Sunday 10/18/09
Some friends from work, and some not from work, drew tags for a moose hunt close to town and decided to take advantage of the nice weekend to get the lay of the land. Even though I'm slow and out of shape they invited me along. After a lot of back and forth in my head I decided to go with them. I'm glad I did.
There are no easy ways into this area. You have climb across a pass unless you want to fight miles of Alders from the bottom of the bottom of the valley. My friends picked the shortest way in that involved 1100 feet of vertical in 1.1 miles (if I remember correctly)
Above is everyone glassing for moose in the valley below. We didn't get a super early start, but it was still very crisp in the shade. We worked our way around until we found a nice spot to sit in the sun and spy on our prey.
After the top of the pass the trail follows a drainage down to the valley floor making it impossible to see much of the valley floor. We decided cut across the side of the mountain to keep our elevation the same but make it to a spot where we could see well. This part reminded me of monkeying around on the bluffs of Mackinac Island on Free day. I think the bluffs are a little steeper than this picture though.
Looking back towards town enjoying the day.
We also saw an ultralight and a Blackhawk Helicopter poking around the valley. The Blackhawk could have very well been doing training, but I think they were also looking for moose. I wonder if I could file a FOIA request to discover how many moose they saw.
It was a great way to start the day. I slipped going down on our way back, didn't hurt anything except my pride. As soon as I picked myself up a guy following us down the hill Bounded past me going about 15 feet for each leap.
Hopefully these guys get their moose on Sunday.
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