looking back at 2022

[mtwarden]

This my first year being fully retired and have to say- it was fricken great!

I got a ton of adventures in throughout the year- a 8 day trip across the Bob Marshall on snowshoes (probably won't repeat that one! ); my seventh year toeing the line at the Bob Marshall Wilderness Open in May; a 8 day cross country trip across the Sierra's with a couple of buddies; got some nice day hikes in with my grandkids; got a few trips in the Cabinet Wilderness helping my buddy's father-in-law in pursuit of a bighorn; a few trips with another buddy in the Mission Mountains Wilderness who had an early season mule deer tag; an antelope hunt with another buddy in Eastern Montana where I used to live; celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary with my wife backpacking in the Big Belts; helped a buddy harvest and pack out his first deer; filled the freezer late in the season with a cow elk and racked up a ton of miles with my every faithful dog- Tiny Elvis.

Bring on 2023 baby!

 

[PorterNY]

That sounds like a great year… your living the dream..

 

[AKDoc]

This my first year being fully retired and have to say- it was fricken great!

I got a ton of adventures in throughout the year- a 8 day trip across the Bob Marshall on snowshoes (probably won't repeat that one! ); my seventh year toeing the line at the Bob Marshall Wilderness Open in May; a 8 day cross country trip across the Sierra's with a couple of buddies; got some nice day hikes in with my grandkids; got a few trips in the Cabinet Wilderness helping my buddy's father-in-law in pursuit of a bighorn; a few trips with another buddy in the Mission Mountains Wilderness who had an early season mule deer tag; an antelope hunt with another buddy in Eastern Montana where I used to live; celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary with my wife backpacking in the Big Belts; helped a buddy harvest and pack out his first deer; filled the freezer late in the season with a cow elk and racked up a ton of miles with my every faithful dog- Tiny Elvis.

Bring on 2023 baby!

Right on guy! A body in motion stays in motion, and you are definitive proof of those physics! I'm of the same mind-set at 70, but still enjoying my work (just two-days a week now) after a very busy and enjoyable career!

This year I did a number of wonderful camping trips and a couple of trips to Hawaii with my college sweet-heart wife, and then some halibut fishing in Cook Inlet, a 7-day black-tail hunt on Prince of Wales in SE AK, a very remote DIY 10-day/100-mile lite-raft float in western AK, and a 14-day remote-drop DIY moose hunt also in western AK (took my biggest bull moose this year, 64")...already booked for hunts this year as well.

A few images from 2022...



Getting 2023 off to a good start as well...my wife and I leave in a few days for South America.

The very best to you all for a great 2023!

 

[Dsnow9]

Nice!

 

[mtwarden]

Right on guy! A body in motion stays in motion, and you are definitive proof of those physics! I'm of the same mind-set at 70, but still enjoying my work (just two-days a week now) after a very busy and enjoyable career!

This year I did a number of wonderful camping trips and a couple of trips to Hawaii with my college sweet-heart wife, and then some halibut fishing in Cook Inlet, a 7-day black-tail hunt on Prince of Wales in SE AK, a very remote DIY 10-day/100-mile lite-raft float in western AK, and a 14-day remote-drop DIY moose hunt also in western AK (took my biggest bull moose this year, 64")...already booked for hunts this year as well.

A few images from 2022...

View attachment 497921View attachment 497923View attachment 497922View attachment 497918View attachment 497919View attachment 497920

Getting 2023 off to a good start as well...my wife and I leave in a few days for South America.

The very best to you all for a great 2023!

Very nice! I agree wholeheartedly- live life while you can, age is just a number

Enjoy South America- that would be a very interesting place to visit!

 

[Boarmaster]

I’m glad your having a good year. Enjoy it. I’m having a great year as well. I killed a descent six and a nice doe in AL the first trip. Then the next week killed a big 8 in Ohio. Went back to AL between Christmas and new years and shot a couple does. Heading back for the AL rut for 10-12 days on the 19th. That will wrap it up for this year. Im not retired but well establish in my business and technology has allowed me to be away from home base and still keep the business rolling.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

You old dudes are an inspiration. Knocking on a “young” 40 here quickly and just lost one of my childhood best friends to a sudden death Friday night. He was NOT a body in motion, and now his wife and 3 young daughters have to figure life out on their own.

Keep moving and enjoying life! It can be gone in the blink of an eye.

 

[AKDoc]

...Keep moving and enjoying life! It can be gone in the blink of an eye.

Amen...well said.

 

[Dexter]

Beautiful country

 

[WannabeElkHntr]

Inspiration for this old dude. Made me tired just laying on the couch reading about MTWarden’s trips. Mental drive is huge component of fighting the slowing of our drive by age. Physical diminishment also. Appears though that men at least, living out west, at higher altitude, are tougher? More endurance? Healthier with the lifestyle that comes with Mountains and Forests. Flatland there at 3k to 4 k altitude. I am on my couch at about 983 ft..lol. Can get to 1k in the tree stand. Rehabbing a cardiac conundrum and h oping to draw a tag for Mt for elk. Not going to hunt real high though. Or in real rough. May be just a walk in beautiful country. But will be smelling the wind and observing all the life as I go thru it.

 

[tuffcity]

This, in early June, put a serious crimp in my backpack hunts this year.

But managed to get out in late Sept to chase moose with the fam.

A little October coho fishing in Haines, AK with a buddy

And a few weeks ago a 3 day outing for bison.

Heading to warmer climes next month for 3 weeks and maybe get some spearfishing in.

 

[survivalistd]

Looking forward to retire but also nervous about it..

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

 

[f16jack]

Just hit 60 myself. I'm envious of your options; I grew up in Kalispell but now live down in Utah. This is as close as I could get to back home. Some mountains and wilderness here, but not like the Bob going in from Hungry Horse. Congrats.

 

[Nails]

Only 68, but managed a solo drop-off brown bear hunt on the Alaska peninsula. got a really nice mule deer in Oregon, a Montana whitetail, plus some good halibut. It was a good year!

 

[rodney747]

As a member of the "only 68" club that's a great accomplishment! Congrats Nails!

 

[gonhunting247]

Only 68, but managed a solo drop-off brown bear hunt on the Alaska peninsula. got a really nice mule deer in Oregon, a Montana whitetail, plus some good halibut. It was a good year!

Very good year, I like it!

 

[gonhunting247]

Right on guy! A body in motion stays in motion, and you are definitive proof of those physics! I'm of the same mind-set at 70, but still enjoying my work (just two-days a week now) after a very busy and enjoyable career!

This year I did a number of wonderful camping trips and a couple of trips to Hawaii with my college sweet-heart wife, and then some halibut fishing in Cook Inlet, a 7-day black-tail hunt on Prince of Wales in SE AK, a very remote DIY 10-day/100-mile lite-raft float in western AK, and a 14-day remote-drop DIY moose hunt also in western AK (took my biggest bull moose this year, 64")...already booked for hunts this year as well.

A few images from 2022...

View attachment 497921View attachment 497923View attachment 497922View attachment 497918View attachment 497919View attachment 497920

Getting 2023 off to a good start as well...my wife and I leave in a few days for South America.

The very best to you all for a great 2023!

Keep up the good work, that is great!

 

[gonhunting247]

This my first year being fully retired and have to say- it was fricken great!

I got a ton of adventures in throughout the year- a 8 day trip across the Bob Marshall on snowshoes (probably won't repeat that one! ); my seventh year toeing the line at the Bob Marshall Wilderness Open in May; a 8 day cross country trip across the Sierra's with a couple of buddies; got some nice day hikes in with my grandkids; got a few trips in the Cabinet Wilderness helping my buddy's father-in-law in pursuit of a bighorn; a few trips with another buddy in the Mission Mountains Wilderness who had an early season mule deer tag; an antelope hunt with another buddy in Eastern Montana where I used to live; celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary with my wife backpacking in the Big Belts; helped a buddy harvest and pack out his first deer; filled the freezer late in the season with a cow elk and racked up a ton of miles with my every faithful dog- Tiny Elvis.

Bring on 2023 baby!

I love reading about your adventures, pretty awesome stuff!

 

[Pony Soldier]

Over the hill and wore out but still going. I spent the summer channel sampling gold deposits and evaluating a couple placer deposts. After five weeks in camp, I got home in August to put up my hay for the winter. Along with shoeing horses.

I followed that with splitting and stacking six chords of wood in the shed so I could get out and starting cutting out trails for access.

When season finally hit, recon included still cutting out trails I hadn't got to yet.

We picked up a little bull in a remote hole and got him packed out. Almost every day brought more snow and frigid weather. Coming in from the bottom, we finally cut tracks about 8 miles in at about 8,200 ft. The next day we came at them from the east side to cut off a couple miles. I got to use one of my trails to the higher parks and about 3:00pm cut into where the elk had been feeding the night before.

We retreated to the north and hoped to be able to catch them as they fed that direction. We made it in about 8 miles to about 7500 ft. Again we were behind them so we rode to a pass they travel through and then headed back to the truck. About halfway back as we broke out on a ridge, we could see 17 head feeding across a near verticle sagebrush face about a mile off. We cut down the trail about a mile to an old skid trail until we could access a fire trail through a bunch of second growth. About a mile of that and we found a place after about A mile where we could safely leave the horses and start off on foot to try to get to the ridge the elk were on. We immediately got into a blowdown patch where there was about 20 acres of downfall of 14 " trees stacked knee high to chest high.

We wallowed through natures jungle gymn for 20 minutes before we broke out into a less dense downfall patch where we had to crawl over a tree every 4-5 ft. Finally we broke out onto the ridge face where the slope went from 25-35 degrees to where it was rock and sagebrush at 45-50 degrees. If we hadn't had corks on it would have been a challenge to keep from sliding to the creek.

We spotted a cow at about 350 yds looking at us between a couple lone trees. I struggled with how to get steady on a shot. I leaned into a chunk of sage while shooting nearly straight up the hill at the elk giving me a frontal shot. I held on the middle neck allowing for bullet drop. She dropped like a stone at the shot.

We tied her off to the sage to anchor her while I gutted her out. The challenge was to get her across the slope to the trees without her taking us for a ride down the hill.

My partner towed her carefully while I ran a tail rope to maintain control. We got to the trees just at dark. We pulled her to a patch of deadfall and figured we were safe until tomorrow since we still had a three mile ride to get out in the dark after crawling through the downfall to get to the horses.

We returned the next day, sawed a trail out and got her loaded. Once again we were back to the truck about an hour after dark.

We rested for a day and the spent the rest of the season (20 days) trying to fill the remaining tags. Each day resembled what I had just done.

I was 71 and my partner is sixty. I'm always forever thankful for the young guy I have for a partner. Logger Dan would appreciate him as he spent most of his life as a sawyer and cat skinner.

 

[FLATHEAD]

I'll be 57 this fall and really looking forward to retirement,,,maybe at 62,
Feel like I'm wasting my time at work.