idahohikker
WKR
- Joined
- May 10, 2017
- Messages
- 2,160
This wasn't me but I read it somewhere. Props to whoever lived through this.
In the spring of 1993 my hunting partner for the previous three big game seasons and I decided it was time to go after big horn sheep. I’ll not name the partner and just call him Bob because he probably will never forgive me for my bad plan on sheep hunting. We decided to apply for a big horn sheep tag in Idaho where we were both living, he was an import from Oregon and I was a native. The odds of drawing a tag in an area with a good chance of getting a sheep at that time were slim to none. There was one area in the Frank Church Wilderness area where we hunted elk that did offer a high success rate of drawing a tag, but a low success rate of harvesting a sheep. This area had some sheep, but it was very rugged and remote. You would have to walk around twenty miles from where you park your vehicle just to get to the areas to hunt sheep since the Wilderness area is road less, and no motorized vehicles can drive in the wilderness area. Bob and I were in our twenties, and in excellent physical shape. Bob grew up in Joseph, Oregon climbing up and down large mountains in the Hells Canyon area, and Blue Mountain range, with ease. I haven’t seen anybody that could come close to keeping up with him if he wanted to do some serious climbing. Even though I couldn’t hang with him if he really wanted to go climbing, I could go up and down big mountains quite easily. When we got ready to apply my cousin, we’ll call him Jim, asked if he could apply as well. In the early eighties Jim was a good athlete in high school, but married life, kids, and good eating had changed his body shape just a bit. Bob wasn’t excited about having someone in less than perfect physical shape hunting with us, but Jim was going to get in shape and go with us if we drew. We applied and we all drew tags for the hunt.
The hunt started on August 30th and that gave us four months to get in the best shape possible, and to scout the area for sheep. I’m a private pilot and at the time I was flying quite regularly. Before we started walking we flew the area a few times. All we saw from the air were huge herds of elk. On our first scouting trip we realized this was not going to be a walk in the park. I went on a couple four-day trips by myself and found some sheep, but not any big rams. We could only shoot a mature ram and all I was seeing was young rams with the ewes and lambs. On these scouting trips I started to come up with a plan on how to get us in to the sheep areas and get us and hopefully a couple rams out of the sheep areas. The main problem was that the sheep spent most of the time on top of the mountain where there wasn’t any water. The sheep could go up and down the mountain to get a drink, or they knew where small springs were, but it would take us a full day to make a round trip from the top of the mountain range to the bottom to get water. We would need to carry enough water to support us while we hunted on top the mountain. The easiest and best way to do this hunt was to fly into one of the dirt airstrips on the middle fork of the Salmon River and have an outfitter pack our camp and water to the top of the mountain. The outfitter would come back and get us when we got a sheep. This would have cost around $1000.00 dollars. That seemed like too much to spend, but looking back I spent a lot more than that before I got done hunting for a sheep.
There wasn’t any water at the top of the mountain so we couldn’t use our good saddle horses without taking them up and down the mountain every day to water them, and using up a lot of hunting time. That’s when I came up with a hair-brained idea. I thought we could use a couple of Jim’s donkeys to pack our camp and water up the mountain. Then we could just turn the donkeys loose and let them fend for themselves. The saddle horses were worth a couple thousand dollars, but we could get donkeys for $50.00. Most of the time if a saddle horse gets loose in the mountains it will either go back to the last place it spent the night or back the to the horse trailer. I thought the donkeys might go back the trailer, but they would probably just go down the mountain to the river and hang out there. Then we could get them if needed. Worst case they end up becoming somebody else’s animal, or maybe a predator kills them and we weren’t out too much money. The horse trailer was going to be close to 25 miles from where we were going to be hunting. If we got lucky and got a sheep we could just go looking for the donkeys hoping they were within a few miles. Then we would take them back to the sheep to pack it out. Someone should have shot me when I brought this idea up.
On August 28th I met Cousin Jim at his place and we went to load up two of his donkeys, Fetus, and Mary Lou. The trip started with us spending way too much time loading the stubborn beasts into the horse trailer. From there we headed to the trail head to camp for the night. We were going to spend all day on August 29th packing into the area to hunt and be ready for the opening on August 30th. Each of us would have a backpack that weighed around sixty-five pounds, and the two donkeys would have around eighty pounds on their backs.
The morning of the 29th came and we were packed and ready to start hiking around 4 A.M. Jim had a large roll of salami and he put that on one of the donkeys. I told him if he was going to carry that into bear country with us he would have to sleep a long way from us. He brought it anyway. The hike was going all right for the first couple hours and then we hit the first obstacle. It was a creek about one foot wide and one inch deep going across the trial. The donkeys refused to cross. After a long battle, some pushing and of course plenty of cussing the animals crossed. All the way they did the same thing at every creek and we crossed a dozen or so by noon. Then we hit an even bigger challenge. This was a bridge about forty feet wide if I recall across a deep ravine. I have to admit it was a bit intimidating, but by looking at the donkeys you would have thought we were tossing them right into a volcano in an animal sacrifice ritual. All the extra activity involved in getting the donkeys through the areas they didn’t like had slowed us down, and tired us out quite a bit. At this point we have walked over seven hours and we are about one third of the way to our destination. Bob and I were starting to have our doubts about arriving for the opening day. This was a good place to fill our water jugs and we kept going in hopes of arriving at the lookout by night.
We spent quite a while climbing to the top of the ridge dividing sheep creek and the middle fork of the Salmon River. When we got to the top of the mountain we could see the Thomas creek airstrip far below, and by now it was late afternoon. This is the time of day when you usually get a thunderstorm in the high country, and we did get drenched for a few minutes. We were so hot and tired we didn’t even put our rain gear on. By now it’s early evening and we’re still walking along the ridge and we have drank all our water. The trail finally started down the slope into the middle fork and we decided to camp the first place we found water, which was a ways down the hill and right at pitch dark around 9 P.M. We took off our packs, pumped some water through our filters and tired to find a place to pitch our tents. There wasn’t any place flat enough to get a tent to keep from just rolling off the shale rock covered mountain. I wedged my tent against a fallen tree and Bob found a small depression to get his tent to sit somewhat flat. I’m not sure if Jim even pitched a tent or if he just slept sitting up against a tree. Jim was looking real bad. It was probably a combination of being out of shape and the altitude, but when we went to sleep I thought he was looking pale. I was just plain tired so I slept even if it was very uncomfortable.
In the spring of 1993 my hunting partner for the previous three big game seasons and I decided it was time to go after big horn sheep. I’ll not name the partner and just call him Bob because he probably will never forgive me for my bad plan on sheep hunting. We decided to apply for a big horn sheep tag in Idaho where we were both living, he was an import from Oregon and I was a native. The odds of drawing a tag in an area with a good chance of getting a sheep at that time were slim to none. There was one area in the Frank Church Wilderness area where we hunted elk that did offer a high success rate of drawing a tag, but a low success rate of harvesting a sheep. This area had some sheep, but it was very rugged and remote. You would have to walk around twenty miles from where you park your vehicle just to get to the areas to hunt sheep since the Wilderness area is road less, and no motorized vehicles can drive in the wilderness area. Bob and I were in our twenties, and in excellent physical shape. Bob grew up in Joseph, Oregon climbing up and down large mountains in the Hells Canyon area, and Blue Mountain range, with ease. I haven’t seen anybody that could come close to keeping up with him if he wanted to do some serious climbing. Even though I couldn’t hang with him if he really wanted to go climbing, I could go up and down big mountains quite easily. When we got ready to apply my cousin, we’ll call him Jim, asked if he could apply as well. In the early eighties Jim was a good athlete in high school, but married life, kids, and good eating had changed his body shape just a bit. Bob wasn’t excited about having someone in less than perfect physical shape hunting with us, but Jim was going to get in shape and go with us if we drew. We applied and we all drew tags for the hunt.
The hunt started on August 30th and that gave us four months to get in the best shape possible, and to scout the area for sheep. I’m a private pilot and at the time I was flying quite regularly. Before we started walking we flew the area a few times. All we saw from the air were huge herds of elk. On our first scouting trip we realized this was not going to be a walk in the park. I went on a couple four-day trips by myself and found some sheep, but not any big rams. We could only shoot a mature ram and all I was seeing was young rams with the ewes and lambs. On these scouting trips I started to come up with a plan on how to get us in to the sheep areas and get us and hopefully a couple rams out of the sheep areas. The main problem was that the sheep spent most of the time on top of the mountain where there wasn’t any water. The sheep could go up and down the mountain to get a drink, or they knew where small springs were, but it would take us a full day to make a round trip from the top of the mountain range to the bottom to get water. We would need to carry enough water to support us while we hunted on top the mountain. The easiest and best way to do this hunt was to fly into one of the dirt airstrips on the middle fork of the Salmon River and have an outfitter pack our camp and water to the top of the mountain. The outfitter would come back and get us when we got a sheep. This would have cost around $1000.00 dollars. That seemed like too much to spend, but looking back I spent a lot more than that before I got done hunting for a sheep.
There wasn’t any water at the top of the mountain so we couldn’t use our good saddle horses without taking them up and down the mountain every day to water them, and using up a lot of hunting time. That’s when I came up with a hair-brained idea. I thought we could use a couple of Jim’s donkeys to pack our camp and water up the mountain. Then we could just turn the donkeys loose and let them fend for themselves. The saddle horses were worth a couple thousand dollars, but we could get donkeys for $50.00. Most of the time if a saddle horse gets loose in the mountains it will either go back to the last place it spent the night or back the to the horse trailer. I thought the donkeys might go back the trailer, but they would probably just go down the mountain to the river and hang out there. Then we could get them if needed. Worst case they end up becoming somebody else’s animal, or maybe a predator kills them and we weren’t out too much money. The horse trailer was going to be close to 25 miles from where we were going to be hunting. If we got lucky and got a sheep we could just go looking for the donkeys hoping they were within a few miles. Then we would take them back to the sheep to pack it out. Someone should have shot me when I brought this idea up.
On August 28th I met Cousin Jim at his place and we went to load up two of his donkeys, Fetus, and Mary Lou. The trip started with us spending way too much time loading the stubborn beasts into the horse trailer. From there we headed to the trail head to camp for the night. We were going to spend all day on August 29th packing into the area to hunt and be ready for the opening on August 30th. Each of us would have a backpack that weighed around sixty-five pounds, and the two donkeys would have around eighty pounds on their backs.
The morning of the 29th came and we were packed and ready to start hiking around 4 A.M. Jim had a large roll of salami and he put that on one of the donkeys. I told him if he was going to carry that into bear country with us he would have to sleep a long way from us. He brought it anyway. The hike was going all right for the first couple hours and then we hit the first obstacle. It was a creek about one foot wide and one inch deep going across the trial. The donkeys refused to cross. After a long battle, some pushing and of course plenty of cussing the animals crossed. All the way they did the same thing at every creek and we crossed a dozen or so by noon. Then we hit an even bigger challenge. This was a bridge about forty feet wide if I recall across a deep ravine. I have to admit it was a bit intimidating, but by looking at the donkeys you would have thought we were tossing them right into a volcano in an animal sacrifice ritual. All the extra activity involved in getting the donkeys through the areas they didn’t like had slowed us down, and tired us out quite a bit. At this point we have walked over seven hours and we are about one third of the way to our destination. Bob and I were starting to have our doubts about arriving for the opening day. This was a good place to fill our water jugs and we kept going in hopes of arriving at the lookout by night.
We spent quite a while climbing to the top of the ridge dividing sheep creek and the middle fork of the Salmon River. When we got to the top of the mountain we could see the Thomas creek airstrip far below, and by now it was late afternoon. This is the time of day when you usually get a thunderstorm in the high country, and we did get drenched for a few minutes. We were so hot and tired we didn’t even put our rain gear on. By now it’s early evening and we’re still walking along the ridge and we have drank all our water. The trail finally started down the slope into the middle fork and we decided to camp the first place we found water, which was a ways down the hill and right at pitch dark around 9 P.M. We took off our packs, pumped some water through our filters and tired to find a place to pitch our tents. There wasn’t any place flat enough to get a tent to keep from just rolling off the shale rock covered mountain. I wedged my tent against a fallen tree and Bob found a small depression to get his tent to sit somewhat flat. I’m not sure if Jim even pitched a tent or if he just slept sitting up against a tree. Jim was looking real bad. It was probably a combination of being out of shape and the altitude, but when we went to sleep I thought he was looking pale. I was just plain tired so I slept even if it was very uncomfortable.
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