Late October 2020, I decided to go mule deer hunting. It was a mild day, around zeroº Celsius with two inches of snow on the trail in. I had minimal equipment in my pack and was in a rush to get in there due to sleeping in a bit. This would come back to bite me later.
I made good time and headed into my mule deer spot. It’s about a five-kilometre hike in to where the creek bed opens up, and one of the few areas accessible for day hikes where there are some open feeding/bedding areas in this zone.
I took my time glassing the creek bottom before heading down into the bottom. I didn’t see anything bedded, but I could see fresh tracks in the snow with my binos. Despite taking my time glassing and moving slowly along the creek bottom, I still managed to blow out three mule deer does that saw me first. There is not much cover down there, so I was fairly certain the buck I was looking for wasn’t there.
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After a couple hours of glassing, I decided to head back out for the day and go glass for sheep in another area I had hiked into several times that year. On the way out, something caught my eye on the mountain across the creek. I popped out my binos and saw some ewes feeding on a grassy slope about two kilometres away. I took out my spotting scope and noticed more ewes were beginning to feed out from behind an outcrop of rock. I was just getting ready to pack up and continue on when I looked up to the top of the mountain and noticed a ram. He was slowly feeding downhill so I couldn’t get a good look at him, but he looked heavier than most of the rams I had seen that season.
I packed up my gear and decided to get a better look. I made good time, crossing the creek and getting up the steep, opposite bank. The ascent was grueling with a foot of snow on slippery wet rocks. Eventually, I made it to the tree line. I crept along the side of the ridge being careful not to spook the ewes that were above me, while I closed distance on the ram. When I got to 400 metres, I popped out my spotter again and got to a position where I could study the ram. After 45 minutes of watching him feed, I was confident this was a legal ram.
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Dropping further down the face of the ridge, out of sight of the ram, I hustled towards him. I got to a rocky outcrop 200 metres from the ram and crawled around the side of it. The wind was beginning to pick up now and thick flakes started to fall.
I ranged the sheep at 198 metres, settled in behind my rifle, and calmed my heartbeat. I dry fired once to make sure I wasn’t flinching, loaded a round in my 270 WSM, breathed out, and squeezed the trigger.
I watched the round hit the ram behind the shoulder, double lung. I was worried he would run into an area I would not be able to access, so I decided to put him down. I shot him a second time and he immediately turned and sprinted straight downhill.
I crept over towards the last place I had seen him—no ram in sight. I found the spot he had been standing when I shot him and could see the blood trail headed down the mountain. I followed it to the edge of a cliff and then my heart dropped, as I peeked over the side of the cliff. Could I even get to my ram? What kind of condition would he be in? It was rapidly getting dark and I worried I wouldn’t find him.
As I came up with a plan, I moved to the side of the cliff where it looked as if I could descend the side; the descent looked okay from that point on.
I started down the side of the cliff, and then quickly realized my mistake. After descending about fifty feet, I slipped and fell, sliding ten feet before I caught myself on a rock. I couldn’t go back up now.
Working my way down that cliff face was the scariest experience of my life. The rocks were slick with wet snow, and other spots were windswept hard snow that would break through with no warning.
Eventually, after about a 400-foot elevation drop, I found my ram. He was wedged into some thick branches under a spruce tree. It took me five minutes of pushing, pulling, and swearing before I finally got him freed up. He immediately flipped over and started sliding again. I followed him, sliding on my butt and using the ram to cushion impacts against trees. After what seemed like an hour but was probably minutes of sliding, we found a somewhat level spot I could work on.
The sun was setting when I finally had my hands on my ram and could get a look at him. As has become a tradition for me, I got the lucky beer out of my pack and enjoyed a beer with the ram while I absorbed the experience and darkness fell.
Using my inReach, I texted my brother that I had downed a ram and he offered to come help pack it out. I knew that I would have to hustle to get the sheep broken down so that I wouldn’t keep him waiting for too long. I opened my pack to grab my headlamp and my heart fell. I had left my headlamp in the truck!
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I quartered out the sheep, got him loaded in game bags, and then loaded into my pack by light of my cell phone flashlight held between my teeth or wedged in the front pocket of my jacket. It was terrible light to work with, so between my hack job and the damage from the fall, I was sad to deem the cape unsalvageable.
Getting that loaded up pack on, I knew I was in for a world of hurt! I estimate my pack weight was around 130 to 140 pounds. That descent down the mountain was the hardest thing physically and mentally I have ever done. I lost the quarter I had strapped to the front of my pack within ten minutes, so I carried a hindquarter in one hand and my phone in the other for light the rest of the pack out. The snow depth ranged from six inches to two feet, as I tripped and slid my way down over blowdown and rocks. I was scraped and bruised from hitting trees and branches, and I could already feel a lump forming on my forehead where I decided to slow myself down by catching a tree with my face.
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Being soaked from head to toe and with the temperature rapidly dropping, I knew I would have to keep moving or risk hypothermia. I trudged across the creek bottom and got to the bank on the other side.
I met up with my brother at the top of the creek valley—I’ve never been so happy to see him! I loaded most of the sheep into his pack while I kept one quarter. We made good time the last four kilometres back to the truck, but it was still close to 2:00 am by the time we got home.
I’ll always remember this hunt as the scariest and toughest thing I have done up to this point in my life. My GPS said I put on 25 kilometres that day.
Already the memories of the hardships are fading and I’m planning my next sheep hunt (maybe not solo in the winter though). ■
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