Scott with a nice grayling caught on the fly rod. They sure are a beautiful fish.
What an awesome adventure, time of spiritual renewal and a great time spent with an awesome friend. I loved my time in the mountains and the goals we accomplished, but I sure couldn't wait to get back to see my wife and rock star Baby Autumn.
Day 3 was a killer. Over 8 hours in the packs but at least the river provided some solid footing after miles of tundra. 
Scott taking a "snack break."
Finally arrived at camp. We can hear the truckers on the highway, just two miles away! 
Time to break out the sheep meat and enjoy some well earned spoils. My favorite meal of the year!
We wore these packs for approximately 20 hours over 4 days. It was grueling. It was awesome. What a privilege to be able to do this type of hunt and what a gift to have the physical ability to do it.
Camp life activities include journaling and reading Louis L'amour. And if you thought those socks were stinky on day 2...
Sheep hunting is similar to mountain climbing. Killing a ram is like reaching the summit, but you're really only half-way done. Now we each had 50-70 lbs of meat, a whole sheep hide, head and horns and our camping gear - upwards of 140 lbs each to get to the trucks, approximately 20miles away. 
These two pics are day one of hiking out after the second big climb of the day. 
Scott was so excited about his ram he wanted to keep it in the tent with him.
If you double click this pic you'll see the group of rams through the rocks we were hiding behind. 
The storm put us a half day behind where we had hoped to be so it wasn't until afternoon on the 9th that we got our first look into Ram Nation where we saw...nothing. Disappointment set in as we headed back to camp for some rest. A few hours later we hiked back to a good vantage point to glass for the evening and just caught 3 rams heading over a ridge into another valley. We didn't see the big ram from last year but at least we knew there were rams to hunt and had a direction to go in the morning. The morning of the 10th (opening day) we climbed the same knife ridge as last year, past the Sheep Gate and and over a high peak to see into the valleys beyond. We spotted 6 rams right off the bat. A little later, a distant snow patch turned out to be another 13 rams, then 3 more at the bottom of the valley, they just kept materializing. Then we saw Him. The ram we had come back for was still here. We were pretty amped. Eventually all the rams worked their way into the valley below us, 25 in all with several legal rams and a few real nice ones. We were approximately 650 yards away, with no good approach. So we waited. It was freezing cold. About five hours later the rams began to drift toward a ridge we could ambush them from. Some sketchy climbing and spider-man work landed us directly above the big ram about 400 yards away. The next biggest ram was under 300 yards. We continued to wait. We still had several hours of daylight and the rams were unaware of our presence. A couple hours later the big ram got up and began slowly to feed toward us. When he got to 350, Scott was ready to take him (I got first shot last year so now it's Scott's turn). To be continued...
Still making are way in toward Ram Nation. You find yourself in some pretty neat spots when sheep hunting. 
Two full days of hiking, about 15 miles in and the old familiar smells of sheep hunting are starting to return. 
We have caribou tags in our pockets just in case since caribou frequent the area, but it's really a formality. Our motto is "sheep first." We're on a mission, so other game is largely safe. 
We were both fascinated by this large rock which appears to be just hanging there on a near vertical wall. Again, one of those neat things you have the privilege of seeing in the sheep mountains. 
Here's some scenic pics from the hike in. In the second photo you can see the fog/smoke rolling in which obscured our visibility for part of day two. But a compass bearing kept us going in the right direction.
Here we are at the trailhead ready to start the long hike. As you can see, Scott displays his exuberance a little more outwardly than me. 
Wildfires in the interior had us very concerned about visibility. It's hard to hunt sheep if you can't see. Yes, that is a photo of the mountains we were heading into. 
We had pretty good going the first several miles as this creek provided good walking.
It was hot the first day hiking in which brought out the pirate twins. Aarrrr
Yesterday we went for a picnic at a nearby lake with our friends Isaac & Katie. Sometime during a walk Amy and I entered into a photo contest with each other. We each had about 15 minutes with the camera. Here's five of Amy's best shots. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she really has an eye for it. She just needs some practice learning how to operate the different settings on the camera. We'll let you all be the judges.
