Coach Potter
Life of the Party
This will be long so if you're not into reading you can skip to the pictures 
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Last spring was my second season of backpack hunting for spring bear. It was May and my partner Shawn and I had just finished our second week long trip. I had just begun scratching the surface of what had been a deep itch of mine for years. I desperately wanted to get back in there before the end of the season but Shawn had used up his vacation time so he was out. I only know three to four guys that are capable of doing that kind of trip and I started calling them.
The number one on my list is a guy many of you probably know of, he's a well known guide on the Yakima and his name is Joe. Joe and I met through fishing in 2002 and we became fast friends. Ironically, we have only fished together a handful of times over the life of our friendship as hunting always seems to be the activity we gravitate to when hatching up plans. Over the years our friendship has become less of a friendship and more of a true brotherhood. Joe is the little brother I was supposed to have when my youngest sister was born.
I have been obsessed with bear hunting since my first hunt as a 15 year old boy. I had never met anyone as obsessed as myself until I met Joe. Joe and I did our first bear hunt together in 2004 or 05 and it became an annual tradition for several years after. There were a few add-on dudes along the way but they never "stuck" for one reason or another. I think we have a tendency to wear people out. I know our wives have mentioned that on many occasions. Our initial bear hunts were very different from the back country hunting we're doing now but they were always the hi-light of my year and we became pretty proficient at filling tags.
Our early to mid-twenties were amazing. We did lots of bear hunting and a few deer hunts as well...then life happened. One sad summer bear camp got cancelled. Everyone knows how these things go. It was only supposed to be for one season and before you know it 15 seasons have passed without a bear camp. I was married when we met but we only had one kid, that eventually turned into three. Joe got married after our second hunting season and they started having kids as well. We both continued hunting as much as we could and we were able to sneak in some short deer hunts here and there but due to the geographic distance between us, my fall football schedule and other stuff, it just never worked out that we could hunt together.
While I spent 15 years coaching and doing other stuff, Joe had become a very accomplished hunter of everything wilderness related. I eventually went down the rabbit hole myself after moving to Idaho and I leaned on him for guidance as I was building my kit and making my own wilderness plans. I had mentioned to him several times that I was going to eventually get something dialed in and when I did I was going to press him to join me. I use the term press lightly because it doesn't take much to get him fired up and I knew exactly which buttons to push when I made that call last spring. I primed the pump with a few landscape photo's and followed them up with some OnX waypoints. The final nail in the coffin was some digiscope footage of a big bear from a previous trip. Then I made the call! The call was immediately received with a HELL YES I want to go! I knew it would be but I also knew this was short notice and his enthusiasm could have a dose of reality added in. The call back the next days was a somber, "I didn't think that through last night and I can't swing it this year but let's make a solid plan for next season". And so it began, we were getting the band back together again!
I knew exactly where we were going and over the winter we had many discussions about the logistics and the challenges Shawn and I had faced but had not come up with solutions to due to our lack of experience. One of the issues we continued to face was finding bears that were definitely killable but not recoverable due to water crossings that weren't feasible on foot. The other issue Joe pointed out was that my favorite areas were DEEP and getting multiple bears out would be very difficult...not impossible but extremely challenging and time consuming. In one of our conversations he mentioned that he'd been kicking around the idea of getting some pack goats. When either of us mentions were "kicking around an idea" that means we've already decide we're doing it we just haven't done it yet. Sure enough, a month later I get a picture text to me of Marco and Pollo, a pair of twin Alpine pack goats. A few weeks after that I get another picture of Pablo. A week after that he sends me a picture of Oscar, an absolute fat ass of a goat who eventually get's cut form the team.
As the weeks go by I'm getting regular updates as to how the goats are progressing. In February I head over to E-burg to see the family and do a training hike with the goats. At this point it has been decided that Joe's oldest Son Jensen will be coming along on this trip as an early high school graduation gift. I LOVE both of Joe's boys, they refer to me as their uncle which is a huge honor to me so I'm elated to have Jensen along for the trip. The evening I spend at the Rotter's is dominated by discussions and plans about the trip and Joe mentions that he thinks he has a line on an Alpaca Pack Raft to deal with our water issue. Everything is falling into place for a grand adventure. All that is left is to continue training and killing a few weeks of time. Before we know it we will all be at the trailhead making our way into the wilderness for who knows what will happen.
In all of the excitement around the hunt, Joe forgot that his daughter was turning 21 the day we were supposed to go in so he and Jensen had to audible on their arrival date. No big deal, but then the goats participation came into question as Joe and Jensen were going to have a detour in travel and an overnight with no place for the goats to stay. Without the goats, the boat was now out of play as it's additional weight wouldn't be possible with everything else that has to go along with an eight day hunt. The amount of food required for that length of a hunt is pretty dang heavy. It's the single weight variable in a hunt, everything else required is a constant. A day's food is about 2.25 pounds so every day you're out adds 2.25 pounds. It doesn't sound like a lot of weight but it all adds up, especially when you have a lot of vertical. In typical determined fashion, Joe found a solution for an overnight stay with the goats and everything was back on track. I'm a detailed planner so all of these hiccups were giving me anxiety.
DAY 1
After a detour to North 40 along the way to grab a pair of Krock's that someone left at home, we arrived at the trail head to a large camp of young guys who appear pretty ambitious. My adrenaline always spikes when I get to a trailhead that has other parties. My immediate assumption, although irrational, goes right to, they are going where we're going. Even worse is empty rigs because I assume they are already at the spot we want to be. It's totally dumb because the wilderness is enormous and I have no prior evidence to back up my fear. So far, there has never been a soul anywhere near where we go but I have the same internal reaction every time. We gear up and as we're passing their camp I ask, "anyone else back there" and they respond, "just us". That's an instant relief because it's clear they are basing from the trailhead and we're going deep. Nobody in their right mind is making day trips of 15-18 miles round strip. I mention to Shawn that we're golden, put my air pods in and start the slog to our first camp.
The first 3.5 miles is along the creek and relatively flat, it's the kind of trail you can really burn up if you put your head down and go. At the 3.5 mile mark the trail starts to climb out of the river bottom through a series of switchbacks and it gain's about 1,200 feet of elevation is less than a mile. There are several small tribs to cross along the way. One of the things we learned on our previous trips is that it's totally stupid to carry any water when you are crossing water every 1/2 to 3/4's of a mile. When it's time to hydrate, filter what you need and don't carry that extra weight. This strategy also forces breaks. When you're fresh it's hard to stop yourself but this is a marathon and pacing is critical. When you get to the first switchback you break out of the canyon walls and get the first real glimpse of what you are headed for. It's an awe inspiring vista and boosts my adrenaline every time I see it, despite already having the image burned into my memory and replayed hundreds of times. We are a little behind our arbitrary schedule so we press on for the waterfall that's only a half mile from where we intend to camp the first night. On previous trips we have blown through this 5-7 mile area as to not be tempted by the bears we find on the opposing side of the canyon, in the past we have never had a way to recover those bears so we try not to look. On this trip we believe that side is in play with the arrival of the boat Joe is bring in Saturday evening.
We get to a spine that we're going to call home for a couple of nights and start to set up camp before we're tempted to set up tri-pods and get behind our glass. The glass on a trip like this can be more distracting than scrolling Instagram during a work day. Hours can melt away very fast when you start seeing animals and we'll have days and days of eye melting glassing sessions soon enough. When I say this country is steep, it's almost impossible to exaggerate that statement. You have to be mindful of where you set things down, if you accidentally kick something it could potentially roll forever or far enough that you could spend an hour or more getting to it, if you can even find it. The spine we chose had been camped on before. Someone else had already carved out a decent footprint for a shelter. Shawn carries a Petzl ice axe that we use for digging out portions of the hillside that allow us to put up our shelter. After about an hour of hard labor our shelter is setup and we make a short climb above camp to begin getting eyes on the far side.
Glassing is one of those activities that is best done when comfortable. You need hours to pick apart the kind of landscape we're in, being comfortable, warm, fed, and hydrated goes a long way to being effective. We always have a pad and we kick out seats with platforms for our feet. Often times we'll make coffee or bone broth while we snack and glass. We climb about 200 feet, find a good spot, go through our rituals of setup and within 5-10 minutes Shawn has found our first bear. That is always a boost to morale and the first spot of the season is super exciting. It's like the first dry fly take of the season after a long winter of nymphing. You know it's eventually going to happen but until it does there is some irrational level of doubt. We immediately swap out bino's for a spotting scope on a trip-pod in order to get a closeup view of the bear as well as some video footage via phone scope. We debate it's size as the first one always seems to be a "giant". Shawn believes it's big but I'm skeptical until he shows me the footage and it's obvious this bear is a big one!
It's 5:30 pm and there's no play to make tonight but we enjoy watching him and have a high level of confidence we can relocate him again in the next day or two. One of the reasons we hunt as early as we do is that bears don't move much early like they will in a month from now. The double edge sword in that deal is that they are harder to find because they might spend 5-6 days in an area the size of a normal backyard. The advantage is that when you spot one form a mile away (which is pretty routine) you can have some confidence that he'll be there when you arrive and that could take an entire day plus an overnight. The light fades and we go back down to camp for the night knowing that the next day will suck for spotting bears as it's forecasted to rain and blow all day.
DAY 2
Around 10:00 pm the night before it started to rain really heavy and by midnight we had a small pond of standing water in the middle of our floor-less shelter. I got up and made an adjustment to the shelter while Shawn dug a trench for drainage with his ice axe. It wasn't a big deal as we have the right gear for such weather but it's never fun to start an eight day trip wet. The saving grace was that Sunday was forecasted to start a stretch of amazing weather that would last through the remainder of the trip.
Saturday morning we lounged in our bags until the rain lightened enough to set up a tarp and get a blazing fire going. We knew we would be stuck under the tarp all day, but as long as we had a fire and overhead cover we could glass our eyeballs off in relative comfort.
The hillside we were on had been burned really hard at some point in the past and there were tons of charred snapped off trees. One of the things I have learned through previous trips is those charred trees have been tempered, their cores are solid and loaded with resin. If you can find one small enough to cutoff it will light with a small flame without any tinder and it will burn HOT for hours. I collected a bunch of that stuff. Unfortunately, in the process I snapped my saw off at the handle. Fortunately, we both carry a foldable saw but my pace of gathering slowed knowing we were running on a backup for the remainder of the trip. I assumed the Rotter boys would have one but didn't know.
We got our tarp up in a lean to fashion, built a rager of a fire and settled in to glass away the weather. We instantly found a few elk herds scattered about and small groups of deer. I picked up some vultures circling and was bale to walk myself into a fresh elk kill that ranged at 700 yards across canyon. That became a focal point of our attention periodically throughout the day. If we weren't looking for the bear from the night prior we were scanning around that elf kill as we both have wolf and mountain lion tags in our pockets.
We were setup in a spot where we could also see the trail behind us and the Rotter boys were in contact via Inreach. We were expecting them around 6:00 pm. The weather finally broke about 5:00 and we were able to crawl out from under cover for the first time all day. Shawn went down the spine and dug out another shelter spot for the boys so they wouldn't have to deal with that in the dark. At 5:45 I spotted some orange dots coming up the switch backs. I panned over with my glass to find the orange dots to be panniers attached to some goats who were trailing the second half of our party. We ran down the trail to meet them at the waterfall. We hug and I introduce the Rotter's to Shawn. The first words out of Jensen's mouth are, " Holy shit Uncle Josh, this country is way more rugged than I envisioned!" I told him I had tried to warn them not to make too many plans until they had eyes on as it's hard to imagine it until you see it. They head up the trail to camp while Shawn and I setup on to glass from the point for the remainder of the evening hoping to get a better perspective on the spine we had found the bear on.
We arrived back at camp to find a bottle of Fireball by the door of my shelter. I picked it up, laughed and carried it down to the fire where Joe was standing with a big grin and a Happy Birthday you old bastard comment. I had turned 50 a few days before the trip and he thought we should celebrate that. I feel bad about it now, but I told him there was no way I was packing that whiskey around. His comment was, "of course not! We're drinking that tonight!" I quipped back, "have you seen where we are?" I'm going to struggle enough this week, I don't need to be hungover while doing it. Guys with goats have a lot more options than those of us walker's. We BS about their way in, the goats and the bear we spotted the day before and hit the rack.
DAY 3
We awake to sun and ice all over our shelters. We get a fire going, eat, coffee and bust out tri-pods to get to glassing. Joe and I go down the ridge to see if we can scope out a potential river crossing as he's hell bent on us killing that bear across the canyon. We go back up to the fire and I convince the party that we should push on to our next camp as I believe there is a bear from the year before that we can definitely get to by day's end, everyone agrees and we pack up do about 6 more miles to our next camp. We stash the boat along the trail and decide that we can run back for it if needed. The goats were hammered from the drive down and subsequent pack-in. It turns out an hour in the trailer is the equivalent to two hours on the trail and they had been trailered 4 hours the day before and did 4.5 miles immediately after. In addition to all that, this was also their first trip.
We burned up about 4 of the 6 miles to go when we stopped to glass one last spot before dropping back down to the creek. Joe and Jensen decided they wanted to stay on that point until dark. Shawn and I decided we would push to camp, drop our stuff and make the 1,200 foot climb to the spot we had been the year before. Shawn missed a really nice bear there and we'd seen others so we felt confident in that spot. We got to camp and decided last minute to take a little extra time to setup in case we were spent when we got back. That turned out to be a good decision as the night was about to get pretty western. My internal clock was ticking on getting to our spot so I flew up the ridge as fast as I could (which isn't fast at all). Shawn was struggling a little with the vertical as his pack was heavier than mine and I was feeling really good. I get to the top of the ridge, sluff my pack off, look over the cliff and with my naked eye and see a blackspot that doesn't look right. I throw up my glass and sure enough it's a bear making his way up out of the bottom. Shawn isn't quite to where I am yet and when he sees me I wave him with urgency.
I'm getting my tripod setup so I can come on and off the glass without losing him. I get on him and "whisper yell" to Shawn to bring the gun. We only carry one gun and it's his. He comes over and sits next to me and I start walking him into the bear but I haven't looked at him yet, I'm just talking while in the glass. I'm assuming he's setting up the rifle on the bipod for a shot. I come off the glass to look at him and he's got his bino's but no gun. I "whisper yell" again, " did we come here to watch bears or kill them". I was excited and a little short! He replied you spot it you got it, which is what we do but I knew his gun was brand new and told him there was no way I was breaking the seal on that thing so this one was his.
He gets the gun and we begin the process of dialing the dope for a shot. The bear is at 412 and Shawn’s prone with a solid back rest. In retrospect , we should have busted out the long lens and phone scope to film it but we hadn't come out with any meat the two previous years and I wanted all focus to be on the shot. I knew how important it was to Shawn for one of us to get a bear. I had no other thoughts in my mind except getting this bear down. It takes about 30 minutes or more for the bear to work his way into an opening. These hillsides are covered in willow, blowdown and giant boulders. A bear can move 10 feet and disappear for hours. Finally he's clear and broadside, Shawn touches off a shot. The bear is clearly hit but doesn't go down. He's fighting to get up hill but can't, gives up trying and starts to work sidehill. He get's to another opening, stops, Shawn lets another one go and he's down motionless. It's hugs and congratulations after that. By now it's getting close to 6:00 pm so we're hustling to gather gear and I send Joe an Inreach letting them know we have one down and instructions to not drop into camp as we'll be working toward him. The message gets to them a little late and they're half way down to camp.
There is no way to go straight to the bear as the side we shot from is all cliffs so we have to bomb 1,200 feet back down to camp, go up the other side another 1,000 feet only to give up 800 of that to get to the bear, climb back out of that hole and back down to camp... it's getting dark fast. This is the part where I almost kill Shawn. He hasn't eaten, had the big adrenaline dump, he's dehydrated and I'm now going as fast as I possibly can because we're racing the sun which we will eventually lose to anyway. Big mistake on my part. There was no need to rush because there was no beating the sun, but in my mind we could do it. Finally Joe has the sense to stop us and get Shawn some food and electrolytes. It's dark now anyway so what's the rush?
We had good landmarks from the far side and I had a track going part way in from the year before. Without that track and some sense of the other side, I wouldn't have even attempted this retrieval in the dark. None of us were prepared for the density of the willows and in the dark there was no way to find lanes around them. The goats couldn't navigate the willows with their panniers because the willows would hang them up and stop them in their tracks so we stripped them down and they just came along. After an hour it was feeling pretty desperate and their was talk of calling it off for the night but I knew if we could find the first big landmark we had a chance and then Shawn found it! Shortly after that I found blood, and within minutes he was standing over his bear...what a relief.
It turned out to be a small bear and I felt a sense of responsibility (as the most season bear hunter) for not letting him know before taking the shot. I apologized for that but he didn't feel the same way. He was very happy with the bear and then we were all happy that the pack out wasn't going to be any harder than it already was. We broke the bear down, which was extremely challenging on a 40 degree slope, and crawled out on all fours back up to the trail. We still had a couple miles to get back to camp and by the time we had arrived it was almost midnight...we were spent! That day wound up being 10+ miles and over 4k in vertical.
DAY 4
Everyone rolled out a little slow on day 4. Joe and Jensen had seen 2 bears from the point where we had left them the day before. One of the bears appeared to be a bruiser but daylight was too low to get a great look. They decided to go back to that point and we would stay in touch via Inreach. Around 10:00 am we got a message saying they were going to leave the goats tied up at the point and run back for the boat. Joe thought he had found a reasonable crossing spot and wanted to have the boat nearby in case they needed it. Shawn and I needed a rest day so we agreed to come up to them, watch the goats and keeps tabs on any bears that we could find while they were gone. None of us were super excited about leaving the goats for long periods of time considering the amount of wolf sign that was everywhere.
It took us an hour to get to them. We arrived and they headed back the 3 miles to the boat. Shawn and I settled in with the goats and enjoyed glassing and resting...that was until 3:00 when a bear showed up on the face. When I first spotted him I wasn't really thinking about a shot. I walked Shawn into where he was and Shawn said, "dude that bear's close". Shawn ranged him and said he was at 380. Then the internal wrestling match began. I knew how bad Jensen wanted to shoot a bear but I also knew that if we watched that bear walk away Joe would chastise me. When they left for the boat Joe left his gun and said, "it's loaded if you need a backup". I had also looked at that river and was very skeptical of crossing it. It's a scary tight walled canyon with tons of log jams and very few landing spots. Shawn went into the same mode I had been in the night before where all he was thinking about was what's the best shooting spot. We farted around for 30 minutes, I Inreached Joe and got no response. Meanwhile Shawn had scampered down the ridge and found the perfect spot level with the bear and it gave me 320 yard shot. At that point I had decided I was going to shoot this bear. We tied up the goats (because they go wherever you go and have no regards for personal space) and I made my way down the ridge to set up for the shot.
This time we took the spotter so we could record the shot. We took a bit getting setup but it became really clear that this bear wasn't going anywhere so there was no rush. I had a great rest and was able to get prone. We dialed the dope even though it wasn't a super long shot. Shawn said he was recording and I was ready to shoot so I touched one off. I wasn't able to stay in the scope but Shawn said I rolled him. I racked another one and picked him back up as he was walking down a log that was hovering over a giant willow patch. I told Shawn he didn't look sick to me and when he stopped at the end of the log I was going to put another one in him. I shot again and it felt good but it appeared to miss and the bear disappeared. From our perspective it didn't look like he could clear the willow without us seeing him so when we didn't see him we assumed he was dead. About that time the Rotter boys showed up with the boat and they had watched it all go down from a different perspective. They said they saw the bear walking away after the second shot and they didn't think the second shot had landed. The good news was we had the footage so we could replay it and know for sure what happened, or so we thought. It turned out Shawn hadn't hit record or the record button wasn't engaged because there was no footage. Super disappointing! The only thing left to do now was go over there and find out.
Joe and I emptied our packs and strapped on the raft. We had a nasty descent down to the creek through the creek and the ascent up the other side looked worse. That was the least of my concern, that's just work, you can't die form working. I didn't like the looks of that creek and my stomach was turning the whole way down. The plan was to have Joe cross the creek with 200' of 550 cord tied to the back. When he got to the other side I would pull the boat back and take the same line. I was ok with all of that until we got down to the creek's edge and saw what we were dealing with. Now I know there is a technical definition that determines what makes a body of water a creek vs a river. I don't really give a shit what that is...this is a RIVER and a gnarly one at that. I took one look at what had to be done and said, "there is no way in hell we're getting that boat back across this river with 550 cord. Joe wasn't even certain he wanted to cross it. After some debate and my sales pitch to abort mission he decided he was going and I should wait for him. On one hand I was relieved to not be crossing that thing but on the other hand I was more than worried for my best friend to be doing this but he was confident and I helped him put the boat together.
We were losing light and there wasn't a ton of time to mess around. Before I knew it he was across and changing clothes to make the ascent up to my bear. In the next couple of hours I had time to sit at the waters edge and contemplate a lot of things. My emotions were all over the place! They ranged from fear for my friend to humiliation for not being able to do what needed to be done in the situation. I felt ashamed for taking the shot away from a kid that I care so much for, I felt terrible for putting my friend in a situation that put his life in danger, I was getting myself pretty spun up.
To make matters worse, we didn't talk about a plan for anything going wrong, Joe didn't take an Inreach, the canyon was so deep that I couldn't get a message out to the guys on the point, and to top it all off I discovered that my headlamp battery had died from being on in my pocket all day and my charging cord was up on the point. I later found out my headlamp was fully charged. The end cap had come unscrewed enough that the battery wasn't touching the contact point.
I was beginning to panic so I stopped, prayed and decided to do something proactive. I started a fire while it was still light. It was getting cold as hell down by the water. I didn't know if Joe would make it back down before dark and he might need the fire to guide his landing or he might be wet so that's what I did, I started a fire. About that the time the fire got rolling I heard Joe say, "what are you doing?". My back was to the river the whole time I was making the fire so I hadn't seen him come down and cross the river. The sound of the river was deafening so I couldn't hear him either. Man was I relieved! I didn't even ask about the bear but he said he found blood. He got totally stopped by the willows and didn't think the shot was fatal anyway based on the type of blood he saw. I honestly didn't care at that point. We made the terrible climb out of that hell hole and back to the boys on the point. On the way I disclosed my regret about shooting that bear. I also told him how grateful I was for his attempt at retrieving it. In Joe's classic way of downplaying anything he does he simply said, "you know I would do anything for you". I'm not sure if that made me feel better or worse.
The boys on the point were never able to see Joe at any time on the hillside but they did see the giant from the night before about 500 yards above him and were able to capture some footage. We all headed back to camp, looked at the film, ate bear meat cooked over the fire, and Joe began plotting how to kill that giant bear.
DAY 5
We all slept in a bit and hung around the fire while making breakfast. We were discussing our plans for the day and I convinced Joe to take Jensen up the ridge above camp where Shawn had shot his bear. We had seen multiple bears in there the year before and one that was of the caliber that we were all looking for. I needed a more leisurely day and didn't really want to make that climb. I also felt like it was the best opportunity for Jensen to get a crack at a good bear. We looked at maps and they decided to give it a go. By 9:00 am they were making the climb with the goats.
Shawn and I decide that we'd go explore some country we'd never seen. There was a 5-6 mile stretch of the trail that stayed down by the creek and the grade was reasonable. There were some hillsides a few miles down the trail that looked really good so we loaded up and headed out. I was still wrestling with the decisions of the night before but I didn't talk about it. About 3 miles down the trail we stopped for lunch. Sandwiched between two fruit bars was a little note that my wife hid. We have been married for 27 years and for as long as I can remember she's been hiding notes in my gear when I leave for long trips. I had found a couple of the easy ones earlier in the trip. Some of them would be paired with a candy but this one was all alone stuck in my fruit snacks. It was just what I needed at that moment. A little pick me up when I wasn't feeling all that good about myself. I can be a lot to deal with at times and she's always supported my crazy endeavors. That little note changed the course of my day.
Eventually we found a hillside we wanted to look at for the afternoon so we made the climb up to a spot that gave us some visibility. The spot looked amazing and we stayed there til the golden hour but we didn't turn up an bears that evening. On the descent I started to feel some patellar tendon pain in both knees. This is nothing new for me, it wasn't any worse than normal and I didn't think much of it. We got back down to the trail, made the 4 mile hike back to camp and had a fire ready for the boys as they crawled down the ridge back to camp.
It turned out that they had a great day. They didn't find the big boar they were looking for but they got to watch a color phase sow and her two cubs for a while. They both thought the area was holding a big boar they just couldn't turn one up that day. Joe showed me a couple of things on the map that he thought would be worth looking at on a future trip. Sometimes it's helpful to have someone else's fresh perspective of an area and he sees things that I miss sometimes. We ate more bear meat and quoted movie lines for an hour before going to bed.
When I went to bed that night I noticed that my legs felt really weird when I bent them but I soon passed out. In the middle of the night I had to get up to take a leak and it was a bit of a struggle to get my balance. Shook it off as being tired and went back to my tick infested sleeping bag. Holy smokes the ticks were bad on this trip. If I said I pulled 500 ticks off myself in 7 days, I'm underestimating it.
DAY 6
The Rotter's were up early and moving fast. I poked out of my shelter and they were already putting cross bucks on the goats with their packs loaded. Joe said he had a plan to kill the big bear. He told me exactly what they were going to do down to the hour. The plan was to get to the glassing point and hopefully turn him up by noon. If they saw him they were going to cross the river and give themselves until 4:00 on that side and then make their way down and get back across the river before dark. That was going to potentially require them to leave the goats tied up all day. The plan was solid but that river crossing had me worried. I told them good luck and started making coffee. Shawn got up in time to see them off and we discussed plans for the day.
At 8:30 am I got at Inreach message stating that the big bear was back out feeding, they had tied the goats, and were heading down to the river. I stewed around for 45 minutes deciding between hunting or going to the glassing knob to keep tabs on the bear while they made the climb as well as tend to the goats and be in a place where we could bring the goats to the river to help pack meat up the hill should they connect. Eventually I made the decision that we should get to that knob and do what we could to help. I sent Joe a message telling him our plan. He must have had an inclination that's what I would do because the next message stated, " I left the spotter on the bear so you can see where he is when you get there". We packed up and hustled our asses the 3 miles up and out from camp to get to the knob.
By the time we got there we could see the boat was already across the river and there was a pile of bright yellow 550 cord laying on the shore. They had done it! We untied the goats and they followed us out to the knob where we all sat watching and waiting for the gun to go off. About 30 minutes into it I watched a bear lumber out of some willow onto the a grass patch. I Inreached Joe that I could see the bear. He immediately replied back that was a different bear and they were passing on it hoping to see the big boy. Shawn got the spotter on that bear and confirmed it was definitely not the one. The wind is blowing like crazy and we're hearing dead trees crash all morning. It's beginning to get a little uncomfortable.
I end up spotting a a sow with two cubs one drainage over and Shawn is working to get the spotter on them so we can film them when we hear another tree crash and Shawn says, "was that a shot?" then about 10 seconds later we hear another CRACK and that one is definitely the report of a rifle. At 2:15 my Inreach goes off and the message says, "Jensen just dirt napped the big one". Shawn and I are about as excited as you can get but we all know how challenging these recoveries can be. I message Joe back and his response is such that they know he's dead and can see him from their location. after another hour goes by I get a message saying, "tie up the goats and go hunt. we're bringing out a load and we'll get the rest tomorrow.”
Shawn and I head up the ridge behind us and sit for the evening. We come back down as we see headlamps coming up the trail and it's all hugs and congratulations. We hang the meat over a creek near the trail, hack off some fat and head for camp where we eat bear ckracklins and listen to the recount of how the day unfolded. What a night! I was so happy about that kid killing that bear.
DAY 7
I knew when I went to bed the night before that I might be in a little bit of trouble. The swelling that was in my knees was now in my calves and my hands were also starting to swell. I have had rhabdomyolysis twice and along with rabdo comes compartment syndrome...at least it did for me the two previous times. Once you've had rabdo you are at higher risk for getting it again. I also know from the two previous bouts, that the third day’s swelling is the worst and day 8 was going to be the third day of swelling. Day 8 was also pack-out day and we had 9 miles to go to get out. My concern was that my feet could swell overnight to the point where I couldn't get my boots on and that would be a real problem.
This had already been an amazing adventure and more successful than any of our previous trips so I decided it was time to go. It's probably the first time in my life where I've actually made the right decision in that situation. Maybe turning 50 made me instantly wiser...doubt it but I can hope. Shawn rode with me so that forced him out as well and I hated to cut his trip short but he was in agreement with me. We all hiked out to the glassing knob that was on our way out, took a group photo said our goodbyes, hugs and parted ways. The hike out was rough and whatever doubt I had left in mind about the decision was gone by mile 7 of 9.
The Rotter boys weren't due home til Sunday but they packed out the next day as well. They called me on their way home to let me know the road had been socked in from a windstorm that hit while Shawn and I were leaving. They were fortunate to have met some hunters earlier in the day and they let them borrow a chainsaw to cut their way out.
All of these adventure are memorable and they all leave a mark on my soul. For me they are a spiritual experience. This one was particularly special. Sharing an experience with one of my best oldest friends and his son (who is an absolute savage) was a real blessing. We amassed over 50 miles and almost 16k of vertical in some of the most rugged/beautiful terrain God ever made. This trip both inspired and humbled me within a 24 hour period.
.Last spring was my second season of backpack hunting for spring bear. It was May and my partner Shawn and I had just finished our second week long trip. I had just begun scratching the surface of what had been a deep itch of mine for years. I desperately wanted to get back in there before the end of the season but Shawn had used up his vacation time so he was out. I only know three to four guys that are capable of doing that kind of trip and I started calling them.
The number one on my list is a guy many of you probably know of, he's a well known guide on the Yakima and his name is Joe. Joe and I met through fishing in 2002 and we became fast friends. Ironically, we have only fished together a handful of times over the life of our friendship as hunting always seems to be the activity we gravitate to when hatching up plans. Over the years our friendship has become less of a friendship and more of a true brotherhood. Joe is the little brother I was supposed to have when my youngest sister was born.
I have been obsessed with bear hunting since my first hunt as a 15 year old boy. I had never met anyone as obsessed as myself until I met Joe. Joe and I did our first bear hunt together in 2004 or 05 and it became an annual tradition for several years after. There were a few add-on dudes along the way but they never "stuck" for one reason or another. I think we have a tendency to wear people out. I know our wives have mentioned that on many occasions. Our initial bear hunts were very different from the back country hunting we're doing now but they were always the hi-light of my year and we became pretty proficient at filling tags.
Our early to mid-twenties were amazing. We did lots of bear hunting and a few deer hunts as well...then life happened. One sad summer bear camp got cancelled. Everyone knows how these things go. It was only supposed to be for one season and before you know it 15 seasons have passed without a bear camp. I was married when we met but we only had one kid, that eventually turned into three. Joe got married after our second hunting season and they started having kids as well. We both continued hunting as much as we could and we were able to sneak in some short deer hunts here and there but due to the geographic distance between us, my fall football schedule and other stuff, it just never worked out that we could hunt together.
While I spent 15 years coaching and doing other stuff, Joe had become a very accomplished hunter of everything wilderness related. I eventually went down the rabbit hole myself after moving to Idaho and I leaned on him for guidance as I was building my kit and making my own wilderness plans. I had mentioned to him several times that I was going to eventually get something dialed in and when I did I was going to press him to join me. I use the term press lightly because it doesn't take much to get him fired up and I knew exactly which buttons to push when I made that call last spring. I primed the pump with a few landscape photo's and followed them up with some OnX waypoints. The final nail in the coffin was some digiscope footage of a big bear from a previous trip. Then I made the call! The call was immediately received with a HELL YES I want to go! I knew it would be but I also knew this was short notice and his enthusiasm could have a dose of reality added in. The call back the next days was a somber, "I didn't think that through last night and I can't swing it this year but let's make a solid plan for next season". And so it began, we were getting the band back together again!
I knew exactly where we were going and over the winter we had many discussions about the logistics and the challenges Shawn and I had faced but had not come up with solutions to due to our lack of experience. One of the issues we continued to face was finding bears that were definitely killable but not recoverable due to water crossings that weren't feasible on foot. The other issue Joe pointed out was that my favorite areas were DEEP and getting multiple bears out would be very difficult...not impossible but extremely challenging and time consuming. In one of our conversations he mentioned that he'd been kicking around the idea of getting some pack goats. When either of us mentions were "kicking around an idea" that means we've already decide we're doing it we just haven't done it yet. Sure enough, a month later I get a picture text to me of Marco and Pollo, a pair of twin Alpine pack goats. A few weeks after that I get another picture of Pablo. A week after that he sends me a picture of Oscar, an absolute fat ass of a goat who eventually get's cut form the team.
As the weeks go by I'm getting regular updates as to how the goats are progressing. In February I head over to E-burg to see the family and do a training hike with the goats. At this point it has been decided that Joe's oldest Son Jensen will be coming along on this trip as an early high school graduation gift. I LOVE both of Joe's boys, they refer to me as their uncle which is a huge honor to me so I'm elated to have Jensen along for the trip. The evening I spend at the Rotter's is dominated by discussions and plans about the trip and Joe mentions that he thinks he has a line on an Alpaca Pack Raft to deal with our water issue. Everything is falling into place for a grand adventure. All that is left is to continue training and killing a few weeks of time. Before we know it we will all be at the trailhead making our way into the wilderness for who knows what will happen.
In all of the excitement around the hunt, Joe forgot that his daughter was turning 21 the day we were supposed to go in so he and Jensen had to audible on their arrival date. No big deal, but then the goats participation came into question as Joe and Jensen were going to have a detour in travel and an overnight with no place for the goats to stay. Without the goats, the boat was now out of play as it's additional weight wouldn't be possible with everything else that has to go along with an eight day hunt. The amount of food required for that length of a hunt is pretty dang heavy. It's the single weight variable in a hunt, everything else required is a constant. A day's food is about 2.25 pounds so every day you're out adds 2.25 pounds. It doesn't sound like a lot of weight but it all adds up, especially when you have a lot of vertical. In typical determined fashion, Joe found a solution for an overnight stay with the goats and everything was back on track. I'm a detailed planner so all of these hiccups were giving me anxiety.
DAY 1
After a detour to North 40 along the way to grab a pair of Krock's that someone left at home, we arrived at the trail head to a large camp of young guys who appear pretty ambitious. My adrenaline always spikes when I get to a trailhead that has other parties. My immediate assumption, although irrational, goes right to, they are going where we're going. Even worse is empty rigs because I assume they are already at the spot we want to be. It's totally dumb because the wilderness is enormous and I have no prior evidence to back up my fear. So far, there has never been a soul anywhere near where we go but I have the same internal reaction every time. We gear up and as we're passing their camp I ask, "anyone else back there" and they respond, "just us". That's an instant relief because it's clear they are basing from the trailhead and we're going deep. Nobody in their right mind is making day trips of 15-18 miles round strip. I mention to Shawn that we're golden, put my air pods in and start the slog to our first camp.
The first 3.5 miles is along the creek and relatively flat, it's the kind of trail you can really burn up if you put your head down and go. At the 3.5 mile mark the trail starts to climb out of the river bottom through a series of switchbacks and it gain's about 1,200 feet of elevation is less than a mile. There are several small tribs to cross along the way. One of the things we learned on our previous trips is that it's totally stupid to carry any water when you are crossing water every 1/2 to 3/4's of a mile. When it's time to hydrate, filter what you need and don't carry that extra weight. This strategy also forces breaks. When you're fresh it's hard to stop yourself but this is a marathon and pacing is critical. When you get to the first switchback you break out of the canyon walls and get the first real glimpse of what you are headed for. It's an awe inspiring vista and boosts my adrenaline every time I see it, despite already having the image burned into my memory and replayed hundreds of times. We are a little behind our arbitrary schedule so we press on for the waterfall that's only a half mile from where we intend to camp the first night. On previous trips we have blown through this 5-7 mile area as to not be tempted by the bears we find on the opposing side of the canyon, in the past we have never had a way to recover those bears so we try not to look. On this trip we believe that side is in play with the arrival of the boat Joe is bring in Saturday evening.
We get to a spine that we're going to call home for a couple of nights and start to set up camp before we're tempted to set up tri-pods and get behind our glass. The glass on a trip like this can be more distracting than scrolling Instagram during a work day. Hours can melt away very fast when you start seeing animals and we'll have days and days of eye melting glassing sessions soon enough. When I say this country is steep, it's almost impossible to exaggerate that statement. You have to be mindful of where you set things down, if you accidentally kick something it could potentially roll forever or far enough that you could spend an hour or more getting to it, if you can even find it. The spine we chose had been camped on before. Someone else had already carved out a decent footprint for a shelter. Shawn carries a Petzl ice axe that we use for digging out portions of the hillside that allow us to put up our shelter. After about an hour of hard labor our shelter is setup and we make a short climb above camp to begin getting eyes on the far side.
Glassing is one of those activities that is best done when comfortable. You need hours to pick apart the kind of landscape we're in, being comfortable, warm, fed, and hydrated goes a long way to being effective. We always have a pad and we kick out seats with platforms for our feet. Often times we'll make coffee or bone broth while we snack and glass. We climb about 200 feet, find a good spot, go through our rituals of setup and within 5-10 minutes Shawn has found our first bear. That is always a boost to morale and the first spot of the season is super exciting. It's like the first dry fly take of the season after a long winter of nymphing. You know it's eventually going to happen but until it does there is some irrational level of doubt. We immediately swap out bino's for a spotting scope on a trip-pod in order to get a closeup view of the bear as well as some video footage via phone scope. We debate it's size as the first one always seems to be a "giant". Shawn believes it's big but I'm skeptical until he shows me the footage and it's obvious this bear is a big one!
It's 5:30 pm and there's no play to make tonight but we enjoy watching him and have a high level of confidence we can relocate him again in the next day or two. One of the reasons we hunt as early as we do is that bears don't move much early like they will in a month from now. The double edge sword in that deal is that they are harder to find because they might spend 5-6 days in an area the size of a normal backyard. The advantage is that when you spot one form a mile away (which is pretty routine) you can have some confidence that he'll be there when you arrive and that could take an entire day plus an overnight. The light fades and we go back down to camp for the night knowing that the next day will suck for spotting bears as it's forecasted to rain and blow all day.
DAY 2
Around 10:00 pm the night before it started to rain really heavy and by midnight we had a small pond of standing water in the middle of our floor-less shelter. I got up and made an adjustment to the shelter while Shawn dug a trench for drainage with his ice axe. It wasn't a big deal as we have the right gear for such weather but it's never fun to start an eight day trip wet. The saving grace was that Sunday was forecasted to start a stretch of amazing weather that would last through the remainder of the trip.
Saturday morning we lounged in our bags until the rain lightened enough to set up a tarp and get a blazing fire going. We knew we would be stuck under the tarp all day, but as long as we had a fire and overhead cover we could glass our eyeballs off in relative comfort.
The hillside we were on had been burned really hard at some point in the past and there were tons of charred snapped off trees. One of the things I have learned through previous trips is those charred trees have been tempered, their cores are solid and loaded with resin. If you can find one small enough to cutoff it will light with a small flame without any tinder and it will burn HOT for hours. I collected a bunch of that stuff. Unfortunately, in the process I snapped my saw off at the handle. Fortunately, we both carry a foldable saw but my pace of gathering slowed knowing we were running on a backup for the remainder of the trip. I assumed the Rotter boys would have one but didn't know.
We got our tarp up in a lean to fashion, built a rager of a fire and settled in to glass away the weather. We instantly found a few elk herds scattered about and small groups of deer. I picked up some vultures circling and was bale to walk myself into a fresh elk kill that ranged at 700 yards across canyon. That became a focal point of our attention periodically throughout the day. If we weren't looking for the bear from the night prior we were scanning around that elf kill as we both have wolf and mountain lion tags in our pockets.
We were setup in a spot where we could also see the trail behind us and the Rotter boys were in contact via Inreach. We were expecting them around 6:00 pm. The weather finally broke about 5:00 and we were able to crawl out from under cover for the first time all day. Shawn went down the spine and dug out another shelter spot for the boys so they wouldn't have to deal with that in the dark. At 5:45 I spotted some orange dots coming up the switch backs. I panned over with my glass to find the orange dots to be panniers attached to some goats who were trailing the second half of our party. We ran down the trail to meet them at the waterfall. We hug and I introduce the Rotter's to Shawn. The first words out of Jensen's mouth are, " Holy shit Uncle Josh, this country is way more rugged than I envisioned!" I told him I had tried to warn them not to make too many plans until they had eyes on as it's hard to imagine it until you see it. They head up the trail to camp while Shawn and I setup on to glass from the point for the remainder of the evening hoping to get a better perspective on the spine we had found the bear on.
We arrived back at camp to find a bottle of Fireball by the door of my shelter. I picked it up, laughed and carried it down to the fire where Joe was standing with a big grin and a Happy Birthday you old bastard comment. I had turned 50 a few days before the trip and he thought we should celebrate that. I feel bad about it now, but I told him there was no way I was packing that whiskey around. His comment was, "of course not! We're drinking that tonight!" I quipped back, "have you seen where we are?" I'm going to struggle enough this week, I don't need to be hungover while doing it. Guys with goats have a lot more options than those of us walker's. We BS about their way in, the goats and the bear we spotted the day before and hit the rack.
DAY 3
We awake to sun and ice all over our shelters. We get a fire going, eat, coffee and bust out tri-pods to get to glassing. Joe and I go down the ridge to see if we can scope out a potential river crossing as he's hell bent on us killing that bear across the canyon. We go back up to the fire and I convince the party that we should push on to our next camp as I believe there is a bear from the year before that we can definitely get to by day's end, everyone agrees and we pack up do about 6 more miles to our next camp. We stash the boat along the trail and decide that we can run back for it if needed. The goats were hammered from the drive down and subsequent pack-in. It turns out an hour in the trailer is the equivalent to two hours on the trail and they had been trailered 4 hours the day before and did 4.5 miles immediately after. In addition to all that, this was also their first trip.
We burned up about 4 of the 6 miles to go when we stopped to glass one last spot before dropping back down to the creek. Joe and Jensen decided they wanted to stay on that point until dark. Shawn and I decided we would push to camp, drop our stuff and make the 1,200 foot climb to the spot we had been the year before. Shawn missed a really nice bear there and we'd seen others so we felt confident in that spot. We got to camp and decided last minute to take a little extra time to setup in case we were spent when we got back. That turned out to be a good decision as the night was about to get pretty western. My internal clock was ticking on getting to our spot so I flew up the ridge as fast as I could (which isn't fast at all). Shawn was struggling a little with the vertical as his pack was heavier than mine and I was feeling really good. I get to the top of the ridge, sluff my pack off, look over the cliff and with my naked eye and see a blackspot that doesn't look right. I throw up my glass and sure enough it's a bear making his way up out of the bottom. Shawn isn't quite to where I am yet and when he sees me I wave him with urgency.
I'm getting my tripod setup so I can come on and off the glass without losing him. I get on him and "whisper yell" to Shawn to bring the gun. We only carry one gun and it's his. He comes over and sits next to me and I start walking him into the bear but I haven't looked at him yet, I'm just talking while in the glass. I'm assuming he's setting up the rifle on the bipod for a shot. I come off the glass to look at him and he's got his bino's but no gun. I "whisper yell" again, " did we come here to watch bears or kill them". I was excited and a little short! He replied you spot it you got it, which is what we do but I knew his gun was brand new and told him there was no way I was breaking the seal on that thing so this one was his.
He gets the gun and we begin the process of dialing the dope for a shot. The bear is at 412 and Shawn’s prone with a solid back rest. In retrospect , we should have busted out the long lens and phone scope to film it but we hadn't come out with any meat the two previous years and I wanted all focus to be on the shot. I knew how important it was to Shawn for one of us to get a bear. I had no other thoughts in my mind except getting this bear down. It takes about 30 minutes or more for the bear to work his way into an opening. These hillsides are covered in willow, blowdown and giant boulders. A bear can move 10 feet and disappear for hours. Finally he's clear and broadside, Shawn touches off a shot. The bear is clearly hit but doesn't go down. He's fighting to get up hill but can't, gives up trying and starts to work sidehill. He get's to another opening, stops, Shawn lets another one go and he's down motionless. It's hugs and congratulations after that. By now it's getting close to 6:00 pm so we're hustling to gather gear and I send Joe an Inreach letting them know we have one down and instructions to not drop into camp as we'll be working toward him. The message gets to them a little late and they're half way down to camp.
There is no way to go straight to the bear as the side we shot from is all cliffs so we have to bomb 1,200 feet back down to camp, go up the other side another 1,000 feet only to give up 800 of that to get to the bear, climb back out of that hole and back down to camp... it's getting dark fast. This is the part where I almost kill Shawn. He hasn't eaten, had the big adrenaline dump, he's dehydrated and I'm now going as fast as I possibly can because we're racing the sun which we will eventually lose to anyway. Big mistake on my part. There was no need to rush because there was no beating the sun, but in my mind we could do it. Finally Joe has the sense to stop us and get Shawn some food and electrolytes. It's dark now anyway so what's the rush?
We had good landmarks from the far side and I had a track going part way in from the year before. Without that track and some sense of the other side, I wouldn't have even attempted this retrieval in the dark. None of us were prepared for the density of the willows and in the dark there was no way to find lanes around them. The goats couldn't navigate the willows with their panniers because the willows would hang them up and stop them in their tracks so we stripped them down and they just came along. After an hour it was feeling pretty desperate and their was talk of calling it off for the night but I knew if we could find the first big landmark we had a chance and then Shawn found it! Shortly after that I found blood, and within minutes he was standing over his bear...what a relief.
It turned out to be a small bear and I felt a sense of responsibility (as the most season bear hunter) for not letting him know before taking the shot. I apologized for that but he didn't feel the same way. He was very happy with the bear and then we were all happy that the pack out wasn't going to be any harder than it already was. We broke the bear down, which was extremely challenging on a 40 degree slope, and crawled out on all fours back up to the trail. We still had a couple miles to get back to camp and by the time we had arrived it was almost midnight...we were spent! That day wound up being 10+ miles and over 4k in vertical.
DAY 4
Everyone rolled out a little slow on day 4. Joe and Jensen had seen 2 bears from the point where we had left them the day before. One of the bears appeared to be a bruiser but daylight was too low to get a great look. They decided to go back to that point and we would stay in touch via Inreach. Around 10:00 am we got a message saying they were going to leave the goats tied up at the point and run back for the boat. Joe thought he had found a reasonable crossing spot and wanted to have the boat nearby in case they needed it. Shawn and I needed a rest day so we agreed to come up to them, watch the goats and keeps tabs on any bears that we could find while they were gone. None of us were super excited about leaving the goats for long periods of time considering the amount of wolf sign that was everywhere.
It took us an hour to get to them. We arrived and they headed back the 3 miles to the boat. Shawn and I settled in with the goats and enjoyed glassing and resting...that was until 3:00 when a bear showed up on the face. When I first spotted him I wasn't really thinking about a shot. I walked Shawn into where he was and Shawn said, "dude that bear's close". Shawn ranged him and said he was at 380. Then the internal wrestling match began. I knew how bad Jensen wanted to shoot a bear but I also knew that if we watched that bear walk away Joe would chastise me. When they left for the boat Joe left his gun and said, "it's loaded if you need a backup". I had also looked at that river and was very skeptical of crossing it. It's a scary tight walled canyon with tons of log jams and very few landing spots. Shawn went into the same mode I had been in the night before where all he was thinking about was what's the best shooting spot. We farted around for 30 minutes, I Inreached Joe and got no response. Meanwhile Shawn had scampered down the ridge and found the perfect spot level with the bear and it gave me 320 yard shot. At that point I had decided I was going to shoot this bear. We tied up the goats (because they go wherever you go and have no regards for personal space) and I made my way down the ridge to set up for the shot.
This time we took the spotter so we could record the shot. We took a bit getting setup but it became really clear that this bear wasn't going anywhere so there was no rush. I had a great rest and was able to get prone. We dialed the dope even though it wasn't a super long shot. Shawn said he was recording and I was ready to shoot so I touched one off. I wasn't able to stay in the scope but Shawn said I rolled him. I racked another one and picked him back up as he was walking down a log that was hovering over a giant willow patch. I told Shawn he didn't look sick to me and when he stopped at the end of the log I was going to put another one in him. I shot again and it felt good but it appeared to miss and the bear disappeared. From our perspective it didn't look like he could clear the willow without us seeing him so when we didn't see him we assumed he was dead. About that time the Rotter boys showed up with the boat and they had watched it all go down from a different perspective. They said they saw the bear walking away after the second shot and they didn't think the second shot had landed. The good news was we had the footage so we could replay it and know for sure what happened, or so we thought. It turned out Shawn hadn't hit record or the record button wasn't engaged because there was no footage. Super disappointing! The only thing left to do now was go over there and find out.
Joe and I emptied our packs and strapped on the raft. We had a nasty descent down to the creek through the creek and the ascent up the other side looked worse. That was the least of my concern, that's just work, you can't die form working. I didn't like the looks of that creek and my stomach was turning the whole way down. The plan was to have Joe cross the creek with 200' of 550 cord tied to the back. When he got to the other side I would pull the boat back and take the same line. I was ok with all of that until we got down to the creek's edge and saw what we were dealing with. Now I know there is a technical definition that determines what makes a body of water a creek vs a river. I don't really give a shit what that is...this is a RIVER and a gnarly one at that. I took one look at what had to be done and said, "there is no way in hell we're getting that boat back across this river with 550 cord. Joe wasn't even certain he wanted to cross it. After some debate and my sales pitch to abort mission he decided he was going and I should wait for him. On one hand I was relieved to not be crossing that thing but on the other hand I was more than worried for my best friend to be doing this but he was confident and I helped him put the boat together.
We were losing light and there wasn't a ton of time to mess around. Before I knew it he was across and changing clothes to make the ascent up to my bear. In the next couple of hours I had time to sit at the waters edge and contemplate a lot of things. My emotions were all over the place! They ranged from fear for my friend to humiliation for not being able to do what needed to be done in the situation. I felt ashamed for taking the shot away from a kid that I care so much for, I felt terrible for putting my friend in a situation that put his life in danger, I was getting myself pretty spun up.
To make matters worse, we didn't talk about a plan for anything going wrong, Joe didn't take an Inreach, the canyon was so deep that I couldn't get a message out to the guys on the point, and to top it all off I discovered that my headlamp battery had died from being on in my pocket all day and my charging cord was up on the point. I later found out my headlamp was fully charged. The end cap had come unscrewed enough that the battery wasn't touching the contact point.
I was beginning to panic so I stopped, prayed and decided to do something proactive. I started a fire while it was still light. It was getting cold as hell down by the water. I didn't know if Joe would make it back down before dark and he might need the fire to guide his landing or he might be wet so that's what I did, I started a fire. About that the time the fire got rolling I heard Joe say, "what are you doing?". My back was to the river the whole time I was making the fire so I hadn't seen him come down and cross the river. The sound of the river was deafening so I couldn't hear him either. Man was I relieved! I didn't even ask about the bear but he said he found blood. He got totally stopped by the willows and didn't think the shot was fatal anyway based on the type of blood he saw. I honestly didn't care at that point. We made the terrible climb out of that hell hole and back to the boys on the point. On the way I disclosed my regret about shooting that bear. I also told him how grateful I was for his attempt at retrieving it. In Joe's classic way of downplaying anything he does he simply said, "you know I would do anything for you". I'm not sure if that made me feel better or worse.
The boys on the point were never able to see Joe at any time on the hillside but they did see the giant from the night before about 500 yards above him and were able to capture some footage. We all headed back to camp, looked at the film, ate bear meat cooked over the fire, and Joe began plotting how to kill that giant bear.
DAY 5
We all slept in a bit and hung around the fire while making breakfast. We were discussing our plans for the day and I convinced Joe to take Jensen up the ridge above camp where Shawn had shot his bear. We had seen multiple bears in there the year before and one that was of the caliber that we were all looking for. I needed a more leisurely day and didn't really want to make that climb. I also felt like it was the best opportunity for Jensen to get a crack at a good bear. We looked at maps and they decided to give it a go. By 9:00 am they were making the climb with the goats.
Shawn and I decide that we'd go explore some country we'd never seen. There was a 5-6 mile stretch of the trail that stayed down by the creek and the grade was reasonable. There were some hillsides a few miles down the trail that looked really good so we loaded up and headed out. I was still wrestling with the decisions of the night before but I didn't talk about it. About 3 miles down the trail we stopped for lunch. Sandwiched between two fruit bars was a little note that my wife hid. We have been married for 27 years and for as long as I can remember she's been hiding notes in my gear when I leave for long trips. I had found a couple of the easy ones earlier in the trip. Some of them would be paired with a candy but this one was all alone stuck in my fruit snacks. It was just what I needed at that moment. A little pick me up when I wasn't feeling all that good about myself. I can be a lot to deal with at times and she's always supported my crazy endeavors. That little note changed the course of my day.
Eventually we found a hillside we wanted to look at for the afternoon so we made the climb up to a spot that gave us some visibility. The spot looked amazing and we stayed there til the golden hour but we didn't turn up an bears that evening. On the descent I started to feel some patellar tendon pain in both knees. This is nothing new for me, it wasn't any worse than normal and I didn't think much of it. We got back down to the trail, made the 4 mile hike back to camp and had a fire ready for the boys as they crawled down the ridge back to camp.
It turned out that they had a great day. They didn't find the big boar they were looking for but they got to watch a color phase sow and her two cubs for a while. They both thought the area was holding a big boar they just couldn't turn one up that day. Joe showed me a couple of things on the map that he thought would be worth looking at on a future trip. Sometimes it's helpful to have someone else's fresh perspective of an area and he sees things that I miss sometimes. We ate more bear meat and quoted movie lines for an hour before going to bed.
When I went to bed that night I noticed that my legs felt really weird when I bent them but I soon passed out. In the middle of the night I had to get up to take a leak and it was a bit of a struggle to get my balance. Shook it off as being tired and went back to my tick infested sleeping bag. Holy smokes the ticks were bad on this trip. If I said I pulled 500 ticks off myself in 7 days, I'm underestimating it.
DAY 6
The Rotter's were up early and moving fast. I poked out of my shelter and they were already putting cross bucks on the goats with their packs loaded. Joe said he had a plan to kill the big bear. He told me exactly what they were going to do down to the hour. The plan was to get to the glassing point and hopefully turn him up by noon. If they saw him they were going to cross the river and give themselves until 4:00 on that side and then make their way down and get back across the river before dark. That was going to potentially require them to leave the goats tied up all day. The plan was solid but that river crossing had me worried. I told them good luck and started making coffee. Shawn got up in time to see them off and we discussed plans for the day.
At 8:30 am I got at Inreach message stating that the big bear was back out feeding, they had tied the goats, and were heading down to the river. I stewed around for 45 minutes deciding between hunting or going to the glassing knob to keep tabs on the bear while they made the climb as well as tend to the goats and be in a place where we could bring the goats to the river to help pack meat up the hill should they connect. Eventually I made the decision that we should get to that knob and do what we could to help. I sent Joe a message telling him our plan. He must have had an inclination that's what I would do because the next message stated, " I left the spotter on the bear so you can see where he is when you get there". We packed up and hustled our asses the 3 miles up and out from camp to get to the knob.
By the time we got there we could see the boat was already across the river and there was a pile of bright yellow 550 cord laying on the shore. They had done it! We untied the goats and they followed us out to the knob where we all sat watching and waiting for the gun to go off. About 30 minutes into it I watched a bear lumber out of some willow onto the a grass patch. I Inreached Joe that I could see the bear. He immediately replied back that was a different bear and they were passing on it hoping to see the big boy. Shawn got the spotter on that bear and confirmed it was definitely not the one. The wind is blowing like crazy and we're hearing dead trees crash all morning. It's beginning to get a little uncomfortable.
I end up spotting a a sow with two cubs one drainage over and Shawn is working to get the spotter on them so we can film them when we hear another tree crash and Shawn says, "was that a shot?" then about 10 seconds later we hear another CRACK and that one is definitely the report of a rifle. At 2:15 my Inreach goes off and the message says, "Jensen just dirt napped the big one". Shawn and I are about as excited as you can get but we all know how challenging these recoveries can be. I message Joe back and his response is such that they know he's dead and can see him from their location. after another hour goes by I get a message saying, "tie up the goats and go hunt. we're bringing out a load and we'll get the rest tomorrow.”
Shawn and I head up the ridge behind us and sit for the evening. We come back down as we see headlamps coming up the trail and it's all hugs and congratulations. We hang the meat over a creek near the trail, hack off some fat and head for camp where we eat bear ckracklins and listen to the recount of how the day unfolded. What a night! I was so happy about that kid killing that bear.
DAY 7
I knew when I went to bed the night before that I might be in a little bit of trouble. The swelling that was in my knees was now in my calves and my hands were also starting to swell. I have had rhabdomyolysis twice and along with rabdo comes compartment syndrome...at least it did for me the two previous times. Once you've had rabdo you are at higher risk for getting it again. I also know from the two previous bouts, that the third day’s swelling is the worst and day 8 was going to be the third day of swelling. Day 8 was also pack-out day and we had 9 miles to go to get out. My concern was that my feet could swell overnight to the point where I couldn't get my boots on and that would be a real problem.
This had already been an amazing adventure and more successful than any of our previous trips so I decided it was time to go. It's probably the first time in my life where I've actually made the right decision in that situation. Maybe turning 50 made me instantly wiser...doubt it but I can hope. Shawn rode with me so that forced him out as well and I hated to cut his trip short but he was in agreement with me. We all hiked out to the glassing knob that was on our way out, took a group photo said our goodbyes, hugs and parted ways. The hike out was rough and whatever doubt I had left in mind about the decision was gone by mile 7 of 9.
The Rotter boys weren't due home til Sunday but they packed out the next day as well. They called me on their way home to let me know the road had been socked in from a windstorm that hit while Shawn and I were leaving. They were fortunate to have met some hunters earlier in the day and they let them borrow a chainsaw to cut their way out.
All of these adventure are memorable and they all leave a mark on my soul. For me they are a spiritual experience. This one was particularly special. Sharing an experience with one of my best oldest friends and his son (who is an absolute savage) was a real blessing. We amassed over 50 miles and almost 16k of vertical in some of the most rugged/beautiful terrain God ever made. This trip both inspired and humbled me within a 24 hour period.
