Letters from Alaska by Bill Hauser

Author:Bill Hauser
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594333460
Publisher: Publication Consultants

Chapter Thirteen

Keep Trying, Again

Sheep hunting has lots of ups and downs.

Monday, August 26, 1985

Hello.

I have got some time to kill now so I can make a start on my annual letter. We’re waiting for the fog to lift from the top of the mountain so we can go look for one of the rams we spotted as we flew in yesterday.

The last week has been real topsy turvy for me. Just one week ago, I learned that Phil, my intended sheep-hunting partner could not make the trip this year–just as I was finishing plans to schedule a trip with the flying service. We had planned go to the same area where we have gone the last two years. I groped around blindly to find a new partner and by Tuesday noon, I had given up and began to plan a duck-hunting trip instead. Then Dave called. He had also planned to hunt here, but one week later. As it happens, his partner had also canceled but he decided he could warp his schedule so he could go sheep hunting with me. Anyhow, Saturday, we drove all night to get to Northway. We flew into this remote Baultoff Creek airstrip by Sunday noon and packed in about 7 miles in 5 hours to set up a spike camp.

Overnight, it rained almost constantly and this morning there is snow on the saddle we had intended to hunt across. Unfortunately, the fog is there, too. It would be dangerous to hunt and it would be easy to get lost. So here we are, waiting in our tent for the fog to lift so we can get out for a walk.

Gosh, I surely would like to get a nice sheep and maybe, later, another caribou.

August 27

Writing time again. Our hunting plan entails hiking upslope from our spike camp about a mile with about 1,500 feet elevation gain. We plan to cross over that saddle, cross the next small drainage, and up to the next ridge. From there, we will work our way down the ridgeline looking for sheep. With this strategy, we hope to approach the animals from above and behind as they typically lie in a good vantage point of their own and look out over the broad valleys below. The bad news is that if we have success we’ll have to bring them back up to the saddle from the other side before we can get back to our spike camp.

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