November '23 Himalayan Blue Sheep story

[buzzy]

What an amazing adventure and looking forward to the rest of the story.

 

[WRO]

Tagged in for later/

 

[adamkolesar]

Back to it.
4am arrived and the wake up salutation delivered. No sweat getting ready as all I had to do was throw on my boots. I slept and lived in my hunting gear the whole trip.
A quick hot breakfast of pancakes, SPAM and an omelette w/ coffee and it was go time.
There were 7 of us in the hunting party.
Me and my buddy Erik, Chyangba the head guide and Baran the assistant guide who farm in the off season. Big Mon the porter, a parks officer who "certifies" the hunt and a guy who carried lunch.
First order of business was the 2000' climb to the hunting area the guides wanted to explore. Quite a wake up! Baran lives in the region and knows these mountains like the back of his hand. They got us up the mountain as quickly as we could tolerate. They were careful not to blow us up in the ascent. It took us a bit under two hours to reach the hunt area at about 15,500ft.My buddy Erik was responsible for tech.
He kept the In Reach and Sat phone during the hunt. The above image depicted our daily ascent to the hunt area. Here's what it looked like when we arrived.

We came over the far ridge by the mountain lake. This was one of the improvised shelters found throughout the preserve. Our guides were expert at spotting sheep which are as difficult to find as their desert counterparts in this environment.
It didn't take long to find a band of sheep with three potential shooters in the mix of ewes, kids and young'uns.
They were far off feeding in a bowl. This hunt was run and gun the whole time. There weren't extended sessions glassing as all rams are "legal".
These guys made it happen with "donated" Vortex binos, although Chyangba had some vintage Leica 15's. Their Bushnell spotting scope was of similar vintage. That said, these guys made it work.
Mahesh and his crew have a high standard as to what they'll pursue. Basically it's the same standard that any good North American outfitter insists upon for mature rams.
I had full confidence that I wouldn't be urged to take a sub-standard animal by my non English speaking guide.
Language was a barrier. The guy from the parks department did serve as an interpreter when needed which was helpful. Off we went to get a closer look a trio of potential rams.



This is another of my favorite shots of the trip. As Dukxdog mentioned in his post, these guys don't allow you to carry anything. They just want you to get your carcass up the mountain and not fall off of it!
Here we see Chyangba and Baran keeping an eye on the sheep we were pursuing.
You'll also note nearly all these photos are when we are sitting still. I was too busy living up to the "don't fall off the mountain" part of the deal.
I'll keep chipping...

 

[adamkolesar]

OK time to finish this up.
We spent about an hour and a half side hilling in search of a good spot to set up for a shot. Unfortunately as our target ram was bedded, the wind shifted and the scent of a party of seven reached the rams, and off they went, just leisurely climbing out of the bowl. The ewes and kids seemed unimpressed.
The hunt continued. We reached 16,500 ft in our search for a mature rams and saw several bands of sheep but no mature rams to set up on.
Next are several images documenting a day in the mountains:


Special mention goes to "Big Mon" a 5th generation porter and acknowledged as the strongest guy in the group. He managed to climb some pretty gnarly terrain in knockoff Adidas (with plastic bags as waterproof liners) and his climbing stick. He would be responsible for basically carrying over his bodyweight in whole sheep off the mountain!

At max altitude on the hunt we encountered fresh snow leopard tracks. Here is where it was bedded:

The parks guy was thrilled as he was able to enter location statistics for the Dhorpatan snow leopard census/tracking project.
We put our time in searching for a shooter ram and then the boys made it happen. As it turned out, it would be the same trio of rams we had spotted on day one.

The lower left corner was where I was positioned for a 158 yard (corrected) shot at the lead ram in the trio as confirmed by my Leica Geovids. I
was fortunate to have a perfect rest at what was likely a 60 degree angled shot into the bottom of the bowl. This was at 16,000 ft. It would be a long wait for the ram to stand up for the shot. I'm also happy I still had my puffy pants on given I was laying in the snow the whole time. The constant updraft from the valley floor kept scent out of the equation.
Here is the result:


A beautiful 10 year old ram. 22" in length and 12" bases.
The boys worked hard to line up a perfect scenario for their client's circumstances. I was honor bound to come through in my end with a well placed shot.
It's not an exaggeration to say a trip like this is life changing. The people, the culture and the surroundings were otherworldly. It's crazy to think that reading an on-line hunting forum while drinking your morning coffee would culminate in a trip halfway around the world climbing the Himalayas with people who's last name is Sherpa.
All the gritty details are expounded upon in EXO's Backcountry podcast. I thought this post could provide some images to accompany the conversation I had with Mark. Thanks for reading!

 

[jonny5]

Very cool adventure. Congrats on the ram and thanks for sharing the details!

 

[TheGrayRider]

Amazing hunt and journey, Adam. Truly a trophy of a lifetime. Congratulations again, TheGrayRider a/k/a Tom.

 

[SDHNTR]

That is just so cool! Thanks for sharing your adventure.

 

[Ibex]

Great hunt and write up! Congrats

 

[sdcowboy]

Thanks for the story!!! It’s a dream to do something like this. Love the write up and can’t wait to listen to the pod cast!!!

 

[eamyrick]

Absolutely grateful for your story. Would have paid $15 in a hunting magazine to follow along.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

That’s amazing. I’d love to do that hunt one day.

 

[ReddingArcher]

That is awesome! Thanks for sharing that with us and congratulations on your sheep!

 

[Doc Holliday]

Congratulations! That is a true trip of a lifetime there

 

[Snyd]

Fantastic

 

[ozyclint]

amazing scenery. well done.
Any tahr near there? No wonder they sent some to NZ, the country looks the same.

 

[Suera]

Congrats!!! Amazing ram. I hunted Blue Sheep in Pakistan and was one of the best experiences of my life. Like you know, is very hard hunt due to the high altitude, the freezing and more. You were clever and trained hard for the hunt not everybody make this and at the end they don't enjoy the experience due to altitude sicknes. But you really enjoyed the culture of these countries, the mountains and of course the rams.
One more time congrats for your ram and the lifetime experience. I will hope for your podcast.

 

[adamkolesar]

amazing scenery. well done.
Any tahr near there? No wonder they sent some to NZ, the country looks the same.

Yes. The Tahr are in neighboring hunting block 4 (among others). They tend to be at lower altitude, but more rugged country. There's an option for a combo hunt which was beyond my budget.

 

[Fishn4eyes]

Very cool story and one hell of an adventure!

Congrats on getting it done in some challenging country.

And thanks for sharing the tale.

 

[adamkolesar]

amazing scenery. well done.
Any tahr near there? No wonder they sent some to NZ, the country looks the same.

Yes. The Tahr are in neighboring hunting block 4 (among others). They tend to be at lower altitude, but more rugged country. There's an option for a combo hunt which was beyond my budget

 

[TurkeyReaper69]

Congrats on your hunt, sounds like an awesome experience.

May I ask, what exactly is the parks dept guy certifying? What all was his role in the hunt? I am very curious