page 4 of the hunt from hell

  Early the next morning we said good by to Jimmy. He has the blown up clutch and is heading for McCall for repairs.
  The rest of the group loads into my truck and head up the mountain to our snowmobile launch area.
  It is once again bitter cold. Everything is frozen and requires twice the work for simple tasks like letting down the unloading doors on the sled trailer. We pound ice with bars and pins, making do with what we have.
  CD unloads a sled and just off the trailer shuts it down. Unknown to the rest of us, the machine has just died. We unload the other two planning on running double all the way with all the machines.
  We dress with all the clothes, hats, gloves, and coveralls we have to ward off the cold.  We jump on the warming machines and wait for CD to get his fired up. It will not start. We pull and pull till all of us are wore out and sweating in the bitter cold. We trace wires and find that we have no spark to either plug.
  Now we are down two sleds with six guys. Not going to work. We decided to push the dead sled onto the trailer, load the other two and get back to camp. At camp we unload the two running sleds and then head to Riggins with the two broken down sleds.
  At Riggins we have cell phone service and I get ahold of Jimmy who is standing in the repair shop in McCall. We talk over our options and decide Gary and Nick will work on replacing broken water lines in Gary's trailer, The rest of us will make the drive to McCall to see about getting both broken sleds repaired.
  The hunt from hell is now rearing its ugly head in mores ways than we had expected.
  At McCall we have the mechanic install a rebuilt clutch on the one sled and look at the other sled. They are behind in their daily work and cannot spend much time with ours. After a hasty look they determine that the wiring issue is more than a quick fix and cannot work on it.
  We head for the wonderful Pancake House with our tails between our legs. At least a great breakfast picks our spirits up a bit.
  After eating it is  back to our camp and hours drive away. At Camp Jimmy, Mike, and Myself tear into the broken wiring sled. Between all of us, we figure there is not much we cannot figure out, with all of our working on boats, and houses. We short kill switch wires, we trace spark plug wires, we do everything we can think of but that machine will just not give us spark to the plugs. It is truly dead.
  Gary has found plumbing supplies in Riggins and has replaced some of the burst water lines, but everything is so frozen that no water will move anywhere in the trailer.
  At town Gary had a mechanic look at his ailing truck to be informed that it was not fixable in that little town. Gary later learns that he has a cylinder down and it will mean replacing the engine.
  With a broken truck motor, and a frozen trailer Gary is throwing in the towel.  He and Nick will hunt one more day and then head home with CD and TJ, who need to get back to their jobs.
  Our group hits the mountain early the next morning. Jimmy is driving his truck to our top gate... if he can in all the snow. We have packed the road with the snowmobiles so we are hoping he can get his truck there. That will be the only way to get all our hunter in on only three sleds. 
  Jimmy makes it to the gate and we do our first round of shuttling. One group waits at Jimmy's truck while the rest of us drive the four miles in. We drop off guys and head right back to the truck for round number two.
  Mike and I decide to drop way down the mountains to where the elk are staying. We have several more days left on the hunt and figure we will be able to pack an elk out from that far in our time frame. It will not be easy, but it seems our only option.
  Sure enough, our plan works and Mike is able to get his first elk of his life. It is a big cow and he is shocked at the size of the animal when he walks up to it.
  We start working on getting the animal boned out and up the mountain in our packs. We are able to make two trips before our legs give out and it is hovering around darkness. Our second trip out has us racing darkness, as neither of us want to try that hike with headlamps in total darkness.
  There are a lot of high-fives when we meet at the snowmobiles. We once again shuttle the guys back to Jimmy's truck.
  We opt to leave the snow machines parked on the hill and just bring Jimmy's truck up the following morning. That saves the ten mile ride in the sub-zero temperatures.
  We relax around the fire with nothing to fix tonight. Very nice for a change.
  However.... the next morning on our ride in on of our three remaining sleds overheats. We are forced to park it and ride double into the hunting grounds.
  We manage to shoot one more elk to make it two elk for seven guys. With all our problems and the hostile weather, we feel we did the best we could.
  Each person on the hunt had their chances to bag an elk. With the cold and wet most of us tried to fire the guns but the caps were too wet to fire the powder, and we watched the elk run away. That is the challenge of hunting with primitive weapons, and why the ones in charge keep Idaho's laws of guns with open caps the only legal ones you can use on these hunts.
  We all agreed that we had a great time. The fire was the highlight of most days. Drying out, listening or telling stories, while eating some great meals.
  Each time you go on a hunt you learn. This hunt was no exception. Talking about it in the days past, we know how to hunt the elk the next time the temperature plummets below zero. Of course, the older we get, the less willing we are to trudge all that way down the mountain, and then fearing that once down there, we will actually get an animal.
  We keep discussing that one day we may have to surrender this brutal hunt to the younger guys and find a place less rugged for the old guys to hunt.
  Until that day, us old guys will look forward to our yearly Hunt From Hell!
  I told the guys that we need to have some shirts printed up that says; I survived the Hunt From Hell. Nobody will mess with a guy wearing that shirt!
  Mike is back in Alaska eating some wonderful elk meat. I am staying in Idaho for a while to chase some waterfowl.

Mike and I with his elk.

Mike working hard with a heavy pack.