Just so there’s no letdown, I’ll let everyone know ahead of time that we weren’t successful. I’d sure like to hear any tips or info from experienced guys on how to chase these things down though.


I’ll start with a little about me and my hunting partner.
We’ve been working in the same shop for about 2 years and we’re both avid moose hunters with a little bit of experience hunting deer. I noticed on Instagram jake bought a new stone glacier pack, so I immediately asked him if he was interested in going on a sheep hunt in the mountains. He said he bought the pack with intentions of backpack hunting mule deer near where we live, but had no intentions of going to the mountains. After some convincing he agreed to go with me. We both have quite a bit of experience outdoors, but neither of us have done any backpack hunting.


A year down the road and we’re ready to go. I worked my last night shift with plans of picking Jake up as soon as I got home to start an 8 hour drive to our hunting spot. As I got home I was noticing a swollen gum along with a little bit of pain in the same area. I’ve never had an abscessed tooth before, but after talking to the wife I decided to stop at the pharmacy and see if they’d prescribe me some antibiotics just in case. Now we’re on our way again. An hour and a bit behind schedule, but we’re off taking turns driving and napping.


We arrive at the parking lot around 6pm and sunset is supposed to be around 8:40 so we make the quick decision to try and punch 5km up to a creek crossing to make camp.


The next morning we slept in a little bit, but we made our breakfast and started our trek up through one range, across several creek crossings and into the second range. As we made our way into the second range, the valley opened up with some of the nicest alpine views I’ve experienced. By 4pm we arrived to the spot where we were planning on crossing the valley and making our way up to the alpine to set up camp. By now we were 20kms from our last camp. The spot we were shooting for had two lakes above the tree line that we had picked out so we knew we had at least one good source of water. After a quick discussion, Jake talked me into trying to make a push up to the alpine before dark. I remember him saying ”how bad can it be? It’s right there”


We make the journey across the valley through waist to chest high brush, across another creek to the base of the mountain and then start our journey up through the trees. It seemed like a never ending hill straight up with no relief, until we popped out in some sub-alpine mixed with some trees and found a nice game trail that seemed to be going in the same direction we were headed. As we pushed further and further our breaks seemed to last longer than the amount of time we were moving, but we eventually made it up to our spot and found out there wasn’t anywhere close to the lake to pitch a tent, so we decide to stay up on the hill a few hundred yards away. As we slumped over on our ass and lean against our packs in exhaustion and look at each other, jake says “do you see that?”


I look up and across the lake 300-400 yards out is a momma and cub grizzly bear. The cub had a bright silver appearance to him so I looked at Jake and asked if he was going to get a pic. He looked at me panting and said “I’m too tired to get my phone out of my pocket”


The sow spotted us instantly and after giving a few sniffs in the air, the two of them took off over the ridge to the south never to be seen again. I asked Jake if he wanted to move camp, but his reply was “I’ll shoot that thing and use it as a pillow before I move from this spot”


We finished the night off with our regular camp duties, gathering water, hang food in a tree and set up the tent.