Backpack buck at timberline

[Okanagan]

Grandson R and his Dad backpack hunted this weekend in the Washington State early High Buck Hunt.  The only places open are high elevation, with only one road in the entire state even reaching near the edge of an open season area.  It is all backpack or pack animals, and a legal buck has to have at least 3 points on one side. 

They drove to the trailhead on Thursday evening after work and got there at 10:30 PM.  After a short sleep they started hiking up the switchback trail at 1:30 AM, with food enough for the weekend.

By first light they were on a ridge above timberline overlooking a big basin 7 ½ miles by trail and over 4,000 vertical feet above their vehicle.  For the first hour they didn’t see anything but goats but as sunlight edged down to light the basin they spotted several deer, including a legal 3 point buck 675 yards away.

R is dialed in with a long range outfit, a long barreled, big scoped Begara rifle in 6.5 PRC, but he was sure he could get closer to the buck.  He edged up the back side of their ridge while his Dad stayed put with the spotting scope to keep an eye on the deer if they moved. 

R got within 375 yards and worked himself into a good shooting rest. Meanwhile the buck fed toward him, never giving him a clear shot in a good body position till it turned broadside in the huckleberries at 330 yards.  He aimed high on the near shoulder and at the shot the buck dropped, then rolled down 40 yards.  The 143 grain Eldx went through the shoulder blade, both lungs and touched the spine.

They boned out the buck and had it back to their vehicle by 5:30 pm.  Remember, they had started hiking that morning at 1:30 AM.  R figured that they packed the meat 5,000 feet up and down.   

[FinsnFur]

Dang. Kudos to "R" and his Dad.
That made for a heck of a day no doubt.

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[pitw]

Heck of a hike.
Grats to them both.
I wouldn't be able to pack enough food for the day.

[nastygunz]

 Due to the exploits of those boys and the angle of that slope behind them I am invoking  my powers as a Native Vermonter and declaring them honorary long distance Green Mountain  Men!

[Hawks Feather]

Congratulations on their buck and thanks for taking us along for the hunt.  There was a day when I might have been able to make the hike, but not the shot, so it is fun to read the exploits of others.

[Okanagan]

I know that ridge and basin and whole mountain well and they know I kind of live their hunts vicariously as they tell me how they worked the terrain. My first hike up there took me 5 1/2 hours to a little flat camp spot which we use as a reference point.  I did it in about 4 one time.  My last hike up there took me 8 1/2 hours...

Wish I had a bucket of huckleberries from up there.

[Okanagan]

Due to the exploits of those boys and the angle of that slope behind them I am invoking  my powers as a Native Vermonter and declaring them honorary long distance Green Mountain  Men!

What an honor!  I will tell them!

[nastygunz]

 There is some beautiful country!

[JohnP]

During my time in the military, I have "hiked" up and down many mountains with a 60-pound ruck on my back and carrying a rifle.    I know that climb was not easy.

[coyote101]

Nice buck, and a great story; what an adventure. Do they ever see other hunters out there when they are doing these serious back country hunts? Most guys around here aren't willing to venture more than a couple hundred yards from a road, or their vehicle. Of course, we don't have the wilderness that you have out west.

Pat

[Okanagan]

Do they ever see other hunters out there when they are doing these serious back country hunts? Most guys around here aren't willing to venture more than a couple hundred yards from a road, or their vehicle. Of course, we don't have the wilderness that you have out west.

Pat

Pat, the majority of hunters in WA don't ventrure far from a road but we have lots of pretty serious backpack hunters in this state.  Many wilderness hunt areas are overrun with backpacker and horse hunters.  We have hunted a few of those places, years ago, 15 or 20 camps in one basin, trailhead looks like a Walmart parking lot opening morning.

OTOH I didn’t ask but don’t think they encountered another hunter last Friday.  It was not opening weekend or they probably would have met two or three.  IME from talking with the few hunters I met on that trail in years past, I’d guess that 95% or more of the backpack hunters that go up that trail never do it again. 

[nastygunz]

 Back in my younger days we used to take off to the top of the mountain set up base camp and then stay there and hunt as long as we wanted too.  We didn't have all the fancy stuff that's available today we ate bush tucker drank from a brook and slept on Pine boughs.  No tents and no TP ha ha. Every now and then we would see another Ridge Runner but not very often.  Back in those days it was a pretty accepted practice to shoot a doe and hang her up for camp meat even if there wasn't a doe season.

[Hawks Feather]

Back in those days it was a pretty accepted practice to shoot a doe and hang her up for camp meat even if there wasn't a doe season.

So poaching was accepted? 

[pitw]

Back in those days it was a pretty accepted practice to shoot a doe and hang her up for camp meat even if there wasn't a doe season.

So poaching was accepted?

Sounds about right.

[nastygunz]

Yes.  It was also accepted that elderly people could cruise the back roads and shoot a few Partridge or ruffed grouse out of the vehicle window. Those days are long past now.

[FinsnFur]

 Canadians started crossing down in here and got wreckless so they put the kabosh on all that. [emoji23]

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[Okanagan]

The photo below is of R and his Dad taken about ten years ago at the spot where they sat to glass last Friday. The ridge they are sitting on runs up to the left and the basin where the buck was drops away in front of them.

I took the pic when we were up there scouting and clearing the trail in late summer.



Below: From the same hike ten years ago, R and his Dad getting water from a seep by the trail about 3/4 mile and on the other side of the ridge/mountain from where they found the buck this year.  They parked down in the bottom of the canyon behind them, and they are in one of the first lower avalanche meadows that streak the upper mountain as the trees get shorter and sparser.  Not to the top but getting close.

[nastygunz]

Beeyootiful country

[Okanagan]

Update:  When asked, my son said that they did meet one backpack hunter on their hike out, a fit young man day hunting, not planning to camp up high.  Too bad that he saw the antlers they carried.

There was a second buck that sparred with the one R killed while he sneaked closer to them.  It looked a year older.  It had a heavier stocky body with smaller antlers, typical of mule deer/blacktail crossbred “benchleg” bucks.   It hung around for five minutes as they approached the down buck.

Son had a tag, didn’t want to get into packing two bucks down several miles of steep trail the same warm day.  He knew they could not get two bucks out by dark and would have to spend the night.  He passed.

[slagmaker]

Congratulations on a fine hunt!!

Thank you for the write up and taking us along.