cuervosail
09-12-2010, 12:31 PM
My buddy and I drove to a trailhead/staging area where we had agreed to meet a horse wrangler (who I’ll call Gus) to take us in about 12 miles to the base of a mountain range. From there, we'd continue the rest of the way on foot. Gus spent what I thought was a lot of time harnessing up the pack horse who was quite obviously very skittish. Gus seemed to have a hard time getting our fully-loaded backpacks tied on properly (a sign). His friend, (who I’ll call Randy) came roaring into the parking lot just as we were about to get underway, so we waited a bit until Randy got his horse out of the trailer and harnessed up (he was just along for the ride).
There were a couple of dozen horse trailers at this trailhead and it quickly became obvious that there were going to be a lot of people heading down the same trail as us. Not 100 yards down the trail we came to a short (<50 feet) stream crossing that my horse refused to cross. I'm thinking, "what a great start to a four-hour ride.” The other horses went through the knee-deep water without hesitation, but all the kicking and slapping I could do were not going to make this horse budge. After several minutes, Randy circled back, re-crossed the stream and gave my horse a few good whacks on the ass with a branch to get him to move and through the water we went.
I caught up to Gus and my buddy a few hundred yards down the trail and just as I did, there's a big hullaboo behind us as some loose pack horse - freed from a string of about a dozen horses - comes barrelling down the trail. Randy jumped off his horse and grabbed the wayward nag and peace was restored. Already a lot of carrying on only about 10 minutes into the ride.
Another half-mile goes by and all is well. Then, we get to what turned out to be the first of many muddy pools of water on the trail (the trail is about 15-20' wide). Randy is holding on to a rope and is leading the pack horse. Randy’s horse walks into the puddle but the pack horse stops at the edge. As Randy carries on, he reaches the end of the rope, gives a slight tug to urge on the pack horse, the pack horse pulls back and the rope comes out of Randy’s hand. The horse freaks out and goes barreling off the trail, full-speed through the dense bush followed closely by the dog. The horse gets about 50 yards in, stops, does a u-turn and goes roaring past us, straight across the trail and into the bush on the other side of the trail. All we can hear is snapping and crashing of trees and thundering hooves. It sounded like a crazed moose! The tree-snapping sound starts to get farther and farther away and then just disappears as the horse just keeps on going to who knows where.
My buddy and I had a stunned, open-jawed look on our face, not knowing what just happened. We quickly realize that all our stuff was in the packs that was tied to the horse and given the hell-bent-for-leather-trees-be-damned attitude of the horse, all I can imagine is a forest floor strewn with the contents of the packs and finding a few tatters of my brand new Eberlestock pack snagged on some branches.
We tied up our horses and started searching the forest. My buddy found his pack relatively quickly and it was, surprisingly, in one piece, not even torn. The only casualty was a broken tripod leg. That gave me hope and after about another 20 minutes we were able to find mine and it too seemed to come through the ordeal unscathed. Another 20 minutes of searching and we were able to locate my trekking poles, which later proved to be invaluable.
Randy did a brief search down some side trails in an effort to locate the horse, without luck. The last I heard, the horse was never found, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
So, there we are a mile into our 12-mile ride, 30 or 40 horses/hunters have ridden down the trail ahead of us, and now we have only 4 horses for 4 guys. Randy offers to use his horse as a pack horse and walk the trail. It works, but it's really slow going.
As we plod along, all I can think is that if we ever reach the mountains, all we're going to find is a lot of other horses and hunters and not a sheep for miles
After about 5 hours at a makeshift corral alongside a wide spot in the trail. Gus figures it's a good time to give Randy's horse a break from carrying our 50-pound packs and suggests putting them on his own horse. My buddy’s pack goes on first. No problem. However, as soon as I lift mine up to hang off the horn, the horse rears back and makes it quite clear that's not something he wants to have happen. Given what happened a few hours earlier with the renegade packhorse, I immediately drop my pack to the ground and get the heck out of the way. The horse keeps jumping around, stomps on my pack and then breaks the hitching post which promptly smacks me in the back of the head. No damage to my head, but lots of muddy hoofprints on my pack leads me to wonder about the squash factor of the contents. As discovered later, the only casualty was a squished energy boost gel pack, which luckily was inside a still-sealed Ziploc bag – messy but it could’ve been a lot worse.
It's only another mile or so to where we planned to get dropped off and, thankfully, there are fewer and fewer hoofprints on the trail and no sign of any other hunters nor horses. What should've been a 3-hour ride comes to an end 7 hours after we started. It’s about 6:00 by the time my buddy say goodbye to Gus and Randy, hoist up our packs and start up the 60-degree slope.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00037.jpg
We spent the next 4 nights in the mountains. We saw plenty of sheep and, thankfully, only two other hunters, but we never got close enough to seal the deal - on the sheep, that is.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00064.jpg
We watched a group of rams for two days before opening morning and thought we had their daily movement figured out.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00072.jpg
We got up before sunrise on opening morning, skirted some lambs and ewes and dropped down nearly 600’ so we could be within range when legal shooting time opened. However, they outmaneuvered us and as we were dropping down the mountain, they were climbing 1200’ up and out of the basin where they had spent two days, over the top of a ridge, 600’ down the backside and over to another basin that we had seen the day before and concluded then that it was practically impossible to get to.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00081.jpg
We did find another group of rams later but shots at about 500 yards in a strong crosswind never found their mark.
When we called on the sat phone to our horse provider to arrange a ride out, he said that he was too busy getting the hay off his field and wanted to continue doing that before the weather turned bad. So, we decided to cut our trip a bit short and hike back out to the trailhead. A seven hour horse ride in, and a four-and-a-half hike back out.
My conditioning program had pretty much fallen off the map earlier in the summer due to a brutal work/travel schedule and I figured that I'd have a heckuva time climbing up to 8500' (the horses dropped us at about 6000'), but I surprised myself with how well I did. My buddy and I both lost 8 pounds in 5 days on our sheep-hunter's diet (dehydrated suppers, energy bar lunches, granola breakfasts and not enough water), although on his skinny little 160-pound frame it was hardly noticeable. On the other hand, I wish I could go another 10 days on that diet.
It was the first sheep hunt for either of us and even though we didn't get a sheep, we were amazed at how many rams we saw. We both learned a lot and we now have a good idea of what it’ll take next time to be successful. We know what to do and what not to do, what to bring and what not to bring and, most of all, we know the rams are there and they’ll each be just a little bigger next year.
The various threads on this forum were super helpful in planning my trip. One recommendation that I don’t recall seeing anywhere on HBC is to carry some lip balm with UV protection. My lips got absolutely fried in 5 days of sun and I’m still paying the price for that nearly 3 weeks later.
There were a couple of dozen horse trailers at this trailhead and it quickly became obvious that there were going to be a lot of people heading down the same trail as us. Not 100 yards down the trail we came to a short (<50 feet) stream crossing that my horse refused to cross. I'm thinking, "what a great start to a four-hour ride.” The other horses went through the knee-deep water without hesitation, but all the kicking and slapping I could do were not going to make this horse budge. After several minutes, Randy circled back, re-crossed the stream and gave my horse a few good whacks on the ass with a branch to get him to move and through the water we went.
I caught up to Gus and my buddy a few hundred yards down the trail and just as I did, there's a big hullaboo behind us as some loose pack horse - freed from a string of about a dozen horses - comes barrelling down the trail. Randy jumped off his horse and grabbed the wayward nag and peace was restored. Already a lot of carrying on only about 10 minutes into the ride.
Another half-mile goes by and all is well. Then, we get to what turned out to be the first of many muddy pools of water on the trail (the trail is about 15-20' wide). Randy is holding on to a rope and is leading the pack horse. Randy’s horse walks into the puddle but the pack horse stops at the edge. As Randy carries on, he reaches the end of the rope, gives a slight tug to urge on the pack horse, the pack horse pulls back and the rope comes out of Randy’s hand. The horse freaks out and goes barreling off the trail, full-speed through the dense bush followed closely by the dog. The horse gets about 50 yards in, stops, does a u-turn and goes roaring past us, straight across the trail and into the bush on the other side of the trail. All we can hear is snapping and crashing of trees and thundering hooves. It sounded like a crazed moose! The tree-snapping sound starts to get farther and farther away and then just disappears as the horse just keeps on going to who knows where.
My buddy and I had a stunned, open-jawed look on our face, not knowing what just happened. We quickly realize that all our stuff was in the packs that was tied to the horse and given the hell-bent-for-leather-trees-be-damned attitude of the horse, all I can imagine is a forest floor strewn with the contents of the packs and finding a few tatters of my brand new Eberlestock pack snagged on some branches.
We tied up our horses and started searching the forest. My buddy found his pack relatively quickly and it was, surprisingly, in one piece, not even torn. The only casualty was a broken tripod leg. That gave me hope and after about another 20 minutes we were able to find mine and it too seemed to come through the ordeal unscathed. Another 20 minutes of searching and we were able to locate my trekking poles, which later proved to be invaluable.
Randy did a brief search down some side trails in an effort to locate the horse, without luck. The last I heard, the horse was never found, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
So, there we are a mile into our 12-mile ride, 30 or 40 horses/hunters have ridden down the trail ahead of us, and now we have only 4 horses for 4 guys. Randy offers to use his horse as a pack horse and walk the trail. It works, but it's really slow going.
As we plod along, all I can think is that if we ever reach the mountains, all we're going to find is a lot of other horses and hunters and not a sheep for miles
After about 5 hours at a makeshift corral alongside a wide spot in the trail. Gus figures it's a good time to give Randy's horse a break from carrying our 50-pound packs and suggests putting them on his own horse. My buddy’s pack goes on first. No problem. However, as soon as I lift mine up to hang off the horn, the horse rears back and makes it quite clear that's not something he wants to have happen. Given what happened a few hours earlier with the renegade packhorse, I immediately drop my pack to the ground and get the heck out of the way. The horse keeps jumping around, stomps on my pack and then breaks the hitching post which promptly smacks me in the back of the head. No damage to my head, but lots of muddy hoofprints on my pack leads me to wonder about the squash factor of the contents. As discovered later, the only casualty was a squished energy boost gel pack, which luckily was inside a still-sealed Ziploc bag – messy but it could’ve been a lot worse.
It's only another mile or so to where we planned to get dropped off and, thankfully, there are fewer and fewer hoofprints on the trail and no sign of any other hunters nor horses. What should've been a 3-hour ride comes to an end 7 hours after we started. It’s about 6:00 by the time my buddy say goodbye to Gus and Randy, hoist up our packs and start up the 60-degree slope.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00037.jpg
We spent the next 4 nights in the mountains. We saw plenty of sheep and, thankfully, only two other hunters, but we never got close enough to seal the deal - on the sheep, that is.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00064.jpg
We watched a group of rams for two days before opening morning and thought we had their daily movement figured out.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00072.jpg
We got up before sunrise on opening morning, skirted some lambs and ewes and dropped down nearly 600’ so we could be within range when legal shooting time opened. However, they outmaneuvered us and as we were dropping down the mountain, they were climbing 1200’ up and out of the basin where they had spent two days, over the top of a ridge, 600’ down the backside and over to another basin that we had seen the day before and concluded then that it was practically impossible to get to.
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/cuervosail/DSC00081.jpg
We did find another group of rams later but shots at about 500 yards in a strong crosswind never found their mark.
When we called on the sat phone to our horse provider to arrange a ride out, he said that he was too busy getting the hay off his field and wanted to continue doing that before the weather turned bad. So, we decided to cut our trip a bit short and hike back out to the trailhead. A seven hour horse ride in, and a four-and-a-half hike back out.
My conditioning program had pretty much fallen off the map earlier in the summer due to a brutal work/travel schedule and I figured that I'd have a heckuva time climbing up to 8500' (the horses dropped us at about 6000'), but I surprised myself with how well I did. My buddy and I both lost 8 pounds in 5 days on our sheep-hunter's diet (dehydrated suppers, energy bar lunches, granola breakfasts and not enough water), although on his skinny little 160-pound frame it was hardly noticeable. On the other hand, I wish I could go another 10 days on that diet.
It was the first sheep hunt for either of us and even though we didn't get a sheep, we were amazed at how many rams we saw. We both learned a lot and we now have a good idea of what it’ll take next time to be successful. We know what to do and what not to do, what to bring and what not to bring and, most of all, we know the rams are there and they’ll each be just a little bigger next year.
The various threads on this forum were super helpful in planning my trip. One recommendation that I don’t recall seeing anywhere on HBC is to carry some lip balm with UV protection. My lips got absolutely fried in 5 days of sun and I’m still paying the price for that nearly 3 weeks later.