If you'd like to watch the video, rather than read then or in addition to reading the story check it out here: https://youtu.be/rym_rgmWlYk?si=YfHdfokCsivcjIM2
My wife and I left the lower mainland at 5am sharp on Sep 9th, the day before opener. We arrived at the trailhead to see 2 other vehicles already there. “Oh well, it’s a big mountain”, I thought. Luckily as we were getting our packs ready, a guy and his sons were walking back to their truck. Super nice guy and we chatted for a minute. He let me know the other group in there was just hikers. SCORE!
So away we went, climbing up the mountain with our gear and 4 days worth of food. As we approached the area of our initial camp spot, we were met by a group on horses touring the area for the day. I didn’t have our camp spot marked on OnX, so we kept going a little bit at a time looking for it. Once we realized we had passed it, I thought “Oh well, maybe let’s just setup camp by the water at the top”. We were 4.5 hours into the hike when we reached our first glassing spot. After glassing for about an hour and not seeing anything we decided to press on to the water and potential camp spot. Along the way I was noticing that the blueberry bushes were super dry, crunchy, and not holding very many berries at all. A little over an hour and a half through the sun beaten alpine and generous elevation gain we arrived at our water spot. Right on top in the open. A location I thought looked better on the maps than in person for camping. Once we were watered up and cooled down a little bit, we made the decision to head back towards the original camp site because it was well sheltered should a storm roll in. There was also water on the map near it. We hiked back down about 2 hours or so, setup camp, then glassed a slope nearby until it was bedtime.
I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow only to be awakened about 2 hours later with sever leg cramps. I have never experienced these before and did take a notable brand name electrolyte tab before bed. Well, these cramps persisted all night, pulling me back out of sleep every time I drifted off. Checking the phone every time I woke up, the hours seemed to drag on. 4AM comes around and I am awakened by a deer blowing at us. She and her fawn were not happy to see our tent there or possibly smell us there. I tossed and turned for another hour before getting frustrated and hoping out of the tent at 5AM. 10 minutes later STOMP, Grunt, STOMP! This deer sounded heavy! Pitch black, cannot see a thing, I chuckled to myself that this is awesome. Sept 10th Opening day, and also my birthday. How sweet it is! Day break is around the corner, and we make ourselves some breakfast.
As the light starts to peak through, we walk to what is shown on the map as water. It is a slough at best, with wet mud for feet before getting close to the filmy waters edge. We make the decision to hike back to the very top alpine lake for water. Back at our normal glassing spot we watch the light wake up the mountain tops for about 2 hours before making the water run for the day. Up to the top and back down, being heated by the hot sun every step of the way. Returning to our glassing spot 3 hours later we make lunch and rest in the shade a while. Around 2:30pm we make the decision to head off the mountain. There is no berries and no bears up here. We saw only 1 old bear scat and it did not have berries in it.
I was reminded of a saying I heard years ago, “Find the berries, find the bears”. Well, we needed to go find the berries. Back to camp, pack everything back up and down we went. It was slow going in the heat, but nice to be headed downhill versus up. As we got to an old cut block, I saw a black ball moving near the bottom! I grabbed my range finder and it showed under 400 yards….PERFECT! I had purchased a new scope with adjustable elevation turrets in the spring and was very comfortable dialing out to 500 yards in calm weather. We got my pack setup on a tree stump for a rest and I was able to sit comfortably behind the rifle. Remembering that we had a camcorder and GoPro we quickly got everything setup to film what was about to happen. We watched the bear feed below us for about 15 minutes, ensuring there was no cubs present. The bear seemed to have smaller ears and a fairly round figure. He seemed like a good bear to me! As he stepped back into view I range him again, 360 yards, dail 1.7 MOA. I confirmed that my videographer for the trip (wifey) had him in view, she wasn’t sure….LOL WHAT?!?! this made for an exceptional video clip that I’ll post a link for once it’s live. She then confirms she was on him, he was sitting eating from a bush. I ran through my shot sequence. Crosshairs on lungs, exhale, squeeze, BANG! The rifle cracked off and the bear instantly dropped. I watched him roll behind some bushes. We were able to see him move a little bit behind the bushes for a minute or two. Then the movement stopped. Time to go to work.
By this time the sun was setting, and I knew we had little time to waste. We dropped down to the road the bear was on, and there he was. Laid out. Not being a very experienced bear hunter, I threw a rock at him to make sure he was in-fact expired. No movement. Excellent! Time to get closer. I was uber curious to see if it was male or female, so I grabbed a paw to roll it over. Doing so made the bear exhale some leftover air out of it’s lungs in a low growl sound. I dropped the paw and took half a step back LOL. He was dead, it’s just air. One more time, same low growl, same immediate reaction. After a few laughs we confirmed it was a boar and moved him into position for a quick photo to commemorate the experience. We skinned him and took all edible portions of meat off the carcass. I made the last-minute decision I wanted to do a Euro style skull mount, so removed his head as well. We loaded all the meat into our packs on top of all our gear. OH man was that a heavy feeling pack.
My wife was carrying about 100 lbs and I was well up over 120lbs. Note to self, take the time to de-bone next time. Oh well, time to grind it out. It’s now pitch black out, minus our headlamp lights. Luckily for us we had an old, deactivated logging road we would be using to get back to the vehicle. Unbeknownst to us shortly up the road was a dried-up creek crossing where a bridge had been removed. This was steep down, and steep up with loose gravel and big rocks. My wife wanted to go first and did great until near the bottom, the ground gave way. She went from one side to the other battling the weight of the pack pulling her down. Somehow, she managed to stay upright and didn’t end up faceplanting into the boulders at the bottom! Up the other side we go. Success. We hiked that road up hill and over each damn water bar for the next 2 hours, stopping every so often for a 30-60 second breather. Then came the glorious moment we reached the vehicle and got to take the packs off! It was a terrific adventure we will not soon forget! Fall opener Birthday Bear!
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Originally Posted by RobTurbo
