Wilderness Adventure 2009 (by Chad E. Boyd)

My Dad, my buddy Josh, and myself had been planning a week long hunting trip into the back country of the Sawtooth Wilderness for a good 20 months. After those many months of planning and waiting, the day was quickly approaching for us to start the adventure. Then just one day away, we recieved a call from our guide to tell us that due to the snow he was not able to set up our camp. He was calling to talk to us about a camp that was about 4 miles into the wilderness. Now our planned camp was over 18 miles in, and so we told him that we wanted to go at least 10 miles in or not at all. The guide had another camp to put in that day so he said he would call back in the evening and discuss our options. Luckily some rain reduced the snow on the ground and the weather warmed up, so our outfitter agreed to take us as far as we wanted to go, short of hurting the horses and mules. Good enough! And so at 2:30 am on Friday 10/16/09, we left Kent to meet with our guide at the trailhead 4 hours later. Soon after arriving at the trailhead, our outfitter (Brian) and his son (Dylan) arrived and started to saddle the horses and load the mules. Josh and I looked over the potential mounts and discussed which steed would best serve us. Of course, we had no knowledge of what would make a good horse and were no part of the decision on which horse we got, but it passed the time.

Here is Josh atop "Griz"

My Dad and his horse "Jess"

Finally me and the Montana born "Hopper"

Here is a shot of Dylan on his horse "Cowboy" and the mule "Old Tom" that carried our stove, tools and snow shovels. The shovels are for clearing the trail if the snow has drifted over and the horses or mules can't pass.

The first leg of our trip ended with a stop at Eagle Lake camp to pick up the stove that would keep us warm for the week. Here are the horses tied up while we loaded the stove onto Old Tom.

Eagle Lake from the trail

This is a close up of Old Tom.

Now we had everything and were on our way to "North Fork" camp. Due to the snow and the fact that our tent never got set up at our planned camp, we were headed for a three wall cabin that was constructed in the 40's as part of president FDR's "New Deal". The cabin was about two miles from our original camp so all of our planning and maps were still useful.

Another shot of Dylan on a switchback ahead of me. You soon learn that there are only two directions in this country, up or down...and it's all steep.


More shots of the trail in to camp.........




After about six hours in the saddle, we arrived at camp.




We performed a few blue tarp "renovations" to the cabin and settled in.....Home Sweet Home!!

Now this is really my wife's blog so I will not defile it with actual hunting talk. The problem is that we spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday climbing all over the mountains around camp. We would leave camp around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning and get back an hour or two before dark. We saw nothing! No deer, no tracks, no signs of deer beds, nothing!! No real hunting to talk about!

However here is what I did see.....enjoy the views, however pictures never do it justice.

Surprise Lake

Muleshoe Meadow

Now 4 days into the trip it's late Monday. I was coming back to camp after checking out the area around Surprise Lake when Josh reports on the radio that he had cut several fresh tracks in a basin below Bernice Lake. We made a plan to head into that basin Tuesday morning. We spent all of Tuesday covering this new area. Josh and I cut several tracks that all looked to be made in the last few days, but no deer. Josh could have easily climbed the two miles and 2000 feet of elevation to the Bernice area every day we were there. That's because Josh is 50% mountain goat and 50% robot. I am neither. I quickly decide that I will make the trek only one more time and since we had already planned to do a "spike camp", this was the perfect time. Wednesday morning we all packed our sleeping bags, a small tent, clothes, etc and headed up to Bernice to set up the spike camp.
Here is Bernice Lake and yes, that is ice on the lake.

Josh and my dad around the camp fire.
My dad and I in the two man tent, and Josh in the one man bivy. Tight quarters!!

Around 2:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday, Josh radios in that he had jumped a deer. He was not a trophy, but at this point our standards had come down considerably. Josh went ahead and harvested the deer, and my dad and I brought out the pack boards to haul the meat back to camp.

Dinner that night at spike camp was fresh grouse, trout and venison cooked right on the camp fire coals. So tasty!!

We got up Wednesday morning before the sun, but the fog had also rolled in during the night along with a fresh layer of snow. We hunted all morning, but the visability was never more than a hundred yards and walking up and down the steep slopes with a fresh layer of snow was a bit defeating. Finally around noon we decided to break camp. The fog was still heavy and if we got another deer we would certianly have to make two trips to get all of the equipment and meat back to our main camp. As it was, our packs averaged around 60lbs for the snowy trek back to camp. Thankfully it was downhill 90% of the way.

We spent Thursday relaxing, and harvested a few grouse for dinner. Then Friday around 10:30 the calvary arrived for the trip out.

Packing up Friday morning.

The pack train arrives!

Dylan and Ray packing up our gear.

All the gear packed and ready for the mules.

Dylan loading up for the trip out.

THE END

The Cutest Little Pumpkins At The Patch

One of my favorite family traditions is to visit Spooner Farms every fall. I have so many cherished memories from the pumpkin patch, and this year was another great time!

We began our adventure the same as always, by donning our festive shirts (we like to dress the part for the patch)....

...and heading straight for the pumpkin sling shots!

The boys gathered their ammo...

...took aim and fired!

And we won!

This was our third year in a row of winning a giant pumpkin. I'm sure we could've just bought the pumpkin outright for what we paid to play the slingshot game, but you just can't put a price on bragging rights! I think it's clear that Cole agrees!

Next we headed to the animal farm to check out rabbits, chicks, turkey, and other such feathered friends. There was a super cantankerous turkey that was giving Caden a severe verbal warning. You can see from Caden's face that he wasn't appreciating it too much.

Cole and Chase loved the fuzzy bunnies.

Then we visited our four-legged friends in the pasture. I love this picture of my boys looking at the horses. Look at their little stair-step bodies from youngest to oldest. 1 - 2 - 3 Boyd boys!

The big boys decided to feed the goats some grass. We issued several warnings to Cole about stretching and/or leaning too far over the fence...

...but he still went overboard!

Daddy rescued him, and we continued on our adventure!

This year there were pony rides, which was new at the patch, and so much fun! Cole was a natural, of course, because he's so outdoorsy! Here he is with his horse, Walker.

He's such a cowboy!

Eight seconds!

Here's Caden with his horse, Bullet. He wasn't too sure about this.

A quick reassuring hug from Daddy made everything better.

And he was ready to ride off into the sunset...

...as long as Daddy was close by.

Here we have Chase and Stacie. You can imagine how unimpressed Chad was with the name "Stacie" for a horse. However, Stacie was over 30 years old (I didn't know they could live that long), and she deserved our respect, even if Chad would prefer her to be named something tough and manly sounding like Hunter or Gunner!

"Nice horsey!"

This is one of my favorite pictures of Chase ever. I love his proud posture. It's easy to see

that he was very pleased with himself. Pure elation!

After the boys dismounted their trusty steeds, we headed for the water pump races.

Caden faithfully retrieved the ducks from the bucket of water. His brothers owed him for that...the water was ice cold! Here he is racing to catch some ducks!

And grabbing them to return to his big brothers.

After everyone was sufficiently wet (especially Caden) from the water pump races, we spent some time exploring all the millions of pumpkins and picking out the ones we wanted to take home. I took so many pictures (over 165!), and I wish I could include them all, but here are some of my favorites. (It was very hard to narrow them down!)

Do you see my little pumpkin in this picture?

We finished our adventure with another tradition, hot chocolate and caramel apples before we hit the road. The promise of these treats kept the boys going when they were ready to give up, but Chad and I weren't! It's a great way to end the trip.

And here's Mommy, with the cutest little pumpkins at the patch! I just love these boys so much. Thank you, Cole, Chase, and Caden for making my life so full! I will always cherish these memorable moments!