Brooks Range Dall Sheep - Foot on the gas!!!

[trophyhunt]

I've never seen hunters so clean and fresh looking as that one pic.  Are we sure they got to the mountains? Maybe purchased trophys from the natives?   

[Karl Blanchard]

DEFYING THE ODDS

  The legendary Jack O'Connor once wrote that "The wild ram embodies the mystery and magic of the mountains, the rocky canyons, the snowy peaks, the fragrant alpine meadows, the gray slide rock, the icy, dancing rills fed by snowbank and glacier, the sweet, clean air of the high places, and the sense of being alone on the top of the world with the eagles, the marmots, and the wild sheep themselves." When setting out on our first sheep hunt we could never have imagined how accurate a statement that would be...

We landed in Bettles Alaska on a rainy Saturday morning with stars in our eyes and white sheep on our minds. We hastily made our way to the air taxi office to check in and get the scoop on our odds of departure. Our greeting came in the form of a swift kick to the gut with news that an outfitter had setup shop on the exact spot we had picked and e-scouted all summer. We were left scrambling to quickly decide on a new landing site. The Brooks Range is vast and throwing a dart at a giant map is not how we envisioned starting our trip but indecisiveness has no place in Alaska mountain hunting so a new lake was picked as we dashed to the hangar to pair down gear and get ready to fly. The hours ticked by slowly and eventually word came that there would be no flying today. With sleeping bags deployed and dinner eaten, we stared at the ceiling till the sound of rain on the metal roof lulled us to sleep.

Day two was fairly uneventful.  Cloud ceiling was 500 feet so no flying. We drank a few too many $2.50 diet Pepsi's and an over priced bowl of Ramen from the Sour Dough lodge. The first half of the day was spent in the hangar chatting with the other hunters and rafters awaiting their own trips to the bush. It was 2pm when Lilly poked her head out of the office door and said "get ready guys you're up!"

We were already packed up and ready to party. The Cessna 185 was skipping down the lake by 3pm and we were on our way. A short 1hr flight later and we were touching down on a random lake we didn't have on any of our maps.

[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

We had a 5 mile hike to where we wanted to cache our extra food and gear and due to it being late and foggy we decided to just camp there.  We trimmed our packs down, ate dinner and hit the sacks.

Light shining through the tent greated us to our first day of hunting! Bursting from our tent there was a light fog blanketing the tundra but we were optimistic for the day.  We ate breakfast, pitched the bear fence and we were off. We rounded the bend and into a large drainage that fed into the drainage we were camped in.  Just as we did, the sun burned through and we could see for miles. We sat down to glass and almost immediately I spotted 4 rams.  They were 3 miles away so we grabbed packs and beat feet farther up the drainage.  At 1 mile away we set up again to see if we could make out horns better and could we ever!

There were two banana rams, a 3/4 curl, and 1 older ram with a long driver side and a broomed off passenger side. Still two far away to tell for sure but out of real-estate to make a play from there. About that time a big fog bank rolled in and gave us another opportunity to cut distance. We got to within 500 yards but more fog blacked out the mountain and we could no longer see them.  Off and on the fog would blow out enough to catch glimpses of them but never enough to pull an accurate range. Though 500 and in is my comfort zone, an exact range is always required. The stakes were too high for kentucky windage shooting. As we sat in the fog impatiently awaiting a clear view of the mountain and our ram the rain set in. We pitched our tarp for some much needed shelter just as it turned to driving snow.

The fog broke long enough to get eyes back on them and we determined he was in fact legal, but once again with mist and fog we couldn't get an accurate range. When the thick fog rolled in and we lost sight we decided to close the gap again. We made our ascent but driving rain and dense fog forced us back down. A bit past 9 p.m. we decided we weren't gonna get our break and trudged through the muskeg the 4 miles back to the tent.

[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

The morning of day 4 was a welcome sight with broken skies and sunshine. We packed up and made our way back to our rams.  They had moved way back into a high green basin and were comfortably bedded with a commanding view of their kingdom.

Working up and out of their line of sight we gained our needed elevation and closed the gap. The heavy fog moved in and we used it to get across from them. We were now inside 600 yards and had a perfect ambush spot setup. All day we sat under the tarp in the driving rain, mist, and dense fog. Around 6 p.m. we finally got our break but to our disappointment there were no sheep to be seen. With no clue which direction they went we just started picking our way up through the rocky canyon. About a mile in Michael hisses "there they are up on the rock wall!" 

They were 915 yards. Too far for a shot. We backed out and picked our way up another 700 vertical feet and moved up to within rifle range.  Michael got on the spotter and I got down on the rifle.  They knew something was up so there was no time for messing around. I got a range, dialed accordingly and settled in. With nothing to read wind off of except for the icy breeze kissing the beads of sweat on my own face, I made my call and held accordingly but the only wind effect was a big updraft on the rock wall and my first shot went high! I worked the bolt and quickly made my adjustment, checked level, and sent a second round hitting him squarely in the shoulders.

He hobbled behind a large boulder with only the top of his horns giving away his position. Those horns began to sway and in an instant he tumbled a short distance to his final resting place at the top of a cascading water fall high in the canyon. It was a nail biting ascent up to him. Lichen covered Cliff faces, scree slides, and boulder fields laid in our path. It took us an hour to find a safe path to reach him....

"He was snow-white, his eyes were amber, and his horns the color of dried lemon peel."
—“The Dall Sheep,” September 1960

When we got to him he was laying in the water and rock. The cliffs that once offered him sanctuary now stood guard above what was to be his tomb. Never in my life had I seen such a regal beast with my own two eyes. There before us on that flat slab of God's rugged earth was OUR RAM! Not some guy from a video or magazine but ours! We had flown 2,000 miles on 3 planes, planned and dreamed for years, conditioned tirelessly, all to bring us to this moment and oh how sweet it was! The odds said it was to be an impossible task but fate had other plans and deemed us worthy. We were now....sheep hunters!

"There is no half way. After his first exposure, a man is either a sheep hunter or he isn’t. He either falls under the spell of sheep hunting and sheep country or he won’t be caught dead on another sheep mountain." - Jack O'Connor

With pictures taken, and careful knife work complete, we shouldered our packs a bit after 10:30pm as it began to rain. The same obstacles that we had to traverse to reach him we now had to navigate down but this time more wet than ever. It was downhill for hours in the rock, rain, and fog.  Fog so thick visibilty was less than 30 yards. Picking a line down only to be turned back time and time again was painstakingly slow. When we reached the valley floor the same fog we had descended for hours through engulfed us even more.

The mental and physical strain were taking their toll and by 2 a.m. I couldn't take another step without unshouldering my pack and eating something. As our freeze dried dinners rehydrated we erected our now beloved tarp. We inhaled our food and tried to sleep but being soaked and cold it was fruitless. As our chivering became uncontrollable the need to move again became paramount. The thick fog still had visibility down to mere yards but river to our left and cliffs to our right meant we were moving in the right direction.

A few minutes before 7 a.m.  and 8.5 miles of cliff, rock, and muskeg later we arrived back at our tent. Throwing meat, cape, and horns every which way as we dove into our sleeping bags was a glorious feeling. The hardest single physical event of either of our lives was now over and sleep swept over us in an instant.

[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

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[Karl Blanchard]

To be continued on account of dinner time....dall sheep backstrap, garden fresh sauteed zucchini,  and roasted taters 

[trophyhunt]

Man, and I didn’t think it was possible for you to get any more bad ass!!  I have a man crush on you Karl! 


🤣

On a serious note, gonna be tough to beat that as far as a personal goal! Amazing job, my hips hurt after reading your story! Congrats man, very, very beyond cool!

[NRA4LIFE]

What a start!