Spring Bear Wenaha

[pd]

27,000 feet of gross elevation gain?  Holy Healthy Hamstrings!

Keep that muscle tone by doing regular Badger Mountain 70# hikes, and come September you will be ready for an epic elk hunt.   

[fillthefreezer]

Kept my logger on daily. 27k feet of elevation gained and lost from trailhead to trailhead over 9 days in the high country.


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that nothing compared to our last years 40k in colorado   

[Jonathan_S]

Yea I think fone's dead.  Probably left it on listening to itunes Rap all night to block out the wolves howling.......

Werewolves of London, Warren Zevon...repeat. 

[longwalker]

Your not seriously calling it quits on that hunt on the 3rd of May are you ? He'll it's only just getting good

[Jonathan_S]

Your not seriously calling it quits on that hunt on the 3rd of May are you ? He'll it's only just getting good

   can't quit now. 

[SilkOnTheDrySide]

Only so much time off. Plenty of time to kill a fall bear too. I'll likely squeeze an extra weekend in before season ends.


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[Nature Boy]

Silk, sounds like you had a pretty cool experience and made some good memories.  Most hunters only dream of doing the kind of hunt you just did.  Hunting the Blues is no joke, especially the way you tackled it.  There's a reason I use the Wenaha as a shakedown before going into "the church".  Looking forward to reading more about your lessons learned and equipment reviews.       

[SilkOnTheDrySide]

On the Wenaha:  Love it.  This place has a wildness that is intoxicating.  The "established" trails are primitive in nature.  I must have rolled my ankle about 25 times over the course of the week thanks to the rocks everywhere.  Chasing after bears down ridges that turned into basic rock climbing with a 30 lb pack left me sweating outside my comfort zone.

While chasing that giant blonde yesterday, we got to a point where I had to swing my leg around, and time the weight shift of my pack to my next hand hold.  The fall wouldn't have likely killed me, but it didn't look pleasant, and very likely would have ended up a hurting unit.  There were ridges and spots like this everywhere, it was awesome.

This wilderness being 7 hours from Seattle sees significantly less traffic then most of the other wildernesses in this state and it shows.  There was countless animals to glass and for the most part they didn't seem overly afraid of people.  I would love to draw an elk tag in there someday.

The Bears:  We saw 8 bears over the trip, 5 blacks, 2 cinnamons, 1 blonde.  I can't stop thinking about that blonde, regardless of the two mess-ups.  This bear was giant.  But it ended up being an insane adventure to get to his meadow we saw him in.  Likely would have been 6 hours one way...at the least.  He would have been worth it if I think getting over there would have netted a chance.  But he disappeared into a stand of timber that led to 5 different drainages.  That country is big.  Not to mention 6 hours could have turned into 8 one way if we maybe encountered some dead fall (likely).

Gear: Didn't have a lot of new gear this trip, but what I did have was pretty good.  I switched to the Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Lock poles, and they were much more rigid then my previous Black Diamonds, which was necessary on this trip.  I also debated heavily on whether or not to carry a camp knife. 

I finally got sick of digging my Havalon out everytime I needed to cut something.  I had some extra cash available and ordered a custom Benchmade Griptillian and it worked as intended, and I will continue to carry a camp knife going forward.

Not really "gear," but I'm finally VERY happy with my food layout.  I was sick of, after 3 seasons trying to eat the chalk of the protein bars.  I adjusted my food intake to the following:

Breakfast and Snacks:  1.5 oz chocolate covered coffee beans, Nutri Grain Breakfast bar, 2 candy bars (one sweet one chocolate), orchards bar, ritz cheese cracker pack.

Lunch:  Either a Butthole Sandwhich (Bagel, peanut butter, 3 slices of bacon, honey), or 2 Tortillas with 1 cheese stick, 4 slickes of salami, and 14 slices of pepperoni. 

Dinner:  I switched from Mountain House to Hawk Vittles, and I must say, this was the "WIN" of the trip for me.  Hawk Vittles while having some quirks, far surpassed MH for me.  The calories for many of the items BLOWS away MH, for example the lasagna is 900 calories and 49G of protein.  I didn't feel as full as MH, but I also didn't feel bloated with sodium.  The numbers are better, and I felt better after eating it day after day.  I repackaged all of mine into ziplock bags from the vacuum sealed bags they came in (use the thick freezer ones), and next time I'll add some garlic salt, pepper, cayenne, etc to the ones that needed it.  I'd recommend saving an extra zip lock for the linguini or spaghetti as the noodles poked both through the vacuum seal and the freezer zip lock necessitating a pre cook replacement. 

On Going SOLO:  I loved it.  Never felt lonely or scared.  It was a bit of a surreal experience being that alone, and having that extreme quietness encompassing you.  But as I told Scott (FillTheFreezer), I missed having someone to bounce ideas off of, and I must say I prefer hunting with a partner, but I know now that I can do it without problem.

On this misses:  The first bear was the first case of buck fever I've ever had.  There's not much else to say about the situation then I rushed it.  I used a subpar rest when there were better available if I would have spent 30 seconds looking around.  I imposed an unnecessary sense of urgency I hope to not ever encounter again.

The second bear, very well could have been the same as the first, the meadow I caught him in was at the top of the drainage he ran into.  Which made for some comical comments from my friends afterwords, "HEY, I can't shake this guy!"

I was good, and relaxed on him, even though there was a true sense of urgency.  I had probably 3 minutes from spot to timber to get a shot off.  I spent 2.5 minutes ranging, and calming down for my shot.  The bolt wasn't completely engaged and so when I squeezed the trigger it clicked and the bolt slammed down.  It even left a dimple on the round, just not enough to engage the blasting cap.  So then I had seconds to reevaluate my shot, get on him and fire.  I panicked a little bit and just missed.

Regardless, I think it's inspired me to limit any issues I may have at long range including adding a break, turrets, reticle change, and limbsaver.

Overall Feelings:  This is two major trips in a row that I have drastically increased my hunting and backpacking knowledge.  It was my second favorite hunting trip of my life.  It was a battle of weather (we had snow to 70), grit, extreme highs and drastic lows emotionally, and camaraderie and adventure without equal.

Our overall motto is not to become old men without stories.  This trip was one for the books.  If you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them, and thank you for following me along on this trip, it was a blast doing a live hunt, and I'll likely do it again for Colorado Archery Elk this fall.

[ellensburgpo]

Great stuff. I'm heading over next week for the first of two weeks and this was really helpful. Thanks for taking the time to put this up.

[Chesapeake]

I'd skip the loudener, unless you've got a giant magnum, then I'd get a smaller round.
Turret is it, but just 1 for elevation. You can hold wind, or don't shoot.
A clean duplex reticle seems best to me. Noisy reticles seem cool till the moment of truth. Then not so much. We hunters just don't get to practice enough to have them engrained in our muscle memory.
If you don't have time to range and dial, you don't have time to shoot that far.
Set a 250 zero so anything inside of 300 is in point blank range.
Shoot a bullet with a high BC so wind guesses aren't as critical. Bullet drop is science, wind drift is voodoo.
Starbucks via, idahoan potatoes, the tuna sandwich mix in the foil packs, Lipton instant soup, ect.... Lots of stuff to fill the tummy.

[pd]

Good stuff, Silk. Honest and to the point.

[mburrows]

Awesome breakdown silk. Thanks for sharing the lessons learned.

[longwalker]

Blasting cap? You shooting a long range muzzle loader ?

[Watimberghost]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us Silk! Sounds like you had one hell of a hunt. Great hunts don't always end with dead animals. But with the effort you put forth I'm thinking you'll have a 2015 bear down soon enough. 

[SilkOnTheDrySide]

I'd skip the loudener, unless you've got a giant magnum, then I'd get a smaller round.
Turret is it, but just 1 for elevation. You can hold wind, or don't shoot.
A clean duplex reticle seems best to me. Noisy reticles seem cool till the moment of truth. Then not so much. We hunters just don't get to practice enough to have them engrained in our muscle memory.
If you don't have time to range and dial, you don't have time to shoot that far.
Set a 250 zero so anything inside of 300 is in point blank range.
Shoot a bullet with a high BC so wind guesses aren't as critical. Bullet drop is science, wind drift is voodoo.
Starbucks via, idahoan potatoes, the tuna sandwich mix in the foil packs, Lipton instant soup, ect.... Lots of stuff to fill the tummy.

Turret would be for range only.

Break greatly reduces recoil which on my Tikka would be fantastic!

Zero is already 250.

Many of those food options are nice, but aren't efficient. I've got about 100 nights in a sleeping bag over the last three years, and while I'm not an expert, I feel I've spent enough time to earn an opinion.

Coffee, soup, potatoes, etc are just extra boils, time, and lower available water for me to drink. Not to mention extra fuel which may necessitate bringing another fuel canister.

I love coffee, but I'd rather sleep an extra twenty minutes, hence chocolate covered coffee beans.

The reason I'm so happy with my food this trip is I feel the flavor and variety was fantastic while keeping my calories at or around MY necessary calorie needs.


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