My son graduated from high school this year and chose (from a list of destinations)to go on a guided spot and stalk bear hunt in British Columbia. I bought this hunt at an SCI auction.
Day one we left Lockhart and drove to Cheyenne, slept in the truck for a couple of hours and headed toward Cody. First stop, the Buffalo Bill Museum. We spent most of morning there. Really cool place with an amazing firearms collection and enough other exhibits to keep us interested. If you like history, you’ll like this place!
Then we headed on to Yellowstone! The pics don’t do it justice! Incredible place!
Next, we headed up to Glacier National Park, most of which was closed due to snow covering the main road.
From there we drove into High River Alberta, spent the night, got up early and headed to Likely, BC then 2 hours deeper into the mountains. We hunted with Mountain Spirit Outfitters. This was the view from our cabin when we arrived.
.
Hunting consisted of driving logging roads, glassing cutovers and distant mountain sides. The first day we saw 9 bears, all feeding on dandelions growing on the roadsides but none were big enough to warrant a stalk. The second day, the second bear we saw was a shooter. After a short stalk my boy dropped him with a shot from his Ruger 30.06 with 180 grain Barnes TSX.
He had 2 tags so on day 3 we tried again but the weather was not cooperative. Rain/snow mix limited visibility and bear movement. We only saw 2 during a short break when then sun came out. One was a nice bear but a little smaller than the one he already had so he passed. Day 4 started with more of the same weather. But around 11 am the sun came out. About 12:15 we spotted our 2nd bear and planned a stalk. After closing the distance from around 300 yards to 125 Joshua took a hard quartering to us shot. The bear immediately turned and ran into the brush. We decided, based on the angle of the shot to wait 30 minutes before tracking him. Chris(our guide) put her Rhodesian Ridgeback, “Artie” on the trail and she promptly found the bear 10-15 yards almost straight up the mountain from where my son shot him. The bullet entered tight behind the shoulder and exited just in front on the offside hindquarter.
What a great time! Chris was a great host and guide, we saw lots of bears and hunted some beautiful country. I’d highly recommend her if you want a fun bear hunt. This was the same view as when we arrived but the mountains had much more snow.
After our bear hunt we packed up and headed south into Washington, through Seattle, down the Pacific coast through Oregon, into California to Redwood National Park. Everything is not bigger in Texas! Unbelievable!
We headed back up the coast and caught this amazing sunset in Oregon.
Then we headed to Crater Lake National Park. Again, the pics don’t do it justice. Most of the Park was still closed due to snow but we were able to make it to the lake. The deep blue is amazing!
Then we headed into Northern Nevada and the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge.
Next into Utah, through Salt Lake City and over to Arches National Park.
Beautiful place and after driving the main road to most of the sights we decided to take the 4WD road back to avoid the crowds and see some of the backcountry. The sign at the beginning of the road says 4WD, high clearance needed. Deep sands and technical driving ahead.
4WD? Got it 2013 Tacoma. Deep sands, no problem, I’ve driven this truck down the beach at South Padre Island and never had a problem. Now, what I didn’t know but I do now is the fact that, “Technical Driving” is synonymous with “Maximum Butt Pucker With Giant Rocks Driving”! The first hill we headed up wasn’t horrible. It reminded me of a ranch I used to hunt down near Comstock, steep and rocky, definitely requiring 4WD low but not too bad. The downhill was worse, steeper than the uphill with rather large drop offs that required us to get out and plan a course to prevent getting high centered and tearing out the drive train or doing major cosmetic damage. At this point I would have liked to turn around but there was no place to. I’m not sure how many times this happened over the first 1.8 miles but it was several (picture mountain goat habitat and you’ll have a general idea of the terrain). Well we made it through and to a fork in the road. We check the map and decide to go right because it’s only 1.3 miles to pavement, to the left it’s about 8 miles. No brainer right?wrong! The road is very similar to what we just came through and dead ends at a hiking trail that leads to the pavement! No way to drive through. So we get to retrace our route back to the fork(yes there was plenty of “technical driving”)and choose not to tackle the mountain goat habitat again. So we head down a nice dirt road(did I mention it’s dark now?) the dirt road changed to more “technical driving “ which is much more difficult when you can’t see. Fortunately, there was no more mountain goat habitat just bighorn sheep habitat. Finally after 4 hours (1.5 hours after dark) we made it back to pavement. A few times we thought we’d have to spend the night but we had plenty of food and water so we weren’t terribly worried about that. Sorry, no pics of this adventure, I was too busy “driving technically”. The only casualty was my trailer light plug bracket which is bent beyond repair.
We spent the night in Colorado and drove up Wolf Creek Pass the next morning then headed for home. The bear hides were frozen solid by the 50 lbs of dry ice we placed in the cooler with them. Approximately 6500 miles round trip and memories for a lifetime!
We listened to the “Lonesome Dove”series while on the road. “Dead Man’s Walk”, “Comanche Moon” and “Streets of Laredo” We also brought the meat back. Anyone ever tried it?
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Day one we left Lockhart and drove to Cheyenne, slept in the truck for a couple of hours and headed toward Cody. First stop, the Buffalo Bill Museum. We spent most of morning there. Really cool place with an amazing firearms collection and enough other exhibits to keep us interested. If you like history, you’ll like this place!
Then we headed on to Yellowstone! The pics don’t do it justice! Incredible place!
Next, we headed up to Glacier National Park, most of which was closed due to snow covering the main road.
From there we drove into High River Alberta, spent the night, got up early and headed to Likely, BC then 2 hours deeper into the mountains. We hunted with Mountain Spirit Outfitters. This was the view from our cabin when we arrived.
.
Hunting consisted of driving logging roads, glassing cutovers and distant mountain sides. The first day we saw 9 bears, all feeding on dandelions growing on the roadsides but none were big enough to warrant a stalk. The second day, the second bear we saw was a shooter. After a short stalk my boy dropped him with a shot from his Ruger 30.06 with 180 grain Barnes TSX.
He had 2 tags so on day 3 we tried again but the weather was not cooperative. Rain/snow mix limited visibility and bear movement. We only saw 2 during a short break when then sun came out. One was a nice bear but a little smaller than the one he already had so he passed. Day 4 started with more of the same weather. But around 11 am the sun came out. About 12:15 we spotted our 2nd bear and planned a stalk. After closing the distance from around 300 yards to 125 Joshua took a hard quartering to us shot. The bear immediately turned and ran into the brush. We decided, based on the angle of the shot to wait 30 minutes before tracking him. Chris(our guide) put her Rhodesian Ridgeback, “Artie” on the trail and she promptly found the bear 10-15 yards almost straight up the mountain from where my son shot him. The bullet entered tight behind the shoulder and exited just in front on the offside hindquarter.
What a great time! Chris was a great host and guide, we saw lots of bears and hunted some beautiful country. I’d highly recommend her if you want a fun bear hunt. This was the same view as when we arrived but the mountains had much more snow.
After our bear hunt we packed up and headed south into Washington, through Seattle, down the Pacific coast through Oregon, into California to Redwood National Park. Everything is not bigger in Texas! Unbelievable!
We headed back up the coast and caught this amazing sunset in Oregon.
Then we headed to Crater Lake National Park. Again, the pics don’t do it justice. Most of the Park was still closed due to snow but we were able to make it to the lake. The deep blue is amazing!
Then we headed into Northern Nevada and the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge.
Next into Utah, through Salt Lake City and over to Arches National Park.
Beautiful place and after driving the main road to most of the sights we decided to take the 4WD road back to avoid the crowds and see some of the backcountry. The sign at the beginning of the road says 4WD, high clearance needed. Deep sands and technical driving ahead.
4WD? Got it 2013 Tacoma. Deep sands, no problem, I’ve driven this truck down the beach at South Padre Island and never had a problem. Now, what I didn’t know but I do now is the fact that, “Technical Driving” is synonymous with “Maximum Butt Pucker With Giant Rocks Driving”! The first hill we headed up wasn’t horrible. It reminded me of a ranch I used to hunt down near Comstock, steep and rocky, definitely requiring 4WD low but not too bad. The downhill was worse, steeper than the uphill with rather large drop offs that required us to get out and plan a course to prevent getting high centered and tearing out the drive train or doing major cosmetic damage. At this point I would have liked to turn around but there was no place to. I’m not sure how many times this happened over the first 1.8 miles but it was several (picture mountain goat habitat and you’ll have a general idea of the terrain). Well we made it through and to a fork in the road. We check the map and decide to go right because it’s only 1.3 miles to pavement, to the left it’s about 8 miles. No brainer right?wrong! The road is very similar to what we just came through and dead ends at a hiking trail that leads to the pavement! No way to drive through. So we get to retrace our route back to the fork(yes there was plenty of “technical driving”)and choose not to tackle the mountain goat habitat again. So we head down a nice dirt road(did I mention it’s dark now?) the dirt road changed to more “technical driving “ which is much more difficult when you can’t see. Fortunately, there was no more mountain goat habitat just bighorn sheep habitat. Finally after 4 hours (1.5 hours after dark) we made it back to pavement. A few times we thought we’d have to spend the night but we had plenty of food and water so we weren’t terribly worried about that. Sorry, no pics of this adventure, I was too busy “driving technically”. The only casualty was my trailer light plug bracket which is bent beyond repair.
We spent the night in Colorado and drove up Wolf Creek Pass the next morning then headed for home. The bear hides were frozen solid by the 50 lbs of dry ice we placed in the cooler with them. Approximately 6500 miles round trip and memories for a lifetime!
We listened to the “Lonesome Dove”series while on the road. “Dead Man’s Walk”, “Comanche Moon” and “Streets of Laredo” We also brought the meat back. Anyone ever tried it?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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