Last Saturday I went on a solo bear hunt. The plan was to hike deep into the mountains and then straight up through all the brush and thicket to get above tree line where the bears are feeding on berries. I left the road at about 7 am and packed about six miles into the woods on a semi-secret trail.
After reaching a high lake at about noon, I spotted a bear on one of the mountains and decided to "bush-wack" up the side of the mountain to where the bear was. After two hours of climbing I cleared the tree line and stashed my pack under a hemlock . Ironically, I had cell phone reception so I called Melissa to tell her where I was. After a quick snack and a drink of water, I popped over the top of the mountain to have a look at the other side. After ten minutes of glassing, I spotted a bear feeding above the trees about a mile away across a brush choked valley on another hill side. My plan was to circle around the valley staying above the tree line. A half hour of side-hilling across shale slides led me to within range of where the bear had been but he wasn't there so I sat and glassed while I waited. Soon the bear appeared about 500 yards away, so I crept closer to get within rifle range. " 450, 400,350," I counted the yardage as I crept closer. I thought I could get within 200 for an easy chip shot, but at about 205, the bear spotted me and ran. I sat down and got as steady as I could while the bear entered a clearing about 350 yards away. He stopped broad side for an instant and I touched the trigger. I heard the bullet strike and saw the trees shake directly under where the bear was standing. As the adrenaline from the stalk and the shot wore off, I began to notice that I was very dehydrated and getting very hungry. A glance at my watch showed 4:00, about 3 hours of daylight left. As I neared the clearing where I shot the bear, I took off my binoculars and left my vest of the ground. I didn't want anything getting in my way because I was about to experience the most dangerous part of bear hunting; tracking a wounded bear in heavy cover. Normally, one person looks for blood and does the tracking while the other stands guard to defend against an angry bear. on this hunt it was just me so I chambered a round in my 7mm Remington mag. and prepared to do battle. The cover the bear had entered was dwarf Hemlock, it was about 8 feet tall and had branches that spread out to form a dense canopy. Navigating the heavy cover was not unlike crawling around under a pickup-truck, barely enough room to sit up. I scooted down the steep hill on my butt with my rifle pointed ahead and scanned the dense cover for the bear. A few minutes of looking didn't reveal any blood or signs of a bear so I backtracked in disappointment and went back around the way I had come. After hiking back around the alpine bowl to where I had taken the shot, I sat down to catch my breath and re-evaluate the shot. Again I guessed the yardage at 350 yards, and I know I heard the bullet strike home. Two marksmanship skills were at work here. First, when one learns to listen for a bullet strike, it helps to avoid the anticipation of recoil, which will cause the shooter to "flinch" and move the rifle off target at the last second. The bullet strike is really more of a pronounced end to the "boom" and takes lots of practice to recognize. The other skill is "calling the shot". I try to remember the last image I see through the scope as the rifle is recoiling. This helps me to know exactly where the rifle was aimed as the bullet left the barrel. I distinctly remember the cross hairs aiming center mass on the bear. Liver. Not exactly where I wanted the bullet, but under the circumstances, not bad. Another thing I noticed was that I had looked for the bear in the wrong clearing. By now I was very tired and the dehydration was causing my legs to cramp, but I simply had to go back for a second look and I knew if there was a trail it would be much harder to follow tomorrow than it would be now. I again circled the bowl and found the other clearing in the Hemlock. This time I found blood immediately and again prepared myself for the follow up in the dense cover. Blood trailing is another skill I have been developing. An arrow killed deer is easy to follow because of the massive hemorrhaging caused by modern archery equipment. A bear shot with a bullet is a different story. There is a lot of hair that acts like a mop to soak up the blood before it can drip onto the ground. I was working with a small drop of blood every 10 feet or so and the occasional smudge against a branch where the bear had to squeeze through an opening. There was a lot of red with the seasonal change of colors and the fading light was making it very difficult to find the trail.
After about two hours of tracking down the hill and under the Hemlock thicket I had gone about 200 yards or so and the trail became impossible to follow. I really hated to leave knowing I had killed a bear and wouldn't be able to pick up the trail tomorrow, but I knew it was getting late and I really needed to get back to my pack. I decided to give up the chase and head back so I fought my way out of the thicket and came out near the bottom of the bowl. To my horror, a dense fog had engulfed the valley and surrounding mountains. I was dehydrated, hungry, exhausted and for the first time in my hunting career, without my survival gear. The vest I had left at the start of the track was my down insulating layer, it contained my knit cap and gloves. Without my vest and matches for a fire, there was no way I could survive the night! My hungry, dehydrated condition would make staying warm even more difficult. I knew that my only hope for survival was in reaching my pack that contained a sleeping bag and tarp, also water and food. I have learned to make careful observations of my surroundings when in a new place. I had placed my pack under a bush directly below where the steep rocky part of the mountain met the lichen covered hills just above tree line.
This "crotch" would be my navigating aid on my return trip. Another thing I noticed was that there was a relativelly brush free route leading from the bear side of the valley across the bottom and up a wash on the other side that could lead me to the area where my pack was. When I came out of the Hemlock at the bottom of the valley my plan was to try to find that route and follow it across the tree choked valley and up the other side to camp. By now I was very concerned about muscle cramps. When I become dehydrated I begin to cramp up. One of my main concerns was an old bull riding injury that left me with a torn groin muscle. This muscle had since healled but is now very deformed and much thinner than the one on the other leg. In my dehydrated condition, a cramp in this major leg muscle could quickly tear what is left of my groin and leave me completely unable to walk. This would have been survivable had I been carrying my gear, but with the temperature falling to well below freezing I would have quickly succumbed to hypothermia. I drank from the first snow melt runnoff that I crossed and chewed on a chunk of ice as I began to navigate the brushy valley. At one point I found a blueberry bush and ate as manny as I could as quickly as I could. The light was fading fast as I crossed the valley and began my treck up the wash. I racked my brain to remember exactly what the route had looked like from the other side and tried to imagine what it should look like from where I was. I knew that this was a one shot deal. If I took the wrong drainage I would quickly be led away from my pack. I didn't have time for any do-overs and I didn't have the energy to take a single extra step. I forced myself to climb the hill and when I came to the top and the thick trees gave way to open lichen covered hillside, my heart was filled with relief. Then I realized I wasn't where I thought I was. PANIC. Did I take the wrong drainage? How much higher to my pack? How did I let myself get into this situation? Would I find my pack in time? Is this how I was going to die? Should I call my wife and tell her goodbye? For a moment I let my mind run, then I remembered that the only way I was going to survive was to put all my mental and physical effort into finding my pack. No plan B, no "what if" just concentrate and find that pack!! I said a prayer, turned up hill and began to climb. I could just make out the rocky mountain above me and I planned to climb until I reached the crotch in the mountain where I knew my pack was. One painful step after the other, Ibegged my legs to continue without a cramp. I could feel the bruises forming on my feet but I knew this had nothing to do with my survival so I blocked out this pain. I climbed until the terrain turned to rock, but now I felt as though I was too high on the mountain, also, the treeline that I camped near seemed way below me. Did I go too far? turning back felt terrible, it was like admitting that I was lost. I turned downhill on a hunch and a prayer and went in the direction I now thought my pack might be. Every bush I passed looked like "the" bush and I was starting to have serious doubts about my survival when there, like a gift from God, was my pack!! I fell on the ground and thanked God between gasps of air. I pulled off my boots and replaced my wet socks with dry ones as total darkness fell on the mountain.
I unrolled my bed and ate a quick meal followed by a bottle of water. I then wrapped myself in the tarp, covered my rifle with a plastic bag, and put my boots and pants under the tarp with me so they wouldn't get snowed on during the night. It was then that I called Melissa. The sweat on my body cooled my as soon as I stopped hiking, so by now hypothermia was setting in. I opened two hand warmers and put them in the bag with me. I dialed the numbers with shivering fingers and soon heard Melissa's voice on the other end. I told her briefly about my ordeal and that I was shivering too much to talk so I would call her in the morning. Then I threw up all the water and food that I had just eaten. This left me even more dehydrated but I had one more water bottle to nurse during the night. I tried to relax and let the hand warmers warm me. A cramp now would be painfull, but I now had my bag and gear and I could be rescued from here should the need arise.
The next morning I rolled up my bag and tarp, found a creek to boil some water from, and made myself some breakfast. I left the mountain top, bushwacked down the side and came out at the lake just as the snow began to fall. By the time I reached the car, several inches of snow had fallen.
It took about 4 hours to descend the mountain and hike out. My feet and shoulders were very sore but aside from that I was unharmed.
What I did wrong:
did not carry enough food and water
did not carry essential survival gear on my person
did not allow enough days to hunt this deep
did not carry GPS
What I did right:
did not panic
good navigation under extreme circumstances
positive mental attitude
appropriate decision to drink unfiltered water
I do not regret hunting solo. Bear hunting is a calculated risk, but I don't want to die from something I can control!!
Lesson learned.
Okay, here's a little update. Our garage is slowly going up! The walls are up, thanks to Pat's buddy, Casey who helped. As of now, the first floor ceiling/2nd floor is on as well as the end walls for the second story. It has taken shape, and we are happy to be parking out of the snow!
This is from a while back, obviously since the water is liquid! We had a couple visitors stop in! It was neat to watch them feed with their tail-feathers in the air!
This was Rowdy after we'd spent the day hunting. Rowdy ran around 25 miles or so to our 6! He was tuckered!
