine. I don't like red wine... but this shit was legit! The Italian guy seemed like a good dude, red wine and a hot wife... So they called it a night and went back to their rooms.
We finished ours meals and then this other lady emerged from the corner. She was telling us about how she was doing a solo road trip from Tofino to Whitehorse... The four of us hung out at the lake and told stories. Nice lady, but she threw every single offhand offer to cure loneliness... after 10 days of sleeping next to 2 dudes... I respectfully declined. Still pissed her off lol.
The next day we were up and out before any other craziness came upon us. I stretched out in the back seat of the Tacoma only to emerge for A&W in Shitters. Then back to laying down. As we pulled into Burns Lake, we could hear a bearing going. We pulled over, hub was hot and all that good stuff. We limped it to the Sunshine Inn and grabbed a room for the night. Tried to get a hold of Decker9 to see if he knew of a torch we could use, went to Woods And Water, my cousin from there helped out quite a bit. Buddy ended up grabbing parts from PG and ran them out to us.
It was another day down, but we finally got back to Williams Lake at 1am.
Awesome thread, thank you for posting. We spent 12 days up there and want to go back.
Saw your entry in the journal at Cold fish camp from a few years ago.
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