Vail trip #2

I headed up to a new area of Vail this Saturday. I arrived about 45-60 minutes after I wanted to and the sun had been up for quite a while. At the first gate I saw 5 trucks then when I arrived at the gate I entered at there where 6 more trucks. That kind of deterred me from the start.

I rode up one of the logging roads being followed closely by another two bow hunters also on bikes right behind me. Eventually I put some distance between me and them. I am not doubting there are plenty of deer and elk in the area but I think everyone else in Washington is thinking the same thing.

I saw the remains of an elk in a patch of short trees and I ended up seeing 3 doe deer throughout the day, but mostly in the last couple hours I was there. The first was probably within 40 yards right off the main logging road. As I was trying to grab my bow it took off. The second I found in a small clear cut and it was probably 60 yards. The last doe I saw was across a pretty nasty ravine and just stood and looked at me for about ten minutes. I had enough time to take out my range finder and figure out it was exactly 85 yards away. Far out of my range and I wasn't about to take a shot.

The area is nice and I will likely go back this weekend, just hope to get there much earlier and not see so many other people. If I wanted to stand side by side with the next hunter I would have gotten a modern firearm permit and not an archery tag.

Vail Tree Farm

Due to logging activity the entrance I was going to use was closed off. Another entrace was closed dude to people durring the modern firearm season destroying and littering. The entrance I was left with was fine it just took a while to find.

This was my first time out with my mountain bike. I am hooked! Because no motorized access was allowed. I was able to cover lots of ground on the mountain bike. In the future I would like to make it a bit quieter. In the past i used this mountain bike for Freeride mnt. biking. using it for hunting worked out great.

I was within 100 yards of a doe today, she was on the edge of a clearcut. Once she saw me she freaked out and ran into the hillside and heavier trees. That was the highlight of this trip.. I climed a decent sized hill called bald mountain... really cool, really tough getting up

hunt up in the olympics

This hunt was kind of lame compared to the previous. I saw no animals... and TONS of other bowhunters. It was like bow hunting convention. I did go to the town of grisland, it is an old abandoned logging town. Very cool to think their used to be hundreds of people living up there and now you can just see the footprints of the town. Might go back to the same area but next time with my Mnt. Bike... all of the roads in the area are gated and non-motorized access is the only way in. So you either walk, ride a horse or take in a mnt. bike.

Upcoming TRIP! Late Archery Season Starts!

SOOOOOOO excited for this weekends trip, heading up to the Wynoochee Lake and Wynoochee River area. Should be a good time, I guess there is an old forest service station with a pilot program going on. Offering overnight bunks just south of the lake. Might be worth checking out while I am up there. This is Game Management Unit 648 and both deer and elk will be open for this weekend, with any deer legal and 3pt. min or antlerless for Elk.

Early Archery Season 2nd Trip Bullion Basin - Norse Peak

For my second trip out I wanted to go to an area I was more familiar with.

I headed to Crystal Mountain where I spend anywhere from 30-50 days skiing per year, since I do a lot of Backcountry skiing here I have been all around the area and found it nice to go explore the same area in the Summer without snow.

An area just northeast of Crystal is called East Peak by backcountry skiers in the Winter. I have hiked it and skied it 4 times from about 1999-2001(highschool).

I started up the trail just at sun break on the Bullion Basin trail, on my way up the trail I stopped for a minute to look around at the other hill sides with my binoculars for deer. As I was putting the binoculars down I heard a snap from behind me and looked up the hillside no more than 20 feet to see a large Buck through a tree. Before I could even take an arrow out of the quiver on my bow he had seen me and charged across the trail behind me and down the hillside towards the Bullion creek below. That was the closest I have ever gotten to a large Buck and it was great!

I proceeded up to Bullion Basin where I found a small camp set up. I talked to two middle aged guys who had a set up a scouting camp complete with a horse and where getting ready for the upcoming rifle season.

From Bullion Basin I headed up and reached the ridge that separates Eastern WA from Western WA, dropping into Eastern WA the amount of deer tracks became much higher. I also started hearing Bugling coming from the direction I was heading down from the ridge into the valley.

I figured it was just some more people out scouting for rifle season and messing around. As I came over the next ridge I was pretty shocked at what I saw on the mountainside across from me, about 9 elk(one week after the end of early elk archery season). Also above the elk where about 6 Mountain Goats.

I walked the trail and made it to Basin Lake, looked up and found 3 more Mountain Goats above the lake. I also ran into another rifle scouting party just up from the lake, waved and proceeded on. I made it to Norse Peak got on that trail and followed it back to the Jeep. I ran into one group of hikers on the way down and unfortunately they where far from as nice as the group I had run into on my last trip out. One of the people in the group actually got off the trail to avoid me all together. Pretty rude but whatever, I was going to tell them about all the mountain goats I had seen...... their loss.

Overall a great trip, covered a ton of distance and saw a lot of wildlife on the last hunt for the Early Archery Season 08

Early Archery Season 1st Trip!

This was my first year as a Bow Hunter

I spent my first day down around the Ashford area, it took a while to get down there and a bit longer to drive up the old logging road to the Lake Christine Trail Head got there about 7am. Started out on the Trail to Lake Christine and immediately had an animal get spooked and run off down the hillside. Never saw anything but definitely heard enough to get the adrenaline started.

It was a super cloudy and misty day so everything off trail was very wet and slippery. After getting to Lake Cristine I decided to venture off trail for a while and saw tons on deer tracks, and even more bear tracks.

I never did shoot an arrow that day but had a lot of fun getting out and just walking around in some excellent country. Got back to the Jeep a little bit after noon.

If you look at the map you can see where the GPS tracked me that day. This was a great area to go and look forward to going back some time agian.