Hairy Beasts and Smell Korns

[Stone_Ice_1]

The next day I was going in to get 2 of my cameras. I usually don't leave my cameras up during the season every year because I just think eventually somebody will see and take them. I also wanted to hike into an area and check out some of the trails. Many people I had talked to had mentioned the terrible blowdown in areas.

So the next day we hiked in and took slightly different trail than I had before. It was mostly good, but there was one stretch of a mile or so that had obviously not been cleared in quite some time. It was a mile of this:


This is an area I was planning on archery hunting so this trail was going to be one to stay away from. We made a loop and I found a good spot for a campsite during archery and a better trail in the area. After some motivation on here from some other stories I decided I needed to leave a stash for when I was planning on coming back.



I know its only Coors Light but it was what I had at camp after I forgot to get something a little better. During a hot archery hunt in Sept I wouldn't be too choosy for a mid day treat.

As we hiked out I spotted another herd feeding out of the trees. All cows/calves with a couple of spikes. Eventually when I got back and checked the camera they had been on it recently.



The hike out ended up being quite the adventure. I had my 2 dogs with me, a husky and a lab. Both young dogs, the husky is under a year old. When I put the cameras up there was absolutely no cattle in this area. But on our hike out we ran into a herd of probably 200. My dog, the husky, started chasing them and would not come back. After a lot of yelling and a trip back to the truck to make sure he wasn't there we finally found him running down the trail acting as only a husky can that all was good in the world. The cattle was a bit of a concern though as there were a lot of them in the area.

 

[Stone_Ice_1]

Now to get back to camp and check the pictures from the camera. One thing I like about checking cameras is you just never know what you will get, all sorts of animals. Here is a cool picture of a coyote with his kill. Pretty sure I ran into this guy during the season several times.



After having these cameras out for over 2 months I was a little dissapointed in the results for elk. There were a couple of bulls but not many.


But this next one I wish I would have gotten a better angle on. It is my cheapest and worst camera and it usually only gets 1 picture, if that. I think this bull might be a giant but I will never know.


You can see there isn't much space between those pedicles. Also looking at the following picture you can see his body is much bigger than this one.

 

[Luke_with_a_lab]

The amount of downfall in some of the areas in there is unbelievable.

 

[ismith]

The amount of downfall in some of the areas in there is unbelievable.

Lots of beetle kill in that neck of the woods.

 

[ismith]

August 9th was a friday and so the girlfriend and I were heading out for a camping/scouting trip for elk. Drove out and set up the camper that evening and had time for a drive up a road that somebody had recommended to me. The road was really bad and full of really deep ruts. It had just rained so it was slippery. I made it up but was concerned about driving this road during the season, especially rifle season.

On the drive up we saw a couple cows and calves come busting out of the creek bottom. They went up over the hill and I drove a little farther up the road and spotted a couple deer. One was a mature buck worth getting a closer look at so I got out the spotting scope.

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He was s decent buck but nothing to get too excited about. One animal I love chasing is mule deer, trying to find those elusive big Montana mule deer bucks. I have yet to find a truly large one during the season and in my over 45 years of living in Montana have only seen a handful at all. Don't get too excited on seeing this buck and thinking there is something here, this was the ONLY mature buck I saw all year throughout all my scouting and eventual hunting. Never saw another one with at least 4 points.

We did see a herd of elk feeding out of the timber one our drive out at last light, no bulls.

Sadly, that caliber of buck used to be common in Montana, now it it's a monster buck.

 

[Stone_Ice_1]

The weekend of August 24th I was headed to my goat area for a weekend of scouting and learning the area. The first thing I learned is it is just over a 5 hour drive from my house to get into the area. This was a bit longer than anticipated but not much. I brought the 4 wheeler on this trip so I could get around on the road easily, check out he area and learn the lay of the land to the trailheads. We arrived well after dark on friday night and pitched the tent and conked out. Had the dogs sleep in the truck as the area is well known for grizzlies. We let them out at first light in the morning and laid back down only to hear this weird thumping sound outside. My husky in his boredom decided it was a good idea to jump up on top of the hood and cab of my truck. No idea why, but he scratched it up pretty good, was not pleased.

We then took the 4 wheeler up the road to check out the area. Dogs were running behind us, both are young, in great shape and needed to do something after being couped up in the truck all night and the day before. We made it about 2 miles up the road and I spotted a grizzly bear just above the cut bank of the road feeding on some berries. I stopped and pointed him out to the girlfriend, he looked at us and continued eating his berries. He was sitting down on his butt happily feeding area about 40 yards from us. I did notice he had an orange ear tag. I backed up and let the dogs catch up to me and just as they did I took off hoping they would not stop to check out the bear. They immediately hauled ass after me and when we went by the bear he didn't care, but as soon as he saw the dogs he stood up on his back legs and came barreling down the cut bank. He got on the road behind the dogs and took 4 or 5 running steps after them from about 10 behind them and gave up the chase. The dogs still to this day have no idea how close they were to certain death. I know one of them would have turned around to investigate if he saw the bear.

About another mile up the road is a big cliff off to the left of the road. I stopped to check it out for goats and right after stopping we spotted a goat. It was a billy, and a good mature on at that.


The goat is hard to see in this picture but he's there. He proceeded to go over the ridge in no time and disappeared from sight. While I was excited to see a goat, I didn't really want to shoot one from the road. But this was a big mature billy. We went further up the road and I found that this area that I had nevery been up to was absolutely beautiful. We spotted a few other animals.



There are 12 bighorn sheep on this knob. It is hard to see them all. There were tourists running up and down this road all day and I'm not sure any of them even saw the sheep.

 

[Stone_Ice_1]

My plan for the day was to check out a hike into an area I had learned about and to see how treacherous it was. There was a stretch on the hike that was described to me as being pretty spooky because of the height and exposure. I hiked in with the dogs while the girlfriend took the 4 wheeler around some of the local roads. The first mile or so is an established trail.

After a mile I headed up to the ridge off the trail.


I was headed up this gully to the top for a look at some of this treacherous hike. I know more than got 50 yards off the trail and behind me on the rock I spotted a goat.



He was not hard to see since he was skylined. You can easily see him in the picture. So out came the spotting scope to get a better look.



One single goat by himself. I watched him for about 15 minutes and determined he was most likely a billy, but younger than the one I had seen earlier that morning. I was plotting what I would do in this instance if the season had actually started.




He bedded down and I headed up to my ridge I wanted to investigate. Where he bedded there would have been an almost perfect line to hike up to him without him seeing you and get a shot, although it was over 1000 feet up to get there.

 

[BigHornRam]

My plan for the day was to check out a hike into an area I had learned about and to see how treacherous it was. There was a stretch on the hike that was described to me as being pretty spooky because of the height and exposure. I hiked in with the dogs while the girlfriend took the 4 wheeler around some of the local roads. The first mile or so is an established trail.

After a mile I headed up to the ridge off the trail.

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I was headed up this gully to the top for a look at some of this treacherous hike. I know more than got 50 yards off the trail and behind me on the rock I spotted a goat.

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He was not hard to see since he was skylined. You can easily see him in the picture. So out came the spotting scope to get a better look.

View attachment 358798

One single goat by himself. I watched him for about 15 minutes and determined he was most likely a billy, but younger than the one I had seen earlier that morning. I was plotting what I would do in this instance if the season had actually started.

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He bedded down and I headed up to my ridge I wanted to investigate. Where he bedded there would have been an almost perfect line to hike up to him without him seeing you and get a shot, although it was over 1000 feet up to get there.

I saw a couple wolves chasing a couple goats on that hill, 25 years ago. Cool country!

 

[Stone_Ice_1]

I continued up the drainage that I wanted to get to. It takes a bit of elevation gain to get up there but it isn't too bad, but I had to keep reminding myself that I was just carrying a day pack, not a full blown backpacking setup. Once on the top at the ridge, at first I was a bit tepid about it, but most of that was in my head from what I had heard about it. After getting used to the ridge I was on, it really wasn't too big of a deal. Looking back I could still see the billy I had previously spotted and he hadn't moved.


The billy I spotted is bedded down on above the big cliff in the upper right of this picture. You can also see Granite Peak way off in the distance. I have not made it to the top yet after 2 tries to Granite, snow/ice stopped us both times. It is on my bucket list.

The views from up on the ridge were phenomenal and I took a bunch of pictures. These are only a few.




The pictures, as usual don't do the drop offs justice. It is a couple thousand feet down off to the left and very steep on the right of this picture. There is one 15 foot section that is especially sketchy where a slip off the left side would definitely kill you and a step to the right would probably not kill you but it wouldn't be pretty when you were done falling. I was trying to envision packing an animal out of here and how bad that would be.



I arrived at my destination and the view did not disappoint. From here the hike is relatively easy. I did not see any goats but there was sign everywhere and it just looked very goaty.



My mutts had come with me. They had no fear of the cliffs whatsoever and I had to keep calling them back away from it. There was one moment I thought my husky was going to take a flying leap off the 2000 foot cliff. A pika/chipmunk/something small and rodenty, I don't remember which, went running for the cliff and he being a husky couldn't resist and gave chase. Luckily he stopped just in time.

 

[Stone_Ice_1]

As I said I couldn't get enough of the view on such a bluebird day.

View attachment View from the Ridge of Death.jpg

I turned around and headed out. I hadn't seen a single person on my hike, which was encouraging but of course it is not the season yet. While headed out I could see the billy I spotted earlier hadn't moved. He was still bedded down. I sat down and watching him fot a bit and he got up and headed up over the ridge out of my sight.

I then hiked out to the trailhead and my girlfriend was there waiting for me with the 4 wheeler. She reported that she had spotted a goat and I told her I wanted to see where. We drove around a bit and when she pointed out the area, I was pretty sure it was the same one I had spotted but on the other side of the hill. After some time we were able to locate it. A single goat and on the other side of the hill from where I had seen mine earlier. Probably the same one but he was too far off to tell for sure.

He decided to head back to camp and go into Cooke City to get some dinner. One the way out we ran into a lot of people out on their side by sides. We were sitting talking to one group and my girlfriend looked down from us and said there was something moving down there. It ended up being a giant grizzly, the 2nd one of the day. And I know it wasn't the same one because it didn't have an ear tag like the previous one. I have seen lots of grizzlies over the years and these 2 and the biggest bears I have ever seen.



He is a long ways off so it is hard to tell, but he is massive. It was the first animals the tourist had seen all day. We had seen mountain goats, mule deer, bighorn sheep, moose, and grizzly bear.



It really is a beautiful area. I just hope the number of side by sides and off road vehicles in this area don't ruin it.

The next morning we got up and headed in for a drive around to see if we could spot anything. No luck spotting any goats, although we did see other animals. No more bears spotted but at one pit stop we took I hiked down a the hill a ways and found a big patch of grizzle bear fur. It was all wadded up and had porcupine quills all through it. Wish I could have witnessed that encounter.



All in all it was a great scouting trip. I was able to check out the area and even spotted a few goats.

 

[Beignet]

The amount of downfall in some of the areas in there is unbelievable.

Ha! Coming from the western side of the state I was thinking "A mile of that doesn't look so bad."