King of the Mountain: Taking a Dall sheep in his private hideout

Dall Sheep hunting was not on my mind as a young hunter growing up in western Washington. I had heard stories of the elk and deer in the surrounding hills and how tough the great hunters in the area were, but I had no idea that sheep hunting would be the pinnacle of my hunting career – that it would test my endurance and my spirit.

In my youth, I began hunting by just wanting to kill a deer. When that goal was achieved, I moved on to elk, and then on to trying for an elk every year. During that time, my family and I also began traveling to the mountains of Wyoming in search of mule deer. I was fond of the Wyoming mountains and the success we found there, but in 2019 in the remote vastness of Alaska during a caribou hunt, I found what I really wanted…

I had always felt that a sheep hunt was a “someday” thing and out of reach. Yet, it seemed to embody everything about hunting that I loved; hiking, climbing, and testing limits. So, in the winter of 2019, after we came home from our caribou trip, I got my brother Charlie and myself on a sheep hunt waitlist. I figured that was a start; the beginning of a commitment. I was not expecting a call for at least five years, as we were in the double-digits on the list. However, in early 2020, I received a call that there were two spots available for 2021. Did we want them? I was not ready, and neither was Charlie, but how could we say no? We both agreed that, readiness withstanding, it was time – we were booked for 2021.

The Journey In

As we approached our departure on August 6th, all the anticipation and preparation culminated in a nervous flight, but we arrived ready to hike on our first day in Anchorage. Our outfitter Eric Lee picked us up and introduced us to one of our packers, Ben. After convening with our first guide, Chris, we started the five-hour drive to the trailhead to get an early jump on our hike for the morning. We camped by the trail the night of the 6th and made our way farther up the wheeler trail in our jeep. The terrain was steep and required winching up hills and splashing through rivers. Nonetheless, about a mile from the end of the trail, our jeep broke down and we began walking from there.

The climb was steep and rugged, but we made it to the top as dusk settled in on us. We dug out spots for our tents and hunkered down for a windy night of restless sleep. We awoke the next morning to the same pounding wind, so we made our way to the crest of the pass to survey our hunting area.

Charlie, Chris, and Ben got up early to get out of the incessant wind and made it to the ridge in time to spot the first sheep of the trip. It was miles in the distance, but we had finally seen some rams! We tried to size up the rams from our faraway vantage but needed a closer look to rule if any of them were legal. It seemed that a couple of them definitely had some potential. We traversed a steep boulder field to make it to the valley floor just as the rain started and visibility disappeared.

Chris and Ben set up their glassing tarp to keep us dry while scanning the hillsides for sheep, while Austin and Todd set up tents down lower. The rain was not subsiding, so I started moving my gear down to the tent I was sharing with Austin when I noticed something running along the valley floor. I threw up my binoculars and saw a young bull moose being chased by two wolves. Unfortunately, the wolf season did not start for two more days, and I had to let the other eight wolves that followed walk as well.

Scouting Report

The next 24 hours were pretty uneventful as we waited in our tents for a rain squall to pass. We were not able to move out until the afternoon of the 9th, less than a day from the opener on the 10th. Charlie, Chris, & Ben would head to the top of the mountain where we had seen a no-doubter and another possible legal ram, while Austin, Todd, and I would head up another drainage to look for legal sheep. We wished each other good luck and took our separate paths.

Not long into our journey, we spotted something parked on the riverbank. What could have driven up this far? Turns out, a vehicle called a “Sherpa.” We walked around it and spotted the drivers up ahead of us on a hillside, making their way up the canyon we wanted to hunt. With limited options, we pressed on and continued up the canyon, glassing the steep hillsides fresh with snow for signs of sheep.

Not long into our first glassing session, Todd spotted something on the far, snow-covered cliffs. “There’s a sheep right there,” he said. As he guided Austin and me into the sheep with our binoculars. They remarked on how big he looked and that we needed to get a better look. Apparently, the guys in front of us had not seen him. After glassing the sheep for hours, Austin was sure he was legal but could not make the final call until we got closer on our final stalk the next day, the opener.

We would watch him until it got too dark and then move into position in the morning. That was a good plan until we noticed two more guys coming up the drainage towards us. We had to act like we were not looking at anything on the hillside as they walked below us and pray they could not see the ram from where they were. They passed by us and camped upriver, just below the cliffs the ram was in. Austin and Todd kept an eye on the ram until we ran out of daylight, and we set an alarm for 4 AM to be the first ones on him in the morning.

Did I just blow my only shot at a legal ram?

Busted

I sprang awake when the first rays of daylight showed through our tent on opening morning. “We can see the hill, let’s go,'' I shouted. Todd spotted the ram low on the mountain. He had fed down into the green just above the river. Austin and I quickly made our move, going up the river bed to get into position for a closer look and a shot. As we climbed the mountain to crest the ridge and see the ram, I kept checking wind direction with a wind checker. About halfway up, the thermals had shifted and started blowing straight up our backs, towards the ram. Just as Austin was able to get a closer look at the ram from the crest of the ridge, our wind blew over and right to him. He responded as wild animals do, moved away, and took cover. Did I just blow my only shot at a legal ram?

We checked the snow in the top of the canyon for sheep tracks but could find none. We decided to back out and check if Todd knew where the ram went from his vantage across the canyon. At this point, I leaned on my years of failure bow hunting elk and all the blown stalks I have had. I knew I needed to keep our spirits up because things could change in an instant. Todd informed us that we needed to meet up, and we hustled to his location. Much to our surprise, he had relocated the ram, high in the same canyon! He had never left but sought cover high in his mountain castle. Just as we got eyes on him again, a storm moved in. We would lose visibility for another half a day.

Cold Surveillance

On day two of the season, I awoke to a symphony of raindrops on our tent. Looking outside, visibility was minimal, so I snuggled back into my down bag and impatiently waited. Around 9 AM, I looked outside again and could see the hillside, so we pulled on our wet boots and geared up while Todd spotted the ram on the hillside feeding high in the cliffs. We watched the ram feed around the rock faces, waiting for the opportunity to advance for a shot. At this point, we were still 1600 yards out. The ram fed behind some rock outcroppings and bedded out of sight. Time for us to make a move.

Austin and I picked our way up the mountain as Todd kept watch on the ram from the opposite hillside, ready to alert us with hand signals if the ram came back out. Austin and I went up a cut in the side of the mountain and waited for the ram to reappear. If he came down to feed lower in the green vegetation like he did the day before I would have an easy shot. Unfortunately, the ram had other plans; he decided to stay hidden behind the cliffs while the three of us froze our butts off on our respective hillsides.

A few hours in and a couple of rain squalls later, I had to move or I wouldn’t be able to shoot through my convulsions. So, we went back out the cut we had climbed up and side-hilled up the face to try and get in a different position and warm up. As we came over the rise in the ridge, the ram reappeared and we were pinned down. If we tried to advance on him he would see us and flee the mountain, but we were still 700 yards out, too far for me to shoot.

I Can Make That Shot!

Austin decided we would wait him out. If he fed down low enough, we would be hidden by a rise in the hill and then we could make our move to get in range for a shot. For the next three hours, we watched the ram feed up and down the mountain, teasing us and then ultimately feeding up the cliff and bedding on top of a rock outcropping with no chance to advance closer to him. After discussing our options, I convinced Austin that if we went back down the hill and up the cut, I would be close enough to make the shot. “So, if I get you to that spot, you can make that shot?” “Yes,” I said, “I can make that shot!”
Austin led us back down the mountain and up the cut, belly-crawling the last few hundred yards. Austin ranged the ram and he was at 570 yards. “Let me get you up to that next rise,” he said. We crawled 20 more yards, only moving when the ram looked away. I set up my rifle and Austin ranged him at 550 yards, the exact max distance I had practiced to. I knew I could make the shot. I lined up my crosshairs and started feeling my heartbeat in the stock of the gun.

All the years of waiting and preparing and the money and time spent were culminating into this one moment, and I was losing focus, so I repeated my mantra in my head. “Ease into the trigger, aim small, miss small, aim small, miss small…” Just then, the ram took notice of us and stood up. I immediately got behind my scope, placed my 550 hash mark behind his shoulder, and eased the trigger without thinking.

The ram instantly dropped with the bullet placed perfectly below the spine at the top of the lungs. As I watched the ram expire on top of his mountain castle, all of the emotions of the last few days and years leading up to the hunt washed away, and I was left with pure elation. I picked Austin up off the ground in a bear hug with both of us screaming at the top of our lungs. We had done it, we outlasted the ram and got close enough for a shot while he was perched high in his castle.

The ram may have been down, but our journey was far from over. We still needed to figure out how to reach him, quarter him up and make it back down the mountain in the dark in the midst of a new rainstorm. As we hiked up to the location of the ram, Austin noticed that the ram had slid off the perch he was on and was about to plummet off of a waterfall, down into an ice-choked ravine. I stayed behind and spotted the ram for Austin as he nimbly made his way up the rockslide before the ram fell into the ravine below. Austin secured the ram before he slid off the waterfall.

Then, I was able to come up and finally put my hands on him. As I examined the annuli in his horns and marveled at the ram’s beauty, I would like to say I had some profound thoughts about what led me to this moment and all the people I had to thank that helped me get here, but I was still too caught up in the adrenaline of the moment.

Long Way Down

Todd joined us a short time later, and we took many pictures and recounted each other's stories from the shot. After the pictures, we caped and quartered the ram in our headlamps and shouldered our heavy packs for a long trudge down the boulder fields to our tents. When we finally arrived, we were all soaked head to toe and exhausted. What a rollercoaster ride! We went from spooking a ram to salvaging a hunt and creating some new friendships.

We were all looking forward to sleeping in the next day and drying out some gear. Thankfully the weather gods took pity on us and the rain subsided for the next day. We spread all our gear out to dry on the hillside, looking like an outdoor gear yard sale, and started to clean the cape and skull. We were out of food, so after our gear dried out, the plan was to move back to our main cache and meet up with the other group. Now that we were all back in the same camp, Todd worked on building a fire so we could all try some of this delicious sheep meat.

Austin had packed seasoning, and nothing tasted better than roasted tenderloin over an open fire in the Alaskan wilderness. One of my favorite treats is deer tongue, and I was surprised that none of the guys had tried a sheep tongue, so I boiled that in Austin's Jet Boil while we cooked some femurs by the fire. I skinned the tongue, sliced it thin, and topped it with marrow from the femurs. Everyone agreed they had never tasted anything finer!

The hunt was far from over. Charlie was still looking for a legal ram, and I had a grizzly tag in my pocket, so Charlie, Chris, and Ben headed back up the mountain while Todd, Austin, and I were going to climb the opposite ridge to look for sheep and bears. Unfortunately, all we could find were trophy caribou; herds of bulls high in the mountains, feeding among the snowbanks, escaping swarms of bugs and heat. We discovered amazing vistas surrounded by mountains but no more legal sheep or grizzly, so we descended back to camp. A group of other hunters had harvested caribou in the same drainage, so we kept an eye on the gut piles for bears and did camp chores.

The next day the sheep meat showed signs of turning, so we decided to load it up and head over the pass to Austin's four-wheeler. Of course, the rain came back to greet us for the hike out. The pass was steep and no real trail defined it. Up the shale and loose rock we climbed until we summited the pass and could see below us the river valley that we had ascended eight days earlier. As we descended lower into the river bottom, the alders thickened and had us searching for a moose trail. We ended up crossing the creek multiple times, trying not to fall on the slick boulders that made up the creek bed.

Finally, we made it back to the main river channel. We would need to cross it one more time, and the week of rain had made the river swell above our gaiters. Needless to say, we all had wet boots to dry around our final campfire that night. We hung the meat in a tree by our tents and ate the last of our sheep tenderloins.

After waking in the morning from the deepest sleep any of us had experienced the whole trip, we loaded the quad and trailer for the twenty-mile ride back to the truck. There were many mud holes and river crossings along the way, and the rising rivers made them all interesting, particularly the time the water covered the entire four-wheeler and sent us floating down the river. Luckily, Austin is as good a boat captain as he is an off-roader and was able to right the ship and get us safely across.

Once back to the truck and loaded up, all any of us could talk or think about was a big, greasy burger from Ernesto’s. After surviving for ten days on freeze-dried meals, nothing sounds better than a greasy gut bomb! As I reflect on this trip, it seems less and less like a once-in-a-lifetime event and more like the beginning of something great.

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