Hunting Update

Well we went in to our goat hunting area only to be disappointed by what we found because the weather was not cooperating!!! It was raining like crazy the day we went in (in fact, it had been raining hardcore for about 2 straight days). We mountain biked (and I mean hard core mountain biked) with all our gear and packs for close to 7 miles. My quads were burning like crazy, but the path was getting too unridable. At this point, we got off the bikes and hiked 3 more miles along the path until we decided that we were at a point where we needed to move off the path and climb up/around a mountain to get to the railroad to our destination valley. The off the road path was INSANE!!!! Imagine the thickest possible brush you can think of... then interweave it with Devil's Club ( aka thorns galore)... then throw a 50 some pound pack on your back... then make sure you just ran a mile and can't feel your legs.... and try walking through this crap!!! Oh ya, and make sure you are climbing peaks and valleys the whole time too! I can not tell you how tired I was, only to be dissapointed by seeing that the entire valley harboring the railroad was flooded. Turns out, the weather dropped record rainfall and dangerous winds which resulted in our inability to get to our hunting spot. Granted, if the weather was good, we still had a 12 mile hike along the railroad tracks (which is semi-illegal) and then another 5 miles of so of bushwhacking at the end to get to our goal spot.... and that didn't even include climbing a mountain to look around for the mountain goat!!! CRAZY!!!

So the week of hunting turned into a couple days. The good thing that came out of this was that we were out of our hunt in time to wait in line 3 hours before 100 moose tags went up for grabs. So now I have a moose tag for a hunt that begins Oct 25th and lasts until the end of August. It is a very competitive... and convenient hunt for locals. In fact, the hunting area is just over a mountain in a neighboring valley from where we live... I say "only" but it's actually about 5 miles of hiking to get to the hunting area. I have people lined up to help pack meat out if a bag a moose... but the good thing about getting one this time of year is that you can leave your meat in a tree and retrieve it gradually as it will be nice and cool in the field until May or so now. I'll let you know how it goes.

No time to spell/grammar check. Gotta hit the hay!!