Muzzleloader Hunt - (9/27/11-10/02/11)

Here's Josh in our lovely campsite. We were back in some pines. It was just the perfect spot. The date on these pics are obviously wrong. I'm not sure what happened. And sorry, but this is a really long post. I print my blog every year, so I wanted to write all the details so we don't forget. I really don't expect anyone to read it all.....

We left Bentley with my parents on a Tuesday and left to the mountains for the muzzleloader deer hunt. We both had tags, but Josh wanted me to get one first. He's real picky and will only shoot a wall hanger...

The first couple days we rode the motorcycle up a very rugged trail. The trail was barely wide enough for our motorcycle. It was kind of scary. We had a couple crashes with only minor bumps and bruises. We saw about 5 bucks that day, but only small ones, so we decided to try somewhere else the next day.

Josh and his dorky smile. He will be mad if he sees this pic on here, but it's one of the only ones of both of us.

Cutting up some firewood.

Using the spotting scope to find the deer we were going to go after. We found some nice bucks, but they were way up high almost in the cliffs with the mountain goats. We were trying to decide the best way to get to them. It was so hot and so the deer were way high.

We went up Timp on the trail and hoped to come over the top down on them. We got up at

3 a.m. and started hiking at 4 a.m. It was 7 miles up to the top.

We were almost to the top here. It was absolutely gorgeous up there. I had never hiked Timp before.

Josh standing on the cliff looking down. You could see the whole valley from up here. I realized I am maybe a little bit afraid of heights looking down off the cliffs.

Unfortunately we couldn't get to the deer this way, because of how steep and rocky it was. I told Josh there was absolutely no way I was going down there. While we were up there we enjoyed the view and watching about 30 mountain goats all over the cliffs. I hadn't ever been that close to these. They're pretty amazing animals.

We hiked back down the trail, another 7 miles to our truck. We were exhausted from hiking all day and getting up so early. We went back to camp had some tinfoil dinners and went to bed. The next morning we woke up at 3 a.m. again to hike up the front side of the mountain this time. We started hiking in the dark with our head lamps and packs full of water and food and everything else. There was no trail, so we were straight bush whacking through brush past our waists. We stopped for a bit to watch the deer we were going for in the scope, so we knew where we were going. While we were sitting there we heard something to the left of us and just thought it was a deer. We looked up on the hill and saw something black. I thought it was a moose. We looked at it through our binoculars and realized it was a black bear. I think he heard us, because he started running down the mountain and in like 5 seconds was right in front of us(about 80 yards). I was freaking out and wanted to go back down. Josh had to keep reassuring me that bears are terrified of us and that we were so lucky to have seen him. As we started hiking again I was still pretty scared that the bear would come get us! I said a little prayer that we would be safe and I started feeling a little better.

We got to the top a little ways from where we were headed and we jumped up 4 bucks out of their beds. First 3 small ones jumped up and Josh told me not to shoot and then a bigger one stepped out. Josh told me to use his shoulder as a rest for the gun and I shot the buck. We were really excited. This wasn't the buck we were going for, but he was almost a twin with the other one.

I got him. Now for the real work of cutting up the meat. The deer landed right by a beehive, so we were getting swarmed and Josh got stung right on the forehead. Josh grabbed the deer and pulled it farther down the mountain to get away from the bees.

We used the tripod to take a pic of ourselves. It turned out pretty good.

Since we were so high there was no way we were going to drag this deer down the mountain, so Josh cut up the meat we wanted and we put it in bags in his pack and then put the head on his pack. He had well over 80 lbs of meat on his back plus the head. He had to sit down and put his pack on, because he couldn't even lift it that high. I had to carry all the stuff that was in his pack plus all my stuff, so mine was heavy too, definitely not like his, but for me it was way heavy.

We started hiking back down the steep mountain. It was so hard, especially carrying all that weight. Our feet and legs were hammered by the time we got back. We were happy that we got my deer in the afternoon so we were down before it was dark. And so that we didn't run into that bear again:) We got back to the truck and it started pouring rain( talk about perfect timing.)

I just had to take a pic of the mountain we just came down. We were just about to the top up in the cliffs and all over the mountain side! Doesn't look as bad from down here!

Josh said he had way more fun helping me with my deer than getting his own. He still has the rifle hunt and the extended archery, so if he finds a "monster buck" he might get one too. I am so glad to have a husband who is patient enough to take his wife out on the hunt. We had so much fun being together. We saw so many animals this trip, which we love. We saw lots of deer, elk, many mountain goats, a bear, a couple moose, and some turkeys.

We started a fire when we got back and had some well deserved dinner. We hiked so much this week. When we came back Josh weighed himself and he lost 5 lbs(he was so mad.) So I weighed myself too and I had lost 8 lbs. (We sure burned a lot of calories this weekend.)

Cooking some breakfast before we packed up to go home.

Sorry if this grosses any of you out, but I wanted to remember all the meat Josh had in his pack. When we got home we cleaned up all the meat and had jerky made out of it, because neither of us care for deer meat too much. We now have a freezer full of yummy jerky.

Loading up the motorcycle and all our stuff.

Until next year.......