PACK-OUT PART 2

perfectly still winds, we slowly worked our way up, over, and down the mountain, using extreme caution not to dislodge any rocks and give away our position.

It took us over two hours to reach the shooting vantage that we had scoped out earlier that morning. As we peeked down below, we were thrilled to see that both moose were still there, and even closer to us than we expected. With Steve as my spotter, we laid down on the rocks and got set up comfortably in a prone shooting position. A quick yardage check determined that the bigger bull was 187 yards downhill from us, a perfectly comfortable distance for the shot we needed. Because the younger moose was lying close to the larger bull, we needed him to get out of the way before we had a clear shooting lane. We would also need the bull we were targeting to stand up, turn broadside and offer up an opportunity for me to zero in on his heart with my crosshairs.

Rather than letting emotions get the best of us, we resisted the urge to try to stand the two bulls up by letting out a few grunts. Instead, we opted to wait patiently for them to stand up on their own, to reduce the risk of spooking them. We had already waited several days to be in this seat, so waiting a few more hours wasn’t a big deal.

After a little over an hour, our patience was finally rewarded. The younger bull stood up and began to feed, eventually moving out of the way. He offered us a clear shot as he stood broadside for several minutes, but our hearts were set on harvesting the older animal. Twenty minutes later, the bigger bull stood and slowly turned. With my crosshairs placed directly on his armpit, he stepped forward and exposed his vitals. I steadied my breathing and slowly applied pressure to the trigger. Bang!

The shot was clean, and the bull didn’t take more than two steps before he swayed and then collapsed in the willow. It was over in seconds. We gathered our knives and kill kits and waited the standard 15 minutes before approaching the downed animal and going to work.

With ultralight sheep-hunting tools at our disposal, it took us over five hours to do the butchering.

Once the animal was processed, we built a meat rack (for the quarters) on a pile of rocks, a little ways away from the kill site. We then covered the quarters with tarps, to ensure they would remain cool and dry in our absence. Once this was done, we loaded our hunting packs with 100 pounds of prime and off cuts, each, turned on our headlamps and began the first of the three journeys down to the creek and off the mountain.

After a few hard kilometres, we reached a densely treed area just below our alpine camp. We hung the meat there and hiked up the mountain to spend one last night on the ridge. The next morning we packed up our tents and hiked down to set up a new base in the trees. Once gear was stashed, we grabbed the meat from the night before and finished carrying out the first load.

While it felt good to get the off cuts secured at the lake, our victory was short-lived. Spirits remained high as we laughed and joked while we hiked our way up the mountain to grab the four quarters.

I still remember the feeling of taking those first few steps, with the moose hind on my back. Even with limited supplies, it felt as though I was carrying out a person rather than a quarter. I looked around at the guys as they adjusted the straps on their packs and grabbed their hiking poles. The expressions on their faces told me that I wasn’t the only one that was feeling the weight. The next thing I remember hearing was Rory breaking the tense silence with some words of encouragement, “Let’s go, boys!”

We began marching down to the creek, one laboured step at a time.

Our two biggest concerns, with this phase of the pack-out, were either bumping into a grizzly bear, or one of us rolling an ankle. With a fresh gut pile, not far away, and plenty of bear signs in the valley, we knew that running into a bear in less-than-ideal circumstances was a real possibility.

Fatigued from the weight of our packs, our reaction time would be slowed in the event of a charge. To mitigate this risk, we made sure to have both our rifles and our bear spray accessible and strapped to our chest.

Anecdotal reports say you usually have three seconds or less to react when charged by a grizz, so having our guns and spray on our packs simply wouldn’t do us any good. We were fortunate enough to have learned this lesson before (the hard way) and were lucky to have gotten away with a hit. If you’re a hunter and haven’t already switched to a chest-mount system for your rifle and spray, we highly recommend it.

To reduce the risk of rolling an ankle, we defaulted back to our mantra: Slow is steady, steady is safe, safe is fast. We took breaks, when we needed to, and used what battery was left in our cellphones to play music, keeping us motivated. Our legs