PanhandleExposure.com
Where things might go north…

Enough said.

Well, I’m still drying out.  I think the hypothermia has finally worn off, and I can finally feel my own hands again. 

If you couldn’t guess, our opener didn’t go so hot.  Let me run you through the ups and downs..

Our hunt was originally planned as a 2-4 day Alpine hunt on a local mountain.  Our plan was to hike up on Saturday first thing in the morning so we could take it nice and slow.  Hunting the road system tends to me a lot of company here in J-Town.  Thats why it is important to be up there and stake claim as soon as humanly possible.  This is where our first hitch came on.  Due to some work issues on Butter’s part, we were unable to make our summit attempt until 2:00PM.  Not a good time to get started.

By the time we finally had got started, the clouds started to roll in, and there was a light sprinkle.

We saw one other guy head up the trail before us.  I assume to go hunting as he was carrying a rifle, a pack that appeared to be loaded extremely light.  Bad news from him is he was wearing a cotton t-shirt with blue jeans and xtra-tuffs.

Anyways, I’d never been up this particular trail so I didn’t really know what to expect, but let me tell you, it is a death march.  Or at least it was for me.  Nevermind the rain, I was soaked with sweat.

After a few challenges on the way up, such as  the “4 logs halfway to heaven,” and the dreaded “Hershey squirt ass crack,” we finally made it to the first alpine bench. 
By now the rain was not just a sprinkle, but a full on downpour.  We couldn’t see farther than 50 yards as the clouds had dropped, and we were struggling to find a flat spot to pitch the tent with some protection whilst freezing our asses off.

We finally managed to find a flat spot to pitch the tent.  Now the thing you have to understand is our tent has a mesh roof to allow great ventilation, and you can’t put the rain-fly on until you have the tent pitched.  Thus, the next challenge began.  How fast can we pitch the tent?  It was a good thing we had practiced because we had that bitch pitched in less than 2 minutes, but it wasn’t quick enough.  The inside of the tent was wet, but not nearly as wet as it was outside.  We stashed all of our gear under the vestibles, stripped our wet clothing off, and hopped into the bags.

After about 2 hours, and numerous downpours later we had a decision to make.  Break camp now and call it, and just wait for better weather, or try to buff it out and hope to God we wouldn’t be miserable the next few days.

At the end of it we decided to break camp and beat feet back to the car.  When we broke camp it was about 8:30PM.  We were a tad concerned about how much daylight we had left, but more than that we just wanted off that god-forsaken mountain.

We made it down off the steep part about the time it got pitch black.  About that time my feet started to feel like I was on a death march.  A few wrong turns later we made it to the truck and were even more drenched than we were before.

Long story short, it sucked, but we got other plans in the works since the weather has improved….Now I just gotta mend my wounds…

With deer season just around the corner (August 1st in this neck of the woods) we finally decided we needed to drop what we were doing, make some time away from work and home and get out and scout.  Not only for the pure and simple fact of trying to see what is going on out in the mountains, but because we need to get our legs in shape.  And lets admit it, we just plain needed a break.  Dealing with people day in and day out can wear on a person, and its done gone and wore on us.

On any note, we managed to score a sweet ride to the top and started wandering from there.  We started climbing further up another mountain looking for a good vantage point to scope out the surrounding valleys and mountain tops…

 As we started to make our way towards the top we came upon a small alpine pond.  There were a few small deer trails around it, but nothing to get excited about.

 As we neared the top we came upon a small gulley still with snow in it.  We had a good view from there of the backside of the mountain, and some lower terraces.  We sat down to take a break and glass as there were many small ponds and meadows surrounded by fringes.  As I glassed near a small pond I noticed a nice heavy deer trail.  I began to follow the deer trail with my binocs to the treeline when I noticed a deer walking along it.  Now, we must have been about 700-800 yards away and it was moving quick.  I’m not %100 sure but the body size was larger, and since most of the does should have fawns this time of year, I feel pretty confident it was a buck.

We continued with a drudge up the hill.  We were greeted with a wonderful view, but not many other sightings of deer.  We saw a grand total of 4 throughout this evening hike.  One was a definate buck that was about 1400 yards across a HUGE valley in Alder HELL.  Don’t think we’ll be going after him.

All in all the weather was nice and we got some awesome photos.  Not a bad outing?!