Late that night we got a text from Casey. He had made it to base camp and he instructed us that the guide was not coming for us by plane and that we needed to pack back out over the mountain the way that we had come in! This was terrible news but at least we had a plan. We had lost our packer and he had left some of his gear with us in this camp so he would be light and fast and now we had to divide everything between the two of us and get out. We finished the last of our Mountain House meals that night and ate plenty of sheep meat. The next morning it was raining hard and we got a late start as the rain subsided. On 15August we left camp with heavy packs and started the long hike out. That morning all we had left for food was a small Cliff bar that we split in half. We had sheep meat of course but did not eat any more of that. We made the long hike at a modest but steady pace and wondered how fast Casey had made it with an empty pack. As we crested the largest mountain we could just see the tiny base camp finally. We were overjoyed to be so close to reaching our goal. We hesitated at the top of the mountain and discussed our options. The smartest decision would have been to camp there for the night near the spot where the three of us camped the first night out from base camp. We could have messaged Casey where we were and our intentions to stay there for the night and requested him and other packers to leave camp and make it up to us with food in the morning and split the load across two or three more strong backs. We were not thinking clearly as we were cold, hungry, a little wet, very tired and anxious to get to camp and the cots we could see below us. The light was fading and already behind the mountains perhaps 10pm I cannot remember but it should not take us too long to go downhill for goodness sakes. We were wrong, very wrong. Together we made the wrong decision to hike down the mountain that night right away. It was brutal and treacherous. Each step was hard fought with the 80-85 pound packs across the razor sharp and loose rocks. Each step was poised to potentially be our last and the descent was so steep and shear that frequently we could not see what obstacles were in front of us until it was too late and we encountered them only to discover that we would have to backtrack and go around as it was impassable with long straight drops off of cliffs. We were racing against the approaching darkness and there was no turning back as we picked our precarious path down the mountain. Once I walked along an edge about 15 feet long that was about half the width of my boot with my left cheek pressed firmly against the rock face. Eventually Joey had gotten stuck and pinned behind me on an obstacle that I had just finished. I heard him calling out to me in a panicked tone that he was falling. I turned quickly to see that he was wedged and stuck and unable to move but not actually falling. I did my best to reassure him that he was ok. He was agitated and described to me that he couldn't move and felt like his feet were sliding and he was going to fall. I did my best to calm him and told him to switch his feet around... he was trapped with his feet crossed underneath him and he looked awkward. He attempted to get his feet right but called out to me that he could not because his pack was too heavy and pressing him down and he could not lift himself up enough to swap his feet. He was panicked and distressed again and I told him "fine that is ok listen, just un clip out of your pack. Leave your pack there and get over here to me without it". He was able to unbuckle and squirm out of his pack and scramble over to me and we determined that his pack was likely wider than mine and couldn't pass by where I had taken my taller and top heavy pack. I was struggling mightily with the sloshing and shifting weight of my pack but up until this point was just getting by. I told him to remove his rifle and spotting scope from the pack. He and I agreed that the DeLorme Satellite communicator and his iPhone were vital so he retrieved those pieces from his pack as well and filled his pockets. I convinced him that I was ready to receive his pack and he needed to pass it down to me. I was holding tight to a boulder with my right hand and had my feet braced and my left arm out in space stretched at the ready. He told me that I could never catch it and I argued that I was 100% confident that I would catch it or at least stop it as it got to me. Boy was I wrong! On the count of three I was expecting him to lay down and gently release it to me as slow as possible. Instead he let it go like a 85 pound greased, slippery pig. It pounded my hand aside and flew past me like I was a child. We watched in horror as the pack landed beyond me and cartwheeled and picked up speed like nothing I have ever seen before. It was gone in a flash and the area was so steep I lost sight of it in seconds but could continue to hear it crash and go end over end all the way down the mountain. It made my stomach turn and I felt sick. I looked back up and over my shoulder at Joey and his expression I will never forget. Like a child at a county fair who just let go of their first balloon to watch it rise up and away forever. He started to tell me about all of the things in the pack that he was sure that were lost and destroyed. I tried to tell him that it was all just gear and stuff that could be replaced. "But my GPS is in there and my tent, my Oakleys... oh and my Vortex binoculars..." He was in shock and really so was I. It was different to witness a valued piece of gear rocketing toward the bottom of the mountain compared to the countless rocks that I have watched roll down the mountain this week. This was somehow more real and you could feel it cutting to your core. After a minute or two he snapped out of it and we again started picking our way carefully down the steep, sharp mountain.
Just a short few minutes after we lost his pack it happened, the unthinkable. I was still just ahead of Joey and I was standing on a large rock by myself about six foot by six foot in diameter. A large rock and it felt secure. It wasn't and in an instant it dropped out from under me and I could feel myself in free fall. I couldn't believe it was happening at first and realized that it was going to really hurt in a second as I fell approximately twenty feet. When the rock with me riding on top of it hit the mountain it crashed and pitched violently, tossing me like a ragdoll hard on my right butt cheek and thigh and then I was airborne and falling again. I had a flashback of the pack screaming down the mountain doing cartwheels so fast it was just a blur and I told myself that I could not let that be my fate. I spun my torso and grabbed to the razor rocks and anything that I could reach like a possessed cat being thrown aggressively into a bathtub. By God's divine providence I stuck right there like a piece of velcro to the mountain. The impact was sharp and I caught a pointed rock in the rib cage but I was not falling and I was conscious. Joey immediately broke out in a string of expletives shouting if I was ok. He asked repeatedly if I had broken my leg as he did his best to move quickly down to me unencumbered by his lost pack. I responded that my leg was ok; I could move it. In rapid fire succession he next asked if I had broken my arm as my brain was still trying to survey and inventory what had just happened and where I was hurting most. As I lifted my head off the rocks he was just getting along side me and I told him I was ok. He said "Shit man that was a bad one! Oh my God!" I told him that it really hurt the most in my ribs but that I could breathe ok. He asked if they were broken and I shrugged and said I don't think so. All in all we were both lucky and I just ended up with a massive bruise from my backside to my right knee and cuts and gashes on my hands and forearms and a good rib punch. We limped the rest of the way down the mountain and collected his gear as we came upon it piece by piece. Joey's Oakley sunglassess, Gerber knife, Gerber multitool, and Garmin GPS were donated to the mountain and never found as they were likely launched out of Joey's pack as it careened down the steep shale. A few other items display the scars of buzzing down the mountain the hard and fast way but survived to go another day. The Vortex no questions asked warranty will be put to the test for his binoculars.
After making it out of the steep rocks and getting to the start of the green part of the mountain we donned our headlights as we fully needed the light to continue. Walking in the green grass and lichen was much easier but still with some challenges. When we made it to the alders it was pure hell and very difficult to penetrate especially in the dark with the large and heavy pack and rifle catching every branch. The only good news is that we were very close to camp and I was whistling extremely loud every 40 yards hoping to wake the guys in camp to come meet us and help us through the alder mess so that we would not wander around any longer than we needed to. Eventually our calls were answered by Casey and another guy Jake and they grabbed our packs from us and got us quickly to a roaring fire. We ate food by the fire and they said that they had seen us up at the top of the mountain with our flashlights but guessed that we were going to wait and come down in the morning. They had lost us up near the top in the crags and deep cuts and did not see us start coming down. They laughed and called us bear bait walking through the alders with the sheep meat on our backs like a couple of fools. No good explanation of why we were sent to the Jones to hang out for several days before backtracking all the way back to camp was ever given by the head guide. I still don't know why that huge detour was accomplished and added on to the trip. Perhaps in some strange way it was earning the ram the hard way instead of getting lucky and taking him on the second day of the season and then walking out the third? Maybe the head guide thought we were ahead of schedule and needed to burn some time in the wilds of Alaska?
The next day I slept in a little bit and then over breakfast the head guide asked me if I wanted him to call the charter and get me out of camp ahead of schedule. I said heck no I have a wolf tag and a caribou tag; I am ready to hunt! I asked if they were seeing any good caribou in the caribou camp and he replied that no one was out there yet and he had other hunters that he needed to get out there and other spots ahead of me. Two days later he and some other guys were looking over the poles for a wall tent and it was determined that they were cut to the wrong lengths for the tent that was supposed to go out to the Caribou Camp. So a smaller Cabelas Alaska Guide tent was rustled up and it and an older guy who does have a AK guide license flew out and got it set up. The next day the older hunter with a brain tumor went out there and another hunter from either Wisconsin or Minnesota made it out to the Caribou Camp. I sat in camp and hunted wolves for a few days around camp unsuccessfully. I heard once or twice that the guys in Caribou Camp were not seeing many 'bou at all and all were far away out of range and it was too small of a camp for more hunters to join. There was a film crew in camp filming video for a show called "Building Alaska" or something close to that. It may be on the Discovery or DIY channel. They shot some time lapse video of my ram horns on a piece of timber at dusk with the clouds moving quickly in the background and the videographer let me watch the footage on his camera and it looked really good. My overall opinion was that the head guide had a lot going on in camp and was a little consumed with the tv film crew and perhaps had too many hunters to handle. Maybe not but that was my take away and several other hunters thought the same as well and people were talking about it. A few of the guides and in camp help also told me that they would have been pissed as hell at being left out at the Jones for days and not given any word only to then to make it back to camp and then sit for days and days and not get moved to a camp for caribou was poor treatment as well. So after a week waiting around I called it good and got out of camp. Of the ten hunters that I knew and saw in camp hunting sheep including me five were successful. I am grateful for my trip, the amazing country and bringing home a trophy that I will always cherish. I can't wait for my next Alaska adventure!
