7.40 A.M. I had not long ago switched my head torch off and I was now emerging onto the tops after the arduous near vertical haul up the untracked bush in the dark. My sweat soaked body was beginning to chill in the early frost laden air so I quickly donned my Ridgeline Monsoon 11 coat. The sky was clear of cloud and held the promise of another fine winters day. In a half crouch I made short work of the distance to the edge of a huge gulley laced with a network of spurs laden with alpine plants and tussocks. I sat down and methodically glassed the area below me and letting my aching leg muscles have some much needed restpite.
The trip had started with me in the last throes of the flu. I was weak and my head was full of snot My Forester was away in the gunsmiths getting a new Picatinny rail fitted but the weather high was too good to miss so I brushed the cobwebs off my old and trusted friend Mr. Sako Vixen and hurried to the range to check its zero also noting I only had 13 rounds loaded with Barnes 53 TSX. and no further bullets at home. I decided to use 3 of them and they all printed well inside an inch but dead on at 100yds. I have a Vari 11 with friction turrets mounted on this rifle so decided to just move the elevation half way between the marks and hope it would equate to around 3inches high at the 100yd. mark.
This done I was “gone”. After each and every trip I repack my pack in readiness for the next trip. Fill up my coffee and tea containers, make sure my gas is full or near enough, replentish the toilet rolls, charge and replace my camera batteries, and make sure my rangefinder and binos and ammo are stowed away. Then all I have to do is fill with food and sleeping bag and then there is never a sweat that I have left anything behind in my haste.
The walk in was knackering and I didn’t need to count many sheep before sleep took over that night. The next day I was up in the dark and away. I had planned a long but not too strenuous day to test out my weakened body. The western face of the valley was solemn and dark and with much more snow than its western counterpart. There was also a chill wind which made itself felt at around the 1600 meter level. It was at this height I had decided to lunch and glass the huge area in front of me. Before long the food was a thing of the past and the glassing was not favouring a grand dessert, therefore it wasn’t long, before I decided enough was enough and I was going to get my arse off this chill mountain and strike for home light a huge fire and down several cups of coffee. It was a much weakened hunter that returned to camp that late afternoon.
A sound sleep that night and an early start finds me where we came in, glassing the huge basin across and below me. After some time I retreat from the lip and carry on climbing up the ridge in front of me in order to gain some much-needed height.
The chamois materialised from nowhere and was silhouetted on the ridge top looking imperiously down at me…bugger! I dropped to the prone position and waited. Mmmmm the curious begger decides to down climb the ridge for a better view. I range find him when he finally decides he has climbed down far enough and he is at 485 meters. Now that will stretch my .222 methinks- yeah not an option! So we wait awhile. A few minutes later and two nannies appear over to the left forming a Y with me at the long bit in the middle. They are further away but have me locked in their stare. In the background meanwhile my ears pick up the whine of a helicopter engine the buck to my right hears it too and he looks away for the source, in an instant it screams over the top of the nannies at the same time the buck jumps down off his rock and melts into the shadows. The chopper having spied the nannies circles low and heads back for them. It chases them and then disappears from view over the top of the ridge only to reappear again and carry on its journey. I didn’t hear any shots but I never saw the nannies again. The buck remained stock still and alert and was now looking back in my direction.
The chopper might this time have done me a favour by herding the nanny sentries off the stage for if the buck gave me an opportunity I could now manouver to my left around the ridge out of sight and actually get a stalk on him. It was perhaps ten minutes later that he did just that and he edged out of sight between two spurs and still to the right of the main ridge. This was what I was waiting for I grabbed my pack and legged it across and out of sight of him. I then started climbing in his direction up the main ridge. Upon reaching the landmark I had decided would be his approximate altitude I contoured off the ridge to my right. I had already ascertained he was a young buck and not worth my while shooting. God knows I have enough winter chamois skins too, with a couple still in the deep freeze awaiting consignment to the taxidermists. So it was and with my partners new camera with a huge zoom facility at the ready that I took the next few steps across the hillside. There he was not 50yds away looking away from me. The tussock was too tall and there was no gaps to which I could poke the lens through so I had to raise myself upwards, his head swivelled around and his gaze fastened on me. The camera held his image and I pressed the shutter….oh no…nothing I hadn’t switched the damn thing on. Too late he smelt the proverbial rat and was goneski. Man was he goneski I didn’t see him again, he just melted into the terrain.
Never mind I spent the rest of the day exploring the new country looking for chamois hideouts among the rocks and general glassing of this huge area for a future time. I Even explored a quick exit scree off the tops later that afternoon. It was one to keep in mind for when I need to hunt harder and longer into the evening.
I made my way out by torchlight the next morning. It is potentially a lonely time when you are trapped in your own little world that revolves around your halo of light, but that is just a frame of mind because my senses revealed the river to my right chattering away to me like an old friend and as always when I leave my mountain world my liquid friend is always travelling in the same direction as me and that in itself is comforting. There is also a diamond studded world all around me. My torch light seeks out the frost encrusted grasses and rocks and they reflect back to me glittering gems like the open chest of some fantastic treasure and that has spilt all around me, and on top of all this I have the heavy and familiar footfall of my leather Meindl boots resonating on the hard packed ground.
So as I said loneliness is a state of mind. You do have plenty of friends if you know how to find them when you travel solo.
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